WORTEN
97
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government...
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
2663
REC
[REG 24 JAN
[December 18.]
SECTION 3.
[53246]
No. 1.
Foreign Office to Messrs. D. and Messrs. E. D. Sassoon and Co.
Gentlemen,
Foreign Office, December 18, 1912. I AM directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to acknowledge the receipt of
your letters of the 2nd and 4th December respecting the situation in regard to the opium trade in China.
In reply I am to inform you that on receipt of these letters a telegram was dispatched to His Majesty's Minister at Peking requesting him to furnish a report on the matter by telegraph, and to make such representations to the Chinese Government as he considered advisable and justifiable.
A telegram has now been received from Sir J. Jordan stating that this week, accompanied by His Majesty's consul-general at Shanghai, whom he had summonded to Peking for the purpose, he has had long interviews with the President of the Republic and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and that he has used every effort to induce them to insist upon the enforcement in the provinces of the agreement of May 1911, with the result that they have given an assurance that they will cause the circular instructions of the 15th June, 1911, to be re-issued under the authority of the President, I am to add that you may rest assured that the whole question of the opium trade with China is receiving the unremitting and instant attention of His Majesty's Government.
I am, &c.
[2736 s-3]
W. LANGLEY.