103
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
C. O. €406
>
RECF
REG 19 FEB 14.
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[January 30.]
SECTION 1,
[4276]
No. 1.
Privy Council Office to Foreign Office. (Received January 30.)
(Confidential.) Sir,
Whitehall, January 29, 1914. REFERRING to your letter of the 21st instant on the subject of the proposed appointment of an Inter-Departmental Committee to consider the question of the legislation to be laid before Parliament for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of the International Opium Convention of 1912, I am directed by the Lord President of the Council to point out that the only matters dealt with in the convention with which this Department has any administrative concern are those which touch the regulations for the retail sale of opium, morphia, and cocaine, and that the sale of these substances is, under the Pharmacy Acts, already subject to very rigorous restrictions, and is, moreover, confined to persons who may be described as "licensed" in the sense that they possess special qualifications. It is not clear, therefore, that the purposes of a system of licensing such as appears to be contemplated by the convention are not already adequately met by existing legislation, so far as internal sales of the substances in question are concerned.
As to the other matters dealt with in the convention, I am to point out that they lie outside the present functions of this Department.
In these circumstances it hardly seems correct to say that the Privy Council Office ! is "principally interested" in the legislation in question, or that "the bulk of the work of the Inter-Departmental Committee must necessarily fall on the representative" of this Department, and I am accordingly to suggest that it would be convenient if a preliminary conference were held to consider which Department ought to assume control of the committee.
I am, &c.
ALMERIC FITZROY.
(2032 gg-1)