(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
[B]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[35243]
No. J.
Foreign Office to India Office.
11
32749
یا
# 9 OCT ||
[September 9.]
SECTION 2.
Sir,
Foreign Office, September 9, 1911. I AM directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 6th instant enclosing a copy of a telegram from the Government of India respecting the subjects for discussion at the forthcoming Opium Conference. Sir E. Grey notes that the Government of India has now urged that the domestic regulation of the production and use of opium in India should be excluded from discussion, and that the Marquess of Crewe concurs in this view.
You state that a discussion of this question might arise under proposals (a), (f), and () of the tentative programme submitted by the United States Government in September 1909, to the terms of which (apart from a modification of point (a)) His Majesty's Government took no exception in their reply. Of these proposals, (f) appears, by its reference to British India and China, expressly to exclude the discussion of the cultivation of the poppy in those countries, while (i) only contemplates certain measures contingent upon the previous acceptance of the remaining proposals. Sir E. Grey doubts whether the inclusion of these points need be looked upon as detrimental to the interests of India.
JE
With regard to proposal (a), I am to point out that when the United States Government substituted the words "more effective" for the word
"uniform your department raised no objection, and, as the matter was not touched upon in the sub- sequent correspondence with the United States Ambassador, the impression was conveyed that His Majesty's Government, provisionally at any rate, accepted the proposal as amended.
Sir Grey does not consider that he can well revert to the subject at the present time and decline discussion of matters coming under the clause in question, nor does he think it indispensable that he should do so in view of the fact that, in submitting their proposals, the United States Government expressly stated that they did not wish to prescribe the scope of the conference or to present a programme which could not be varied nor enlarged.
In these circumstances, I am to suggest that the best course will be to await the communication of the definitive programme, and then to intimate that its acceptance by His Majesty's Government must not be interpreted as admitting criticism by the conference of matters relating to the domestic opium administration of India.
I am to add that no information has been received as to when the final programme of the agenda at the conference is likely to be issued by the Netherlands Government.
I am, &c.
F. A. CAMPBELL.
[2182 i-2]