356
With the above views of Sir John Jordan Lorá Curzon is in entire agrement; at the same time, Hie Lordship is of opinion that the culpable inefficiency of the Central Government of Chins in regard to opium suppression should not be permitted to pass unnoticed. China is guilty of direct and flagrant breach of her solem Treaty obligations to Great Britain in this matter. As Mr. Montague is aware in 1907. His Majesty's Government undertook to diminish anmally for an experimental period of three years the smot of opium exported from India by one-tenth of the average amount annually taken by China; the further proviso vas added that "if during these thres years the Chinese Government have duly carried out their arrangements for diminishing the production and sonsumption of opium in China, His Majesty's Government undertake to continue in the same proportion this annual diminution of the export after the three years in question."
4. To this condition China solemnly agreed, and in the 1911 Agreement between Great Britain and China, Hisa Majesty's Government recognised the sincerity of the Chinese Government in their pelley of spim suppression in the country, and agreed that the export of opium from India to Chini should sense in less than seven yeare "if clear proof is given of the complete absence of production of native opium
in China.
5. By the end of 1915, all but six of the Provinces of China had been declared free of opium cultivation; during
1917/
A