This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
573
3500
1965 FEB 12
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[1713]
No. 1.
[January 12.]
SECTION 2.
Sir,
Board of Trade to Forcign Office.--(Received January 12.)
Board of Trade, January 12, 1912.
I AM directed by the Board of Trade to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 10th Jaunary, transmitting copy of a telegram from the British delegates to the Opium Conference, with regard to the attitude of the German delegates towards the proposed articles relating to the trade in morphine, cocaine, and medicinal opiom comprised in the draft convention.
The Board have always attached particular importance to the provisions of any convention with regard to this trade being equally binding on all the contracting parties, and they fear that, if the amended proposals now contemplated are accepted, a situation would arise in which Great Britain would be under an obligation to impose restrictions on the manufacture and exportation of morphine, whilst Germany would be able to escape the imposition of restrictions of similar stringency in regard to cocaine, a drug which, as all the available information goes to show, has produced, and is producing, far more pernicious effects than morphine on the inhabitants of our Indian and other Eastern possessions and colonies.
The Board have already expressed the view in the letter addressed to you on the 3rd January that, in order to secure fair treatment to British manufacturers, as well as to render the convention effectual, the adhesion thereto of the principal commercial countries is essential. If, therefore, the conclusion of a convention can only be achieved by so modifying the draft provisions as to leave to each contracting State the option of declaring that, by reason of considerations of internal constitution and administration, it has not been found possible to impose the rigid restrictions originally contemplated, the Board are strongly of opinion that the modifications necessary to effect this alteration should only be accepted with reluctance, and on condition that the original proposals with regard to ratification and adhesion contained in Print B, which was forwarded with your letter of the 30th December, should also be modified. The modification in this particular which should be insisted upon should be so framed as to provide that the obligation to enforce restrictions shall not take effect until a prescribed date, before which each contracting State must notify the precise extent to which it is able to put the restrictions into effective operation. Should any contracting State consider that the measures proposed by another contracting State are inadequate, or that the number or importance of non-adhering States is so great as to prevent the restrictions imposed by the convention from attaining their object, such State should be entitled to demand the reassemblage of the conference in order to concert measures to meet the situation.
I am, &c.
H. LLEWELLYN SMITH.
!
:
[2340 -21