T
со
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
260
OPIUM.
RECEIVED
3 FEB 1920 OOL OFFICE
[January 13, 1920.]
CONFIDENTIA),
SKCTION(1, C. O
CC09
[170022)
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Earl Curzon.-(Received January 13, 1920.)
RESP
(No. 536.)
REG FEB 20 My Lord,
I HAVE the honour to report that among the resolutions of the Shanghai
Peking, November 29, 1919. Conference of British Chambers of Commerce in China and Hong Kong enumerated in my despatch No. 530 of the 27th November is the following
EX
-
That this Conference of British Chambers of Commerce assembled at Shanghai is convinced of the necessity for immediate action by the British Government with regard to the opium and drug traffic, and that, in the best interests of Great Britain's prestige and of her commerce in the Far East, the Government should give immediate effect to the various measures which the Inter- national Opium Convention agreed to in 1912 at The Hague Conference in respect of 'raw opium,' 'prepared opium,' 'medical opium,' morphine, cocaine, &c.,' without waiting for the ratification by other countries, and would especially urge the British Government to control the production of auch habit-forming drugs and to limit their production to the amount required for legitimate medical use, and to limit their export to such countries as have established laws and regulations which effectively control the traffic in these drugs and restrict their use to legitimate purposes only."
Your Lordship is well aware from various despatches which I have had the honour to address to you during the past year that this resolution embodies an opinion that is very strongly held by the British community in this country, and your despatch No. 142 of the 22nd July last shows that the matter has been engaging the serious attention of His Majesty's Government.
The text of the resolution was not communicated to me before my departure from Peking, and in my speech at the closing of the conference in Shanghai, extract from which is enclosed,* I took advantage of the occasion to point out that Great Britain bad fully carried out all her obligations towards China in the matter of the opium trade, and that the British Government had clean hands in the matter, China, however, was not living up to her part of the bargain; the Indian opium had been replaced by native opium, which was being grown all over China under the auspices of Chinese officials. Publicity was the only weapon that could eventually overcome this evil.
By a fortunate coincidence the Chinese Government had received a few days previously the memorandum enclosed in my despatch No. 496 of the 4th November, with the result that the newspapers containing the text of my speech also published a Presidential mandate inveighing against the cultivation of opium in the provinces, impressing upon
the people the dire consequences of such action, and threatening the severest punishment to any officials showing laxity in the enforcement of the prohibition. I take this opportunity of enclosing copies of the Bulletin of the International Anti-Opium Association for the month of November, which contains the text of the appeal made to the British Chambers of Commerce by that association and a record of its other recent activities.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN.
[2088 n-1
−1].
* Not printed.
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