CO129-362 - Public Offices - 1909 — Page 766

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

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IREC (REGE 25 OCT 09)

CHINA TRADE.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[October 4.]

SECTION 2.

[36691]

(No. 333.) Sir,

No. 1.

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received October 4.)

Peking, September 15, 1909. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 220 of the 26th July, in which you request my views as to a protest of Messrs. E. D. Sassoon against certain new regulations issued by the Bureau of Opium Suppression at Soochow

It would appear that the regulations to which Messrs. Sassoon take exception are those which formed the subject of my despatch No. 290 of the 17th ultimo to you.

You will have seen from Mr. Goffe's despatch No. 24 of the 2nd August, and Sir Pelham Warren's despatch No. 57 of the 28th July, that both the former Viceroy at Nanking and the governor of Kiangsu admit that the new rules should apply solely to Chinese native grown opium, and you will also have been put in possession of my views on the matter by a perusal of the despatch which I addressed to Mr. Goffe ou the 13th ultimo.

I have not yet heard from Mr. Goffe whether he has been able to come to any satisfactory arrangement with the new Viceroy as to the exclusion of foreign. opium from the scope of the regulations to which Messrs. Sassoon take exception, but I hope that the instructions which I sent to Mr. Goffe will meet with your approval. These instructions were practically identical with those which I had previously sent to the acting British consul-general at Canton, and which you communicated to Messrs. Sassoon in your letter of the 27th July.

I have, &c.

[2470 d-2]

J. N. JORDAN.