This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty s Government.
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[197727]
RES SECTION 1.
RE 19 APR 19
No. 1.
(No. 451.) Sir,
Sir J. Jordan to Mr. Balfour.-(Received November 30.)
Peking, September 30, 1918. ACTING upon the instructions contained in your telegram No. 502 of the 23rd September, I addressed a note to the Wai-chiao Pu on the 26th instant formally putting on record the views of His Majesty's Government with regard to the agree- ment made by the Chinese Government with the Opium Combine for the purchase of the unsold stocks of Indian opium in bond at Shanghai and Canton.
A copy of my note is enclosed, and you will observe that I have closely adhered to the wording authorised in your telegram No. 417 of the 3rd August last.
The American Chargé d'Affaires, having communicated to me a copy of his note of protest to the Chinese Government (see my despatch No. 437 of the 23rd September), I have furnished him with a copy of my note of the 26th September.
Whether the protests of His Majesty's Government and of the American Govern- ment will have a deterrent effect upon the Chinese Government remains to be seen. But undoubtedly there is a very strong feeling throughout the country, both in the native and foreign circles, that the agreement between the Government and the Opium Combine is a most discreditable affair.
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When the deal was first proposed, in the early months of the past year, between the opium merchants and General Feng Kuo-chang, then Military Governor of Nanking, profound dissatisfaction was aroused. And eventually, as you are aware, the now defunct Peking Parliament refused to allow the deal to go through. The public is now faced with much the same agreement, though now the pretence that the stocks purchased from the merchants are to be used as anti-opium pills seems to have been dropped to all intents and purposes; and there is no Parliament of sufficient independence to turn it down. The fact that there is a shrewd suspicion of a close connection between the members of the present Chinese Government and the syndicate of merchants to whom the opium stocks are to be handed over does not tend to decrease the public indignation. The prospect of a syndicate licensed by the Government to revive the opium trade-for that is what in fact is contem- plated has disgusted all public opinion in China.
The feeling among the educated classes has already found vent in the press, and petitions are being organised, anti-opium societies formed, &c. The views of responsible officials, such as the Military and Civil Governors of Nanking, will be gathered from the enclosed newspaper extract, in which they are quoted as having protested to the Government, with reference to the proposal to authorise the sale in the province of Kiangsu over which they preside, on the ground that any such authorisation of sale will vitiate the attempt of so many years to suppress the opium habit in China. Their Excellencies go on to bring before the Government the many protests against the proposal which are being made by the local gentry, merchants, and scholars, and hint that any attempt to sell the drug in the interior may be met by force, and thus lead to riots and breaches of the peace.
Indications from Shanghai and from other parts of the country go to show that much bitter feeling has been aroused on all sides at this attempt to reopen the opium traffic.
As you are aware from my previous despatches, the recently opened Parlia- ment in Peking cannot lay any great claim to independence; indeed, from reports that I received at the time of the elections, it is perfectly clear that bribery and corruption were used by the Northern Military party to an altogether unheard-of extent, and that the members are, to all intents and purposes, mere nominees of the militarists. All the more interesting on that account was the outburst on the question of opium that occurred in the Senate on the 20th September last. Certain members of the House had proposed that the Government be urged to convert the recently purchased stocks into morphine for sale abroad. Their proposal received rough handling from the House, certain members stating that any such measure would be contrary to the terms of The Hague Convention of 1913, to which China was a party. If Parliament authorised the export of such drugs, it would be illogical
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