[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[136878]
No. 1.
C
о
67152
REC
R 24 Nov November 17.]
SECTION 3.
(No. 245.) Sir,
Earl Curzon to Sir J. Jordan.
Foreign Office, November 17, 1919. I HAVE to transmit herewith copy of a letter, with enclosures, received from the India Office on the subject of the opium policy of the Government of India, with special reference to the recommendations contained in your despatch No. 574 of the 30th December last.
With regard to the export of Indian opium to the Far East, while unable to comply with the suggestion that it should be completely prohibited, the Government of India propose, as a measure promising an effective control in consonance with the provisions of the International Opium Convention of 1912, that the system of direct sales to the Liovernments of the consuming countries should be extended to French Indo-China aud Japan. This system, which is fully explained in the enclosures to the India Office letter, is already in force with respect to exports to Siam, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong, the Straits Settlements, and British North Borneo; and it is to be noted that the agreement with the Government of the Straits Settlements, copy of which is enclosed as a model, allows for periodical reductions of its imports by the importing Government, and that in any case the amount of 13,200 chests, to which the total uual export from India is already limited, will not be exceeded. The proposed arrangement seems in fact to be a reasonable one in the circumstances, and I am accordingly forwarding copies of the correspondence to His Majesty's representatives Paris and Tokyo, with the request that they will ascertain whether the French and Japanese Governments would be prepared to enter into agreement with the Government
India on the lines suggested.
Copies of your despatches No. 9 of the 8th January and No. 305 of the 28th June, in which you urged that effective steps should be taken by the Government of India to ck the cultivation of poppy in the frontier regions and the smuggling of opium thence You will observe, however, into Yunnan, were duly communicated to the India Office. From the letter which forms the enclosure to this despatch, that Mr. Secretary Montagu, hile anxious that every practical measure should be taken as soon as possible to attain dese objects, is in full agreement with the Government of India as to the great difficulties artending such action, and as to the impossibility, in view of the situation in the border tracts of China and in the Chinese provinces contiguous to the frontier, of pressing estrictive measures to a point where danger of serious unrest or disturbance might be involved.
I am, &c.
CURZON OF KEDLESTON.
LA -!
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