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MEMORANDUM for the Netherlands Minister being an excerpt from general instructions issued to American Delegates to the international opium Conference.
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The need of an International Conference was suggested by the American Delegation to the International Opium Commission at one of the final sittings of that body which met at Shanghai in February, 1909; and although no formal action was taken, the Department of State, having considered the unanimous conclusions arrived at by the Commission as a whole, and the report of the American Delegates thereto, deemed it advisable to issue a proposal to the interested Governments that a Conference should meet at The Hague, or elsewhere, composed of one or more delegates of each of the participating powers, and that such delegates should have full powers to give to the main salutary propositions of the Commission and the essential corollaries derived therefrom the force of law and international agreement. Therefore, on the 1st of September 1909, this Government issued a circular proposal to the Governments concerned, in which it was stated that the United States had learned with satisfaction of the results achieved by the International Opium Commission: that in the opinion of the leaders of the anti-opium movement much had been accomplished: and that both the Government and people of the United States recognized that this was largely due to the generous spirit in which the representatives of the Governments concerned approached the subjects submitted to them.
It was pointed out that the Government of the United States appreciated the magnitude of the opium problem and the serious economic interests involved in the production of and trade in the drug and that a deep impression had been made by the friendly cooperation of the Powers financially interested, and by the desire, as expressed by the Resolutions of the Commission, that the opium. evil should be eradicated not only from Far Eastern countries, but also from the home territories and possessions in other parts of the world of the Powers therein represented. It was stated that, as the result of the investigation of the opium problem in the United States, it had become apparent, quite apart from the question as it affected the Philippine Islands, that a serious opium evil obtained in the United States itself; that this was primarily due to the large Chinese population in the country, to the intimate commercial intercourse with the Orient, and to the unrestricted importation of opium and manufacture of morphia.
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