[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
5189
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
Panuary 23.]
SECTION 3.
A
[3408]
(No. 7.) Sir,
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received January 23.)
Peking, January 6, 1913. IN my despatch No. 310 of the 20th July I stated that His Majesty's consul- general at Yunnan-fu had reported that the opium harvest had been reaped, averaging about 80 per cent. of pre-suppression days, and that I had at once addressed a memorandum on this subject to the Wai-chiao Pu.
I have now the honour to enclose copy of a letter, dated the 6th December, from Mr. Harding, of the China Inland Mission at Chüching-fu (70 miles north-east of Yunnan-fu) to the editor of the "Central China Post," which appeared in that news- paper on the 28th December. In this letter Mr. Harding declares that more land has been given over to the drug than has been the case for many years. soldiers were engaged in destroying the plants, but he does not appear to regard their He reports that work as thorough or as likely to be carried out. Speaking of the prefecture of Chüching, he says that the people do not want suppression of opium, and that he had been cursed for being connected with "that country that is compelling China to give up the opium." So opposed do the people appear to be to opium suppression that the only way to work up any enthusiasın on the subject is, according to Mr. Harding, to appeal to their anti-foreign propensities, and he cites the city of Chuching as an example of what was once the most friendly of all the cities in the province with a mission station now fast becoming the most anti-foreign and unfriendly.
Mr. Harding's remarks appear to foreshadow anti-foreign demonstration as a sequel to the anti-opium campaign. A gradual and effective suppression such as was contemplated by the Opium Agreement of 1911 would have alleviated the resentment of the growers and smokers and rendered unnecessary an appeal to the anti-foreign propensities of the people. Neither of these objects will, however, be achieved by the hasty and violent prohibition measures adopted in the Yangtze and other provinces in direct contravention and defiance of the Opium Agreement.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Extract fom the "Central China Post" of December 28, 1912.
OPIUM SUPPRESSION.
[Letter to the Editor.]
WHEN the revolution broke out last year promises were given to the people in general to the effect that, if it succeeded, the cultivation of the opium would be winked at; consequently the planting of the poppy became general, many farmers going so far as to root up the wheat so as to get in a crop of the plant, and as it happened to be a bumper crop, many farmers did what I have never known to have been done before, viz. planted opium in the spring, and I have seen what I have never seen before- autumn opium. Hence it has seemed to many of us that opium prohibition had received a serious blow from which it will be difficult to recover.
Again, the planting of opium has become general during the eighth and ninth moons, so that I think it is only fair to say that more land has been given over to the drug than has been the case for many years past, but-and this I wish to emphasise— the authorities seem to be taking the matter in hand again, and while I write the soldiers are out destroying what has been planted.
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