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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[181612]
No. 1.
312
[September
SrerIdx 1.
RECE REG? 16 OCT 17
Mr. Alston to Mr. Balfour.-(Received September 18.)
(No. 224.) Sir,
Peking, July 24, 1917. WITH reference to my despatch No. 145 of the 11th May on the subject of the Opium Combine Agreement, I have the honour to transmit herewith copies of further correspondence between the Wai-chiao Pu and myself.
The note of the 18th May in reply to my protest against the closing of the ports of Shanghai and Canton can only be described as amazing. If taken seriously it can but mean that in the opinion of the Chinese Government the agreement of 1911 has already ceased to be effective, and that the inspection of the six remaining open provinces now in process of completion was not a joint inspection under article 4, but merely a pleasure trip undertaken by British officials at the invitation of the Chinese Government for the purpose of viewing the latter's success in the eradication of opium growing.
I can only suppose that, owing to the political importance attaching to the combine'e agreement by reason of the connection therewith of the Vice-President of the Republic, the party sympathies of the Minister for Foreign Affairs allowed him to put his name to a document which, by deliberately confusing the term for the cessation of export from India and the term of the agreement itself, endeavours to justify the argament used, both by the anti-opium reformers and the anti-Government Radical party, that Great Britain has no ground for further concern with the opium trade or the treatment of British opium merchants in China.
Unfortunately, almost simultaneously with the writing of this note, the Chinese Government ceased to function, the Preinier was dismissed four days later, and was followed in due course by the author of the note, Dr. Wu Ting Faug. For a month there was no Cabinet which could take the responsibility of discussing this or any other question, but as soon as the attempt to reconstitute a Cabinet under Mr. Li Ching Hsi after the dissolution of Parliament showed signs of success I handed personally to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs on the 26th June my reply to the Wai-chiao Pu's note, and was assured that an answer would be forthcoming within a week as soon as the Cabinet was complete.
Four days later the monarchy was restored by Chang Hsun and the functions of Government were again suspended.
Last week the Republican Government was re-established with Mr. Wang Ta Hsien as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I was immediately asked by the latter to take up the opium question with the Vice-Minister, to whom I had handed my note of the 26th June.
I found Mr. Kao very anxious to know whether I thought that a means could be found of reaching an early and satisfactory solution of the question which would avoid the necessity of any discussion of our treaty rights or the validity of the combine's agreement.
As it was evident that the political side of the question was once more uppermost in Mr. Kao's thoughts, and that his real object was to smooth the way for the Vice-President's carly arrival in Peking to assume the Presidency without the fear of awkward questions regarding his prior connection with an opium deal, I listened to Mr. Kao's remarks with some sympathy.
His idea in brief was that the price named in the Combine Agreement of 8,200 dollars a chest was too high, but that if this could be adjusted and the claims of the opium merchants met in a manner satisfactory to the legation, he assumed that His Majesty's Government would not consider it necessary to pursue a controversy regarding the exact meaning of the 1911 Agreement and the degree of validity to which the combine's agreement in its present form was entitled.
I pointed out in reply that His Majesty's Government could not but take a grave view of the action of the Chinese Government in deliberately ignoring the plain wording of the 1911 Agreement, and that under no circumstances would the six
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