CO129-360 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 143

This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government

CHINA TRADE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[241]

No. 1,

3229

[January 1

28-

SECTION 3.

39 141

Sir,

India Office to Foreign Office.—(Received January 2.)

India Office, January 2, 1909. WITH reference to your letter, dated the 21st December, 1908, with regard to the instructions given to the British Delegates to the Shanghae Opium Commission, I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to request that you will lay before Sir Edward Grey the inclosed copy of a telegram from the Government of India.

I am to say that, even if the instructions had not been already settled and given. to the British Delegates, it would not, in Lord Morley's opinion, be possible to direct the Delegates to refuse to discuss in the Commission the two topics mentioned by the Government of India. If they are raised they will have to be discussed; and Lord Morley is not without hope that the consequences will not be as serious as the Govern- ment of India apprehends. But I am to suggest that the telegram should be communi- cated to Sir Clementi Smith and to Sir Alexander Hosie for their information, with such observations as Sir Edward Grey may think fit to make.

With regard to the first of the two questions mentioned in the telegram, I am to say that though the Commission will doubtless wish to inform itself as to the Regula tions in force in India for restricting the consumption of opium in that country, and to compare them with the practice of other countries, it may be disposed to recognize that purely domestic Regulations of this kind have no bearing on the question of opium traffic in the Far East, and that it is not called upon to pronounce upon their sufficiency. The British Delegates will be able to show that the Indian Regulations are the result of much thought and care, and it may be remarked that in their application to Burmah they were favourably commented on by the American Commissioner, who in 1905 investigated for the Government of the United States the opium question in the East.

With regard to the second topic referred to in the telegram, I am to say that Lord Morley thinks that the Chinese Government may be disposed to inform the Commission that it is satisfied with the arrangement which has been concluded between it and His Majesty's Government for the progressive restriction of the Indian opium trade, and its extinction parri passu with the extinction of the cultivation of opium in China at the end of ten years. The available evidence goes to show that the period that has been fixed by the Chinese Government itself is none too long for the suppres sion of the opium habit and opium cultivation in China; and at the present early stage of the reform it would not be fair to India to ask it to revise in advance of the facts an Agreement which already has entailed considerable sacrifices on the part of the public revenues, the native Chiefs, and the peoples of India. If the Agreement is to be revised, the proper stage for revision would be two or three years hence, when the progress of reform in China could be more accurately determined than at present.

It might be an advantage if the attitude of the Chinese Government towards the arrangement already made and the ten-years period could be diplomatically ascertained before the meeting of the Commission. I am to suggest that, if Sir Edward Grey sees no objection, His Majesty's Minister might be instructed to this effect.

I am, &c.

(Signed) COLIN G. CAMPBELL.

Inclosure in No. 1.

Government of India to Viscount Morley.

(Telegraphic.) P.

December 22, 1908. WITH reference to your Revenue Secretary's letter of the 27th November, forwarding note of American Embassy dated the 21st November. International Opium Commission.

We are not in possession of your views as to terms of reference; but, while willing

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