(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
13098
RECO
怨
OPIUM.
MEG 16 JUN 11
CONFIDENTIAL.
[January 21.]
SECTION 2.
[2342]
No. 1.
India Ofice to Foreign Office.-(Received January 21.) Sir,
India Office, January 20, 1911. WITH reference to previous correspondence on the subject of the earmarking of opium for China, I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to forward a copy of telegram, and to suggest that Sir John Jordan should be asked to subunit his opinion on the proposals of the Government of India. As it is a question both of their practicability and expediency, it may be desirable that the Minister should consult the consuls-general at Canton and Shanghai.
The Government have been instructed to repeat the telegram to Peking.
I am,
&c.
R. RITCHIE.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Government of India to Viscount Morley.
(Telegraphic.) P.
January 18, 1911. AN important question, viz., as to the protection to be given to Indian opium sold by us or exported before the beginning of the present year, is raised by the introduction of the system of earmarking opium for China. The possibility that the Chinese authorities may attempt forthwith unfair discrimination against unmarked opium--as, for instance, by warning buyers against it, or by some other covert procedure--seriously alarms merchants, and, in view of recent experiences, which suggest that intrigues to our disadvantage are very probable, we consider that we ought clearly to take precautionary measures.
We therefore submit for your approval, pending further developments, the proposal that special certificates should be issued to cover all existing stocks of Indian opium which has not broken bulk, whether lying at present in Calcutta, in the treaty ports, in Hong Kong, or in Singapore; certificates must be given in all these cases if the arrangement is to be effective. If this proposal has your approval, we request that arrangements may be made for the Governments at Hong Kong and Singapore and the consular authorities in China to prepare and forward to us authentic lists of all chests entitled to certificates under this scheme. We suggest that, with a view to preventing the fraudulent use of certificates, the British authorities in each case should also put a distinctive mark on every chest the owner of which claims a certificate, and should clearly describe these marks in the lists forwarded to us. We would then issue certificates in a simple form, to the effect that the chests as described in each case were sold by the Government of India, or exported from India, before the beginning of 1911, and without conditions restricting market.
It is for protection on some such lines as these that the Calcutta merchants ask, and we do not feel that we can offer them less. On the other hand, we must clearly give general application to any protective measures adopted.
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