ل ای دی
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
(29404)
No. 1.
326
[August 9.]
SECTION 2.
C.O 9352
Sir,
Foreign Office to Mr. C. E. Price, M.P.
Foreign Office, August 9, 1909. I AM directed by Secretary Sir Edward Grey to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th ultimo, forwarding, on behalf of the Edinburgh committee for the suppression of the Indo-Chinese opium traffic, a memorial signed by some 3,000 persons from all parts of Scotland, urging the desirability of bringing that traffic to a more speedy end than has yet been arranged for.
His Majesty's Government fully sympathise with the object the petitioners have in view, but the reports from His Majesty's representatives in China, which have been laid before Parliament, tend to confirm the opinion that the period proposed by the Chinese Government for the complete suppression of the traffic is by no means excessive in order to enable a change of such magnitude in the habits of the population to be successfully effected.
The Chinese Government have expressed themselves as perfectly satisfied with the arrangement, which not only gives the Indian cultivator time to adapt himself to the new order of things, but also serves as a considerable incentive to the Chinese authorities to continue their laudable efforts to curtail the cultivation of the poppy in their own country; and in an Imperial decree issued last year the Throne declared itself deeply impressed by the enlightened and benevolent policy of the British Government.
His Majesty's Government believe that the steps they have taken are those best calculated to assist the Chinese Government in securing that the decrease of the growth and consumption of opium in China itself keeps pace with the decrease of the import from India. The Imperial decree of the Chinese Government confirms this view.
With regard to the action of His Majesty's Government in opposing the establish- ment of monopolies in the open ports, owing, as the memorialists are aware, to certain treaty provisions, His Majesty's Government are bound to uphold British treaty rights to which such monopolies would clearly constitute a contravention. But, while opposing such proposals as this, His Majesty's Government have been careful to make it clear to the Chinese Government that they have every desire to support bona fide steps for the suppression of the evils arising from the consumption of opium, and that it is possible and practicable to take such steps in a legitimate manner and without doing any violence to treaty stipulations.
I am, &c.
F. A. CAMPBELL.
[2396 i---2]
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