271
20
With this object, the contracting Parties shall use their best endeavours to take the following measures:-
(Old Article 10.)
"(a.) To confine the manufacture of morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts to those establishments and premises alone which have been appointed for this purpose, or to obtain information respecting the establishments and premises in which these drugs are manufactured and to keep a register of them.
(Old Article 11)
"(b.) To require that all persons engaged in the manufacture, importation, sale, distribution, or exportation of morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts shall be furnished with a licence to engage in these operations, or shall inform the authorities officially.
(Old Article 12.)
"(e.) To require that such manufacturers and traders shall enter in their books the quantities manufactured, imports, sales and all other distribution, and exports of morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts. This rule shall not necessarily apply to prescriptions and to sales by duly authorised chemists.
ARTICLE 11 (Old Article 14).
"The contracting Powers shall prohibit, as regards their internal trade, the delivery of morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts to any unauthorised persons.
ARTICLE 12 (Old Article 15).
"Due regard being had to the differences in their conditions, the contracting Powers shall use their best endeavours to restrict to authorised persons the importation of morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts.
ARTICLE 13 (Old Article 16),
"The contracting Powers shall use their best endeavours to take measures to ensure that morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts shall not be exported from their countries, colonies, and leased territories to the countries, colonies, and leased territories of the other contracting Powers, except when the consignee has received a licence issued in accordance with the laws of the importing country authorising him to import these drugs.
With this object each Government may communicate from time to time to the Governments of the exporting countries information respecting the persons to whom licences for the importation of morphine, cocaine, and their respective salts have been granted."
83. Immediately after this first meeting, we informed you that each delegation had agreed to submit the draft as thus amended to its Governinent, 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. 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, you reluctantly authorised us to give it, on condition that the convention should provide that the enforcement of the restrictions it contemplated should not be obligatory on any one Government until there was likeli- hood of steps being taken in the same direction by the other participating States, as well as by the most important of the outside Powers.
84. 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 German delegates that if they proposed the amendments indicated in paragraph 82, we would not oppose them, though we could not give our willing consent. The amendment 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
*
21
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.
85. We took note of this declaration, 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, and intimated that our Government, in order to secure unanimity in this important matter, were prepared to accent the German amendments if they met with approval from other delegations, but could accept them only with regret. The conference then voted on the first reading, and with some verbal amendments, the articles as redrafted were accepted, seven voting for, and four abstaining. They form the basis of articles 10 to 13 of the convention.
86. 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 paragraph 68, also came before the conterence. We had had a considerable amount of private discussion with the German delegates on this subject. Our position throughout the discussion was that we did not see any need for a definition of the terms, and that, so far as we were concerned, we desired to give them the widest possible application. Our German colleagues, on the contrary, were, for reasons which they explained fully, anxious that the conference should embody in the text of the convention specific definitions of the terms "importation "and "exportation." Several attempts were made to frame a definition which would meet the wishes of both parties, as a minimun for the conference to lay down, but without success. The question was discussed at some length at this and at
the twenty-first session (17th January), and it was finally suggested that the German delegation should make a declaration stating what meaning their Government proposed to attach to the terms, and that this declaration should figure in the minutes of the conference. This suggestion was fortunately adopted by the German Government and at the twenty-second session (18th January), the German delegation made the following declaration, which thus solved the matter in accordance with the view that no specific definition was necessary, while at the same time it indicated the limits within which the German Government was prepared to act :---
£6
Après l'échange de vues qui à ce sujet a eu lieu au sein de Comité de Rédaction et dans la vingtième et vingt et unième séances 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 expéditeurs.
(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.”*
87. The only other business not already referred to, dealt with at the twenty- first session, was the insertion of a denunciation article (article 25 of the convention) which follows the original scheme of the Drafting Committee, and the commencement of the second reading of the convention as a whole.
88. At the twenty-fifth session (22nd January) we made the following declaration on the subject of the application of the convention to His Majesty's dominions ----
46
Nous déclarons que les articles de la présente convention, si elle est ratifiée par Le Gouvernement de Sa Majesté, s'appliqueront à l'Empire des Indes britanniques, à Ceylan,
* (TUANSLATION)-" After the exchange of views on this subject which has taken place in the Drafting Committee and at the twentieth and twenty-first plenary sessions, the German delegation is realy to abandon a definition; the delegation desires, however, to record that the Gerulan Government interprets the provisions of the convention as follows :----
"(1.) Each Government may define the words 'importation' and 'exportation' according to its own circumstances, and having regard to its internal legislation.
"(2.) The measures to be taken by the Governments to carry out the provisions of the convention in regard to importation and exportation may be restricted to purely commercial actions, and will not necessarily relate to the transactions of carriers and shippers.
"(3.) The contracting Powers are not obliged to institute a control of importation or exportation at the frontier, or by means of the customs."