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108. On the 9th January, immediately after this first meeting, we telegraphed to you on the subject, stating that each delegation had agreed to submit the draft as thus amended to its Government; and that we proposed, subject to your approval, to state when the matter came up in conference, that we much preferred the original articles, and should only accept the revised scheme in order to preserve unanimity. We were compelled to this course by the fact that it seemed clear that otherwise the Germans might disseut altogether, and the conference fail of effect, at any rate in regard to
cocaine.
100. In your telegram of the 12th January, No. 2, you replied that you deprecated the amendments, as they would greatly diminish the utility of the convention; but that if acceptance was the sole method of arriving at an agreement, we might reluctantly give it, on condition that the convention should provide that the enforce- ment of the restrictions it contemplated should not be obligatory on a Government until there was likelihood of steps being taken in the same direction by the other participating States, as well as by the most important of the outside Powers. As observed in the Board of Trade's letter which formed an enclosure to your subsequent communication of the 13th January, No. 16, the danger to be avoided was that of a situation in which Great Britain, for instance, "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 a 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.”
110. The provisions necessary to guard against this danger having been obtained by the revised scheme in respect of the effectuating clauses-vide article 24 of the convention--we were able to inform the Germans that on their proposing the amendments indicated in paragraph 107, we would not oppose, though we could not give our willing consent. The amendments were consequently, as has been stated, introduced at the twentieth session, with an explanatory speech by Dr. Grünenwald, in which, while explaining the circumstances that had given rise to the amendments, and urging the desirability of assenting to them for the sake of obtaining complete and cordial unanimity, he said that the modifications proposed were really of a verbal character, to suit German conditions, and would not in any way affect the spirit of the original resolutions.
111. Mr. Max Müller, on behalf of our delegation, took note of this declaration, and expressed the hope that the practical application of the articles as revised would be the same in Germany as would have been the case if the articles had been adopted in their original form. He emphasised the fact that the original articles had been fully accepted at the time by the German delegation, and informed the conference of the meetings which had taken place between our delegation and that of Germany, in order to cope with the new situation. Acting on the discretionary power given by our Government, and in order to secure unanimity in this important matter, the British delegation was (he said) prepared to accept the German amendments if they met with approval from other delegations, but could accept them only with regret.
The conference then accepted on first reading, and with some verbal amendinents, the articles as redrafted, and they form the basis of articles 10 to 13 of the convention.
112. The only material amendment subsequently introduced, was in respect of what is now article 11. At the twenty-third session the American delegation explained that this article as it stood would be beyond the competence of the Central Government and legislature in the United States, since traffic within the individual States was a matter for those States only. It was accordingly agreed to insert before the word "prohiberont," at the commencement of the article, the words "en tenant compte des différences de leurs conditions." Our delegation abstained from voting on this proposal, and at the twenty-fourth session, Mr. Max Müller obtained a stiffening of the article as thus amended by wording it as follows:-
"Les Puissances contractantes prendront des mesures pour prohiber dans leur commerce intérieur toute cession de morphine, de cocaïne et de leurs sels respectifs, à toutes personnes non autorisées, à moins que des mesures existantes n'aient déjű réglé la matière.”
The American attitude on the subject of the morphine and cocaine articles was remarkable. Dr. Hamilton Wright was aware of the difficulties we were having with the German delegation, and assured us more than once that whatever we and the
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Germans agreed would be accepted by him. He also attended, by invitation, the last private conference we had with the Germans prior to the twentieth session, but withdrew shortly after its commencement. When, however, the German amendments were proposed at the twentieth session, and carried as definite articles at first reading, the United States delegation reserved its vote, and we were subsequently informed that the delegation felt so strongly on the subject of the weakening of the articles that it was possible that Bishop Brent might vacate the presidential chair to make a speech against such a course. Nothing of the kind, however, occurred, and the only American intervention was, as has been seen, to obtain a weakening of what is now article 11.
113. At the twentieth session the difficulty in regard to the meaning to be attached to the terms "importation" and "exportation," as used in the convention, on which the Drafting Committee had reported, as indicated in paragraphs 82-84, also came before the conference. We had had a considerable amount of private discussion with the German delegation on this subject, our position throughout being that, for the reason stated in paragraph 84, we could not accept the definition prepared by the Drafting Committee, and that, so far as we were concerned, we desired to give the terms in question the widest possible application. The Germans, on the other hand, as already indicated, objected to anything which might oblige them to bring their Customs authorities into play in dealing with the drugs aimed at by the convention, urging that such a procedure would cause great delay in the transmission of other goods which might be travelling on board the same ship or in the same railway consignment; and they further desired to exempt not merely the operations of carriers but the private conveyance into or out of a As to this last point, country of drugs, by, say, a morphinomaniac for his personal use.
To
we held that no one should be permitted to bring into or out of a country more than the quantity of drugs, if any, which he might legitimately possess within the country itself. We urged throughout that, in view of such difficulties, the best plan was not to attempt a definition at all, but to let each country apply the words "importation" and
"in the sense of its own laws and traditional administrative methods, exportation" this, however, the Germans replied that ratification of the convention by the Reichstag would make it a part of their corpus juris; and that if the convention contained no specific definitions of importation" and "exportation," the legal application would be that of their customs laws, where the terms were necessarily employed with a very wide connotation. Several attempts were made to frame a definition which would meet the wishes of both parties, as a minimum for the conference to lay down, but without success, and we consequently determined to leave the question for solution by the
conference as a whole.
114. Accordingly, at the twentieth session, Sir William Meyer explained the difficulties that had arisen, and indicated the reasons (vide paragraph 84) why we could not accept the definition prepared by the Drafting Committee, preferring to leave the interpretation of the words "importation" and "exportation" to the discretion of individual Governments, He concluded by asking why the German Government could not, in submitting the convention to the Reichstag, state what meaning it proposed to attach to these terms, or why the German delegation might not itself make a similar declaration which would figure in the minutes of the conference.
115. After some further discussion, which was continued at the twenty-first session, when the Netherlands delegation supported our view that no specific definition was required, the consideration of the matter was once more adjourned at the desire of the Germans. At the twenty-second session, however, the German delegation made the following declaration, which thus solved the matter in accordance with the view we had throughout championed, that no specific definition was necessary, while at the same time it indicated the limits within which the German Government was prepared to act :-
· Après l'échange de vues qui à ce sujet a eu liev au sein de Comité de Rédaction et dans la vingtième et vingt et unième séance plénières, la délégation allemande est prête à renoncer à une définition; cependant la délégation tient à constater que le Gouvernement allemand interprète les dispositions de la convention ainsi qu'il suit :---
“(1.) Chaque Gouvernement pourra définir les mots 'importation' et 'exportation ' selon ses propres conditions, et en tenant compte de sa législation intérieure.
** (2.) Les mesures que les Gouvernements prendront pour exécuter les stipulations de la convention quant à l'importation et à l'exportation peuvent être limitées aux actes purement commerciaux, et ne se rapporteront pas forcément aux transactions des transporteurs et cxpéditeurs.
CC
(3.) Les Puissances contractantes ne sont pas obligées d'instituer un contrôle de l'importation ou de l'exportation à la frontière, où par les organes de la douane.”
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y