2
I am satisfied that the greater portion of uncertificated opium sold by the Government of India in excess of 9,000 chests per annum will find its way into China by smuggling, and it is with infinite regret that I see a likelihood of a position already difficult being rendered still more so by the determination of the Government of India to increase rather than to decrease the sales of uncertiäcated opium.
(Copy to India.)
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL
[April 7.]
SECTION 2.
[15356]
No. 1.
India Office to Foreign Office. (Received April 7.)
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN.
Sir,
India Office, April 6, 1914. IN continuation of Sir T. Holderness' letter of the 17th February last, I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to forward for the information of Sir Edward Grey copies of a letter from the Government of India, dated the 13th March, 1914, on the subject of the stocks of Indian opium in China.
Enclosure in No. 1.
I have, &c.
LIONEL ABRAHAMS.
(Confidential.)
Government of India to the Marquess of Crewe.
My Lord Marquess,
Delhi, March 13, 1914. WE have the honour to address your Lordship on the position which has recently arisen regarding the stocks of Indian opium in China.
2. In our telegrams of the 30th January and 5th February last, we have already acquainted your Lordship with our conclusions upon Sir John Jordan's telegrams of the 16th and the 31st January to the Foreign Office. We have now received and considered copies of his despatches, No. 2, dated the 3rd January, and No. 9, dated the 12th January, and we beg to submit the further report promised in our telegram of the 30th January. It will be convenient also to embody herein our reply to your despatches dated the 5th December, 1913, and the 30th January, 1914, asking for our views on certain questions raised by the Foreign Office regarding the export of Indian opium to non-China markets and the possibility of such opium finding its way into China.
3. The proposal before us, as set forth in Sir John Jordan's despatch No, 2, dated the 3rd January, 1914, is for the spontaneous withdrawal of the opium stocks now remaining in China. It is represented that there has in recent years grown up in China a body of articulate public opinion, supported by foreign enthusiasts and British aympathizers, which aims at the speedy extinction of the opium habit, and which directs its assaults upon the 12,000 chests which are the sole remaining and evanescent sign of the former substantial opium trade. This state of mind among the more enlightened of the Chinese people causes grave prejudice to British interests, and in order therefore that the feeling of resentment may be changed to one of gratitude, it is
necessary that the opium be withdrawn from China at the expense of Indian revenues. The reasons for which your Lordship in Council may be asked to accept this responsibility on India's behalf are, we gather, firstly, because it is the Indian revenues which have benefited from the opium trade in the past, and secondly, because it was the Indian Government which declined to suspend the sales of opium for export to China, although warned by the British Minister at Pekin that the opium so sold could with difficulty find a market.
4. In the telegraphic correspondence referred to above we have protested strongly against this attempt to saddle the people of India with a charge which would probably amount to several millions sterling, at a time when the call for progress in matters of education and sanitation and for an adequate expenditure on railways and irrigation is inaistent; when the rise in the cost of living is likely to present us with a demand for a material increase in the salaries paid to our officers; when a part of the population in Northern India is suffering from agricultural distress; and when our finances and trade are still feeling the effects of the dislocation caused by the premature closing down of the opium trade with China. We have stated to your Lordship our apprehensions as to the spirit in which this proposal, if made public, would be received in India. we have suggested that the cost of manoeuvring into a position which is considered likely to be favourable to certain trade interests should be borne by the country to
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