637
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.882/11
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
110
[C. 20941/26 [No. 8].]
Enclosure in No. 81.
EXTRACT FROM A CONFIDENTIAL DESPATCH FROM THE HIGH COMMISSIONER, FEDERATED MALAY STATES, TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES, DATED
9TH NOVEMBER, 1926.
*
14. In the Colony, as is natural in a community which is rapidly developing, there is always an under-current of resentment against what is regarded as the exces- sive control exercised by the Colonial Office over our local affairs.
15. This, as a rule, finds a safety valve in periodical agitations in the Press, which gradually die down as the difficulties are recognized, for a more liberal con- stitution with a large number of elected members.
16. The educated Europeans and the better educated of the Asiatics are at heart not seriously dissatisfied with a form of Government under which they carry on their business in safety: they regard the agitations as mainly academic and do not take them very seriously. But if their pockets are touched, or the objects which they have at heart are thwarted, their attitude is very different and their opposition to Government becomes organized and something to be reckoned with
17. Two special matters have for some time past contributed to this result. 18. Everyone interested in public health, and I am glad to say that their numbers and activities are steadily increasing, resents the fact that the proposals for dealing with venereal disease which were considered necessary by all the local experts and which were actually embodied in an Act passed by Legislative Council were vetoed on Imperial grounds.
19.
Another grievance, which is being strongly ventilated, is the provision of the Opium Revenue Replacement Fund, which has had to be introduced in consequence of the policy of the Imperial Government with regard to opium.
20. The general consensus of opinion among those who have studied the ques tion out here is that opium smoking as practised in Malaya does little harm, and some good that it can never be stopped entirely, and that its stoppage, so far as it can be enforced, will lead to far worse evils from drink and drugs.
21. This being the general and I believe well-founded belief, it is easy to under- stand the public resentment when, as a result of this policy, Government has passed legislation which cramps the Colony's finances and necessitates the postponement of much needed works of development.
22. In both these matters the Unofficial Members of Council have come in for organized attack. They have been abused as subservient slaves of the official Govern- ment and traitors to the interests of the public which they are supposed to represent.
C 20941/26 [No. 19].
No. 82.
MR. L. S. AMERY (SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES)
to
SIR L. N. GUILLEMARD (GOVERNOR, STRAITS SETTLEMENTS,
HIGH COMMISSIONER, FEDERATED MALAY STATES).
MY DEAR GUILLEMARD,
[Answered by No. 84.]
and
Downing Street, 31st January, 1927.
I HAVE been intending for some months past to write to you about the con- sumption of opium in Malaya. The fact that I have not done so before is not to be taken as implying that the stir created by the huge purchases of Persian opium by your Government, which gave rise to our telegraphic correspondence last summer has subsided. The very reverse is the case. In fact my delay in writing to you is mainly to be explained by the fact that I have deferred doing so in the hope of some finality in the discussions which have been taking place on the opium situation in Malaya. No such finality has yet been reached, but I feel that I ought not to delay further letting you know how the land lies.
2. In November an Interdepartmental Committee was set up, on the initiative of Lord Cecil, and it is now proposed to refer the whole question of the opium policy of His Majesty's Government to a Cabinet Committee.
by
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3. These facts will be suflicient to give you some indication of the concern felt by the Government at home at the difficulties of squaring the situation as disclosed your telegrams last summer, with the line hitherto taken by the British Representa- tives at Geneva, in Tegard to the observance of The Hague Convention. The facts can hardly fail to be ventilated there, if for no other reason than that the return of shipments of opium from the Persian Gulf is regularly examined at each meeting of the Opium Advisory Committee of the League.
4. It is constantly being pointed out that it was at the instance of the British Government that it was provided that the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles should be held to have ratified The Hague Convention of 1912; and that at the Geneva Confer- ence, which resulted in the Protocol to the 1925 Agreement, the British Delegate, on instructions from Home, repeatedly asserted that we stood by the 1912 Convention and that nothing that was proposed or said about the 1925 Agreement was intended to weaken it in any way.
5. Yet now, partly owing to an increase in the numbers of Chinese in Malaya and partly (but presumably to a greater extent) to the increase in the purchasing power of the individual, the consumption of opium has gone up enormously.
6. Our representatives at Geneva feel that, if tackled on the subject, they will have the greatest difficulty in persuading any international gathering that such a large increase in the consumption of chandu, as has taken place in Malaya, is consistent with the discharge of our obligations for the gradual and effective suppression of opium smoking, and that these difficulties are increased by the fact that the Malayan Governments make large profits out of every ounce of opium that is sold. (Fortunately, if this latter point should be raised again, we now have the Opium Revenue Replace- ment Funds to point to.)
7. Amongst other considerations, they point out that (since it was admitted in Pountney's Report that a large proportion of smokers acquire the habit in Malaya) Malaya is open to the accusation that, not only is it not suppressing opium smoking, but that it is creating, or at any rate doing nothing to prevent the creation of, new
addicts.
8. My representatives on the Interdepartmental Committee, of course, took their stand on the Report of Pountney's Committee. They pointed out that the recom- mendations in this Report are steadily being put into operation, but that it would appear that such changes in the situation as have occurred, if anything, reinforce the arguments adduced in the Report against unduly hurrying on the process. They also drew attention to your telegram of the 21st of September* (in which you expressed the hope that the British Representatives at Geneva would bear in mind that “ thing like censure by the League of Nations " would be deeply resented by the Colony) and to the exigencies of local politics generally.
any-
9. Nevertheless Lord Cecil felt that the mere fact that Malaya has begun to build up machinery which may possibly enable it to take some effective action in the rather uncertain future, would not cut much ice at Geneva when set against the broad fact that the consumption of opium is greatly increasing in spite of our inter- national undertakings to suppress it. It was accordingly urged upon my representa- tives that you should be pressed to reconsider whether (now that Government has taken over the whole of the retail trade) it would not be possible at least to put a maximum limit on the amount of opium to be imported into Malaya.
bulk rationing of your chandu 10. This would of course involve a sort of shops and saloons, and so (in the absence of a scheme of individual registration and rationing) would be cutting right across the scheme of Pountney's Report. Moreover,
Beatty (with whom the suggestion has been discussed) feels certain that there is a very serious danger that any such action would lead to grave disturbances—more so even than when a similar experiment was tried in 1920, since there are now disaffected elements in Malaya which would be only too eager to take advantage of any feeling of discontent to foster violent outbreaks for their own ends.
11. From the facts (1) that I have not yet written a despatch to you about it (since my Confidential despatch of the 31st of August†), and (2) that a Cabinet Com- mittee is to examine the whole question of opiumi policy, you will understand that I am doing all in my power to ensure that the interests of Malaya receive the fullest possible consideration.
12. I am writing this personal letter to you at this stage partly to impress upon you the fact that as a political question, the topic of opium is very much alive; and partly to let you know that (while on the main issue, viz., the increased consumption
* No. 121.
t C. 12943/26: not printed.
112