27520
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[28540]
No. 1.
Rea 22 AUG H [July 21.]
325
SECTION 4,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received July 21,)
Peking, July 1, 1911.
(No. 268.) Sir,
ON the receipt of your telegram No. 95 of the 7th June informing me that Messrs. Sassoon and Co. had complained to you that the sale of Indian opium was being prohibited in certain parts of the province of Fukien, I lost no time in telegraphing to His Majesty's consul at Foochow and requested him to report the facts.
Mr. Werner's reply having confirmed Messrs. Sassoon and Co.'s statement, I made both verbal and written representations to the Wai-wu Pu, and was assured that steps would be at once taken to have the restrictions removed. At subsequent interviews the Wai-wu Pu showed me telegrams from the Viceroy, in which his Excellency professed to be unaware of any restrictions, and he persisted in this attitude notwithstanding repeated instructions addressed to him by the board. It was evident that the Wai-wu Pu were encountering considerable difficulty in getting their orders enforced in the province, and my pressure, though constant, produced less effect than it would have done had I been in a position to satisfy their enquiries as to the exact nature of the infringements which were being committed.
On the 20th June I addressed them a further communication (copy enclosed), which elicited a reply on the 26th, copy of which I have also the honour to enclose. This latter communication showed that the Viceroy's attitude continued to be as unsatisfactory as that of the Wai-wu Pu was eminently reasonable. In their renewed telegraphic instructions to the provinces, of which they forwarded me a copy, the Ministers placed a sensible and liberal interpretation upon the terms of the new agreement, which, if duly enforced, should greatly facilitate its smooth working.
A telegram which the board sent to the Viceroy on the 26th June (copy enclosed) was likewise communicated to me as evidence of their good faith in the matter.
Mr. Werner's despatch, for which I had been anxiously waiting, reached me on the 26th June, and it forms Enclosure 5 in this despatch. It disclosed a series of undoubted infringements of the agreement, which the Viceroy had done nothing to remove, and its receipt at once enabled me to take effective action.
At an interview with the board on the 27th June I produced the various proclamations and documents, which clearly proved the charge of misleading the board which I had brought against the Viceroy, and I solemnly warned the Ministers that I would entertain no request for enforcing prohibition by provinces until they put a stop, once and for all, to these illegal restrictions.
They made no serious attempt to defend the Viceroy's action, and assured me that they would telegraph explicit instructions to him to cancel forthwith all proclamations and restrictions at Hinghua, Sha Hsien, and other places which contravened the new agreement.
I telegraphed at the same time to His Majesty's consul at Foochow, and instructed him to obtain in person from the Viceroy a pledge for the fulfilment of this undertaking. In a telegram received to-day Mr. Werner reports the result of an interview which he had with the Viceroy on the subject. The Viceroy appears to have maintained that all restrictions were permissible prior to the 8th May, but asserts that instructions were sent to all the Fukien districts on the receipt of the Wai-wu Pu's telegram of that day and also subsequently when the text of the new agreement reached him. He failed, however, to give dates or names of officials to whom the instructions were issued, and Mr. Werner gathered the impression that there had been great negligence in the issue of the instructions. His Excellency, however, agreed to issue fresh instructions in stringent terms for the scrupulous observance of the agreement, and assured Mr. Werner that he would cashier any officials who failed to comply with his orders. This has been confirmed and supplemented by a letter which the Wai-wu Pu addressed to me to-day, and of which I have the honour to transmit a copy herewith.
Fukien is the only province where the working of the new agreement has so far been attended with any serious difficulty, and, as a reference to my despatch No. 167 of
[2106 x-4]