[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
(15190)
No. 1.
Foreign Office to Colonial Office.
[Apr 3 MAY 12,
SECTION 1.
Sir,
Foreign Office, April 16, 1912. I AM directed by Secretary Sir Edward Grey to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 10th instant, suggesting the appointment of an informal inter-departmental committee to consider the general lines of the legislation necessary to give effect to the provisions of The Hague Opium Convention.
In reply, I am to state that Sir E. Grey considers that the appointment of such a It is highly improbable that The committee might well be deferred for the moment Hague Opium Convention will be ratified during the current year. Thirty-four States, which were not represented at the opium conference, bave been invited to sign the convention. If all these States have not signed the convention before the end of 1912, a further conference is to be summoned to consider whether, in view of the abstention or refusal to sign on the part of any State or States, it is possible to proceed to the ratification of the convention. If it is decided at this conference to ratify the con- vention, some months must necessarily elapse before all the ratifications can be deposited; and even the Bills of laws to give effect to the provisions of the convention need not be presented to Parliament till nine months after the date on which the last instrument of ratification has been receivel.
It therefore seems probable that it will be nearer two years than one before His Majesty's Government will have to bring in a Bill on the subject. In these circum- stances, Sir E. Grey is of opinion that it would be wiser to defer the consideration of the legislation involved until it is known that the convention will be ratified.
With regard to Mr. Harcourt's suggestion that this department should take the initiative in inviting the other departments concerned to the proposed inter- departmental committee, I am to point out that, in regard to the legislation to be enacted in the United Kingdom and the colonies to give effect to the provisions of the opium convention, as distinct from the international negotiations which resulted in the signature of that convention, the Foreign Office is only concerned in quite a secondary degree; and Sir E. Grey is therefore of opinion that the summoning of the inter-departmental committee should be left to one of the departments more directly interested.
A representative of the Foreign Office would, however, attend the committee when it is ultimately summoned, and Sir E. Grey would suggest that the Home Office, and possibly also the Treasury, should be represented on it.
1 am, &c.
W. LANGLEY.
[2458 -1]