To
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.] 256
6
or sent to other districts and sold. Not having as yet proof of this I cannot, however, state it as an absolute fact.
Mr. Ch'en, director-general of the Anti-Opium Bureau, recently brought me some albums of photographs showing poppy plants being uprooted in many places, and on scrutinising them I see they show either the villagers themselves plucking up the plants or the Government soldiers hoeing them out, and they illustrate clearly the method employed, but the cultivated area in the whole province is very great, and it is difficult to believe from these pictures that all the fields grown with poppy plants
have been similarly treated without any being omitted.
It will therefore be necessary for me first to make another careful investigation before I can be certain of the facts. Should it turn out that any of the opium has been harvested and sold, it will reflect very badly upon the Anti-opium Bureau, since I cannot but remember how the solemn agreement drawn up by representatives of the two nations for the suppression of the use of opium was all through last year observed rather in the breach than in the performance. The strict prohibitions suddenly issued in this 7th moon by the Anti-opium Bureau are intended to frighten the people into obedience, but the agreement not having been cancelled, the stringent proclamation cannot but in a most unjust way cause injury to British trade. When the two Governments concerned have mutually agreed that the Fukien province has really been completely cleared of the poppy plants, then a proclamation of this kind may rightly be issued. I know that you are just in your administration of public affairs, and will not therefore listen to a one-sided statement or accept it as proof. Therefore I now send you this provisional reply, and will communicate with you again later when, after careful and private investigations, I have satisfied myself as to what the true state of the case is.
I have, &c.
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[41076]
(No. 331.) Sir,
[September 6.]
SECTION 2.
No. 1.
Mr. Alston to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received September 6.)
Peking, August 23, 1913. IN my despatch No. 298 I had the honour to forward copy of my memorandum to the Wai-chiao Pu of the 16th July, informing them that, on receipt of consular reports from Hankow and Ichang, I would communicate with them on the subject of their request that Hupeh might be placed on the list of provinces into which Indian opium shall not be conveyed.
I have now the honour to enclose copies of the consular reports referred to, together with copy of my memorandum to the Wai-chiao Pu, in which I have informed them that I am not disposed to accept the statement contained in their memorandum of the 3rd July that poppy cultivation had been prohibited and extinguished, and that the import of the native drug had also been forbidden from other provinces.
While regretting my inability to consent to place Hupeh on the prohibition list forthwith, I have expressed my readiness to arrange for investigations next spring on the lines of the joint inspections carried out in Shantung, Anhui, and Hunan this year.
I have, &c.
B. ALSTON.
A
0
E. T. C. WERNER.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
(No. 45.) Sir,
Consul-General Wilkinson to Mr. Alston.
Hankow, August 5, 1913.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge receipt of your despatch No. 35 of the 24th ultimo, instructing me to forward to the legation with as little delay as possible a report embodying such information as I may be able to collect from missionaries aud others on the subject of the effective suppression of the cultivation and import of native opium, in view of the desire of the Wai-chiao Pu to place Hupei on the list of provinces into which Indian opium shall not be conveyed.
You enclose translation from a memorandum by the Wai-chiao Pu dated the 3rd July, in which a telegram is quoted from the Tutu and Civil Governor of Hupei, claiming that opium cultivation throughout the province has been extinguished and that import of native opium has long ago been prohibited.
I fear that it would at the present time be useless for me to apply for information to the missionaries of Hupei, seeing that they are in the middle of their summer vacation, and will not return to their several posts for a month or two. Even were they at their posts, they could do little more than give me their impressions based for the most part on hearsay and often, however unconsciously, biassed by their prejudices, of what has taken place in the past.
Had General Li Yuan-hung, instead of telegraphing as he did to the Wai-chiao Pu, applied to me, I should have answered in the sense of the third paragraph of your memorandum to that Department of the 16th July, namely, that the poppy season is now over, and that it is too late to attempt any inspection. I should have added that, under article 4 of the Opium Agreement of 1911, it is for British officials to decide as to the extent of cultivation, and not for "various bureaux, magistrates, and deputies"; and that the Hupei Government, although invited by me last December to arrange for Buch investigation by British officials, never from first to last has evinced the least desire for even a joint commission of enquiry.
General Li's reluctance to suggest or accept such a commission is easily comprehended when it is remembered that he was obliged to admit the existence of poppy cultivation in Shih-nau and Yuuyang prefectures (see my despatch No. 127 of the 24th December, 1912). It is true that his Excellency has shown much zeal in stamping out that cultivation; but if he had been convinced, let us say in May last, that his efforts had
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