[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[11232]
No. 1.
[April 8.]
SECTION 1.
Colonial Office to Foreign Office.---(Received April 8.)
THE Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies presents his compliments to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and is directed by the Secretary of State to transmit, for the information of Sir E. Grey, with reference to the letter from the Colonial Department of the 26th February last, a copy of a despatch from the Governor of Ceylon on the subject of the proposed abolition of the use of opium in China.
Downing Street, April 8, 1907.
Inclosure in No. 1.
(Confidential.) My Lord,
Governor Sir H. Blake to the Earl of Elgin.
Ceylon, March 14, 1907. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's Confidential despatch of the 20th February, inclosing, for my information, copies of despatches from His Majesty's Minister at Peking with regard to the proposals of the Chinese Government for gradually abolishing the use of opium in China.
2. The proposals leave nothing to be desired, but, like most Chinese Edicts, while excellent in inteution, the value must be gauged by the efficiency with which they are carried out by local Governments. Great as may be the financial strain imposed upon the opium-producing districts of India by the cessation of the cultivation of the poppy, the tax upon the opium-producing provinces will be as serious, assuming that the Edict is obeyed.
3. Herein lies the difficulty. The proposals will, of course, be faithfully observed in India, but if the Edict be not carried out with equal good faith in China, the result will be to enrich the Chinese proprietors and cultivators at the expense of our Indian subjects. I have been informed that when the late Li Hung Chang was agitating for the contraction of introduction of opium to China he was himself the largest grower of the poppy in Anhui. The argument in paragraph 3 of the Memorandum handed to Sir J. Jordan on the 29th November, 1906, is difficult to reconcile with the declaration that the cultivation of the poppy in China is to cease. The British Government is to decrease the amount exported by one-tenth annually, until, at the expiration of ten years, it is to cease altogether. Where, then, is the necessity for doubling the duty, except it be to give additional protection to the native drug. I am afraid that the argument of this paragraph must be accepted with some reserve.
4. However, the bona fides of the Chinese provincial Governments can be tested without difficulty. In paragraph 2 of the Memorandum in question it is proposed that China should appoint an officer to proceed to Calcutta for the purpose of watching the opium auctions and packing, and to ascertain the actual quantities of foreign opium delivered for export. This proposal may, I assume, be accepted without difficulty, but there should be reciprocity, and the Chinese Government should permit officers, to be appointed by His Majesty's Government in the poppy-growing districts, to satisfy His Majesty's Government that the annual decrease in the home cultivation is carried out. with equal faithfulness. Without this check, whatever may be the apparent movement for reform at present, I gravely doubt if the local Government officials, large numbers of whom are personally interested in the cultivation, will sacrifice their personal interests to a patriotic movement for the advantage of the race.
5. Mention is made of the smuggling of opium into China from Hong Kong. During my administration the complaint was rather from the opium fariner of the smuggling into Hong Kong from China. With the present boundary of the New
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