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(This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[41322]
No. 1.
[October 2.]
SECTION 3.
(No. 371.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received October 2.)
Peking, September 11, 1912. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 236 of the 23rd ultimo, transmitting, for my observations, a copy of a letter from the India Office enclosing a despatch from the Government of India in regard to the general question of restricting the export of uncertified opium from India in view of the smuggling of such opium into China.
The Government of India contend that, as long as prices in China are decidedly higher than the non-China consumers are willing to pay, so long will smuggling continue to be profitable. This contention would be sound were the non-China and China consumers on the same footing; but they are not. Foreign colonies and posses- sions in the Far East naturally import for their own consumption the cheaper uncertified opium, which in several colonies is bought, prepared, and sold at fixed prices by the Governments concerned, and in others farmed out under Government control for certain periods, and in consideration of certain annual payments. This cheap uncertified opium is the drug consumed in these colonies and possessions, and there is no question of non-China consumers being called upon or being unwilling to pay the prices ruling in China, and thus allowing smuggling to be carried on at a profit. Into China, on the other hand, the import of uncertified opium is prohibited, and there can be little doubt that the amount of this drug smuggled into China represents the difference between the total uncertified export from India and the actual requirements of non-China
conshiners.
The second contention of the Government of India is that the further restriction of the aggregate of uncertified opium exported is a corresponding increase of Turkish and Persian opium, and figures are given to show the increased import of these varieties into Singapore during the last three years; but this does not, in my opinion, justify the Government of India in selling opium by auction to the Government of Macao for smuggling into China, especially as, according to the Commissioner of Chinese Customs at Tappa, no Turkish or Persian opium has been imported into that Portuguese colony since 1900.
If the export of uncertified opium from India to particular countries were regulated according to their actual needs, the aggregate amount exported would certainly be reduced, and I am still of opinion that the Government of India should be urged to restrict that export.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN,
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