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and fifty one taels were Amoy opium; while the opium of Hongkong origin seized during the same period amounted to
seventeen teels only.
Your memorandum refers to the difficulties
which the Chinese Government are experiencing, as a result of the present unsettled condition in the country, in carrying
out the task of opium suppression.
While His Majesty's Government are aware that the
existing state of unrest which so unhappily prevails in large areas of the Chinese Republic may render it more
difficult for the Central Government and the Provincial
Authorities effectively to enforce the prohibition against
the cultivation and consumption of opium, the reports received for a long time past from His Majesty's Diplomatic
and Consular Officers in China and from other reliable
sources furnish conclusive evidence of so widespread a recrudescence of poppy cultivation and so greatly enhanced consumption of, and traffic in, the drug, that I have felt obliged to instruct His Majesty's Minister at Peking
to address to the Chinese Government, in the name of
His Majesty's Government a formal protest".
3.
Copies of correspondence including the instructions
to Sir B. Alston to formulate a protest to the Chinese Government as indicated in the preceding paragraph were forwarded to you in the letter from this Office No. F 969/330/10 of March 30th, 1921.
4.
I am to state for the information of the Secretary
of/