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Finally, I would add that your powers to enter into any agreement are not plenary, but are merely of an ad referendum nature.
Sir,
No. 2.
I am, &c.
E. GREY.
Foreign Office, October 1, 1913. WE have the honour to transmit to you herewith the final protocol signed at The Hague on the 9th July by the delegates to the Second International Opium Conference. We desire further to take this opportunity of submitting a few remarks on the proceedings and results of the Conference.
The Conference was called together by the Netherland Government in accordance with the terms of the second paragraph of article 23 of the International Opium Convention,* signed at The Hague on the 23rd January, 1912, which runs: "In the event of the signature of all the Powers invited not having been obtained on the date of the 31st December, 1912, the Government of the Netherlands will immediately invite the Powers who have signed by that date to appoint delegates to examine at The Hague the possibility of depositing their ratifications notwithstanding."
The circumstances which led up to the summoning of the Conference, and the reasons which induced His Majesty's Government to accept with pleasure the invitation of the Netherland Government, are so clearly set out in the instructions which we had the honour to receive from you, that it seems unnecessary for us to do more than refer to them.
The Conference was opened on the 1st July by his Excellency Jonkheer de Marees van Swinderen, Netherland Minister for Foreign Affairs, who delivered a short speech of welcome to the delegates, in which he pointed out that the very fact of the assembling of this second Confer-nce indicated that the issue contemplated by the convention had not been completely attained, inasmuch as the Powers invited to sign the supple- mentary protocol had not all replied in the affirmative.
As a matter of fact, at the date of the opening of the Conference twenty-two Powers out of the thirty-four invited had signed, namely, the Argentine Republic, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Republic of Cuba, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Ecuador, Guatemala, the Republic of Hayti, Honduras, Luxemburg, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Salvador, Spain, and the United States of Venezuela. These, with the twelve Powers who participated in the first Conference, made thirty-four Powers which had actually sigued the convention, leaving only twelve, the signatures of which were still wanting, namely, Austria- Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Norway, Peru, Roumania, Servia, Sweden, Switzerland. Turkey, and Uruguay.
Of the original signatory Powers all except Persia were represented at the second Conference, while of the twenty-two Powers who had signed the supplementary protocol of signature nine only were not represented, viz., Polivia, the Republic of Cuba, Guatemala, louduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Salvador, and the United States of Venezuela. The countries, therefore, which actually sent delegates to the present Conference, and which, through them, were parties to the final protocol of the 9th July, 1913, were as follows: Argentine Republic, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hayti, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Siam, Spain, and the United States of America, or exactly twice as many as were represented at the first Conference.
On
The proceedings at the first meeting of the Conference were purely formal. the proposal of the French and German delegates, as being the senior members of the Diplomatic Body at The Hague appointed to represent their Governments at the Conference, M. Cremer, the senior Netherland delegate, was unanimously elected president. M. Cremer pronounced a speech in which he pointed out that the task before the present Conference was far lighter than that with which the first Conference ad found itself confronted, for while the latter had to formulate in a convention the
• See "Miscellaneous, No. 2 (1912).”
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principles which were to solve the international problem arising from the abuse of opium, torphine, and cocaine, the mission of the present Conference was limited to the question of ratification.
A dutiful telegram was despatched to Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands, the honorary presidency of the Conference was offered to M. de Marees van Swinderen, the members of the secretariat were appointed, and it was decided that French should be the official language of the Conference, though the use of other languages would be permitted at the sessions, and the Conference then adjourned till the following afternoon.
At the second session, after some further purely formal preliminaries had been disposed of and delegates had been appointed to serve on the Editing Committee ("Comité de Rédaction") and the Press Committee, the real work of the Conference was commenced. The president proposed, in view of the terms of article 23 of the convention directing an examination into the possibility of ratifying the Opium Convention, and with the object of ascertaining the intentions of the various Govern- ments represented, to invite each delegation," in alphabetical order, to state whether its Government were prepared to proceed at once to ratification.
Eight delegations, namely, those of China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, Italy, Luxemburg, Siam, and Spain, declared that their Governments were ready uncon- ditionally to deposit their ratifications, the Italian delegate explaining that the ratification of his Government would cover the colonies of Erythrea, Somaliland, Tripoli, and Cyrene.
Mr. Shinobu, the Japanese delegate, declared that his Government had no objection in principle to depositing their ratification.
Seven delegations, namely, those
of Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Hayti, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United States of America, declared that their Governments were ready to proceed to ratification, subject only to the statutory approval of their respective legislative bodies.
Three delegates, those of the Argentine Republic, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic, were absent from the meeting.
The remaining delegations of the twenty-four constituting the Conference, only five in number, but including the representatives of countries so vitally interested as France, Germany, Great Britain, and Portugal, declared that for various reasons their respective Governments were not at present willing to proceed to the ratification of the Opium Convention.
M. Pellet, the French delegate, explained that his Government were ready to ratify the convention as far as regards France proper, but not as regards French Indo- China, as on the one hand they wished to await the final decision of certain Powers which had not as yet signed the convention, but which were important as producers of opium and coca, and on the other hand they intended beforehand to examine carefully the efficacy of the measures which the Chinese Government proposed to adopt for the suppression of the cultivation of opium and for the prevention of the smuggling of opium over the frontier separating China from French Indo-China, At the fourth session M. Pellet supplemented this statement by reading a telegram from his Govern- ment to the effect that, on account of the contraband trade existing on its frontier, Indo-China was for the present unable to sign the convention in its entirety in respect of that colony, although almost all of its provisions were already being enforced, but that it was sincerely desirous of adopting, pari passu with the Chinese Government, further measures in order to eradicate the use of opium as soon as the situation in the southern provinces of China improved. This declaration on behalf of the French Government as regards their possessions in the Far East appears to us to be a matter of such importance that we have hesitated to include France among the countries which were ready to proceed to ratification.
M. von Müller, the German delegate, after referring to the reasons which induced the first Conference to invite all the Powers of Europe and America not represented at that Conference to sign the convention and to make ratification dependent
on the replies received, declared that the German Government, considering that ratification by only a proportion of the Powers interested would not achieve the full results aimed at, regretted that they were for the present unable to ratify the Opium Convention.
On being called on to declare whether His Majesty's Government were prepared to ratify the Opium Convention, we made a detailed statement based on our instructions, setting forth the reasons for which His Majesty's Govern- ment were unable to proceed to immediate ratification. We pointed out that the non-signature of the convention by certain countries, such as Austria-Hungary,
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