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against the superintendent's action, I at once caused to be handed to the tutu a memorandum, copy of which I enclose. Subsequently, at an interview he had with the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Comb was informed that the action complained of was based on instructions from Peking. This statement I am inclined to disbelieve, as it was only on the 16th May that a telegram from Kuo-wu Yuan regarding opium was received here. From the enclosed translation you will observe that the suppression of smoking and the prohibition of cultivation are to go hand in hand, and it is on this suggestion apparently that the Opium Prohibition Bureau submitted to the tutu on the 27th instant, a new set of eight regulations which, although not yet embodied in a proclamation, have been approved.
The first is directed against the cultivation of the poppy plant;
The second divides prepared opium shops into three classes--the classification being according to their sales-to the owners of which six monthly licences will be issued. At the end of the first six months class 3-those having the least custom-will have to abandon the trade, classes 2 and I will have their licences renewed, on payment of double fees, for another half year, with a renewal on the same basis for a further six months, after which, i.e., eighteen months in all, say at the end of 1913, no more licences will be issued;
The third deals with failure to take out licences on the part of smokers, exhorts the police authorities to exercise more vigilance, and threatens with dismissal any Govern- ment servant guilty of the opium habit;
The fourth directs the closing of all opiuni divans which, although previously shut up, reopened when the change of Government took place;
The fifth establishes branch offices of the bureau in every district ("hsien "); The sixth remonstrates against the prevalence of smuggling, and orders the adoption of more strict preventive measures;
The seventh threatens with forfeiture of property and destruction of goods all manufacturers of implements used in opium smoking; and
The eighth recommends the purchase or distribution of a certain opium specific, guaranteed free from morphia or other deleterious ingredient.
Against the second regulation I have entered a protest in writing, and have also had impressed personally upon the secretary of the Foreign Bureau, who is in relations with this office, the necessity of making the tutu clearly to realise how very seriously these recurring infractions of the Opium Agreement of 1911 are received.
Should any further developments take place I will report by telegraph.
I have, &c.
Enclosure 2 in No. 1.
J. W. JAMIESON.
Précis of Proclamationsby Police Commissioner of Kwangtung, published in Native
Press on May 8, 1912.
THE proclamation commences by stating that opium smoking is going to be entirely stopped within a certain period, and that during that period only holders of permits issued by the police department will be allowed to purchase the drug. Applicants must file information as to their name, age, address, birthplace, occupation, and the quantity of opium consumed per day, together with their photograhs for registration. This they must do before the 10th May, and they are to pay the permit fee of 40 cents in advance.
Ten regulations follow-
1. Permit-holders may purchase opium only once each day. They may purchase less than is marked on the permit but not more.
2. When a purchase is made, the vendor will stamp the name of his shop in the blank space on the back of the permit for each day's purchase. No sale will be effected unless the permit is produced.
3. No permit will be renewed after the 31st December, 1912, after which date· smoking must cease.
4. The host at a feast may not supply his guest with opium, nor may opium be smoked on such occasions.
5. Persons receiving these permits may renew them after a period of three months. If before that time the holder breaks off the habit his permit is to be delivered cancellation.
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6. In the event of a holder losing his permit he must provide a reliable guarantor before it can be replaced.
7. Permits are not transferable, and holders must report to the police department any change of address.
8. Opium dross must not be sold to druggists for use in compounding medicines. 9. Should the holder of a permit leave Cinton he must report himself to the authorities at his destination, and exhibit his permit for their inspection,
10. Any person infringing the above regulations will be fined in accordance with the seriousness of his offence. His permit shall be cancelled, and the licence of the shop where the purchase was made shall be withdrawn.
Enclosure 3 in No. 1.
Memorandum for the Information of the Tutu
THE attention of His Britannic Majesty's consul-general has been drawn to a recent notification with regard to opium smokers, and it has reached his ears that the police authorities have an intention of closing down all prepared opium shops throughout the province by the end of the current year.
This has come to him as an extreme surprise, it being well known that the regula tion of the traffic in opium forms something of a convention between Great Britain and China, which was, after exhaustive discussion, concluded only last year, and in which Great Britain, with a view to assisting China in the suppression of opium smoking, displayed a most self-sacrificing spirit. No modification, therefore, of the situation thereunder created can take place except by negotiation between the two contracting parties, that is to say, between the British representative at Peking and the Central Government. It is in no circumstances competent for an individual province or any local authority to initiate at will measures not in consonance with the provisions laid down in the convention between the two countries, and any attempt in this direction calls for the strongest resistance, more especially as China, whilst seeking prematurely to strangle the carefully regulated import of Indian opium, determinable within a given period, is everywhere resuscitating the cultivation of the native poppy plant.
It is accordingly Mr. Jamieson's duty to lodge an emphatic protest against any proposals of the nature contemplated, and to request that further consideration thereof be abandoned,
Representations in the same sense are being made to the Wai-wu Pu by His Majesty's Minister, who, on being informed thereof, has taken in very ill part this action of the Kwangtung administration.
Canton, May 22, 1912.
Enclosure 4 in No. 1.
Kuo Wu Yuan to Vice-President Li, Wu-chang Huang (Liu Shou), Nanking, and all Provincial Tutus. (Translation.) (Telegraphic.)
Peking, May 16, 1912. TELEGRAMS are being received daily from the various provinces calling for a revision of the Opium Convention. The intention thus manifested is worthy of all praise, but in the initial days of the Chinese Republic the Central Government expressed their intention of observing all treaties already entered into by the late Ching dynasty with foreign Powers.
On the 8th May, 1911, a convention, the result of many conversations, was signed, Clause 3 of that embodying a method for the extermination of the opium habit. convention runs as follows:----
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His Majesty's Government further agree that Indian opium shall not be conveyed into any province in China which can establish by clear evidence that it has effectively suppressed the cultivation and import of native opium."