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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majestys Government.]. O
CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[39353]
No. 1.
32162
BFGR 23 NOV 09 SECTION 1.
[October 25.30
Sir,
Edinburgh Committee for the Suppression of the Indo-Chinese Opium Traffic to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received October 25.)
8, Greenbank Terrace, Edinburgh, October 23, 1909. I BEG to inclose letter on the subject of the Indo-Chinese opium traffic signed by the chairman of Executive and trust it will have your attention.
Be so kind as acknowledge receipt to me.
Yours faithfully,
G. S. MUIR, Hon. Secretary.
Sir,
Inclosure in No. 1.
Mr. M'Laren to Sir Edward Grey.~(Communicated by Mr. Muir.)
Edinburgh, October 23, 1909. AS the promoters of the memorial from Scotland regarding the opium traffic sent to you, through Mr. Price, M.P., in July last, and which you acknowledged to him on the 9th August, we desire most respectfully to refer again to the matter. We thankfully recognise in your reply the sympathy of His Majesty's Government with China in her efforts, but we feel that some of the statements made by you, and which have been widely published, may create misapprehension, and we respectfully submit to you one or two points which may have escaped your attention.
1. The Shortening of the Ten Years' Limit.-His Excellency Tong Shai Yi, the originator of the Chinese Anti-opium Regulations, mentioned in London last February (see enclosed pamphlet) what is noted in Sir J. Jordan's letter to you of the 30th September, 1906 ("China No. 1 (1908)," p. 2), that in 1905 he understood from conversations with Mr. Baker and other officials in Calcutta that India was prepared "to dispense with the opium revenue." He accordingly returned to China resolved to take action. His first proposal to his Government was a limit of three years. When that was dismissed as too short, he suggested six years, but finally, against his advice, ten years was fixed on. We have reason to believe that this extended term was chosen largely because it was thought that no shorter period would be accepted by Britain. His Excellency, however, went on to say that within the last two years he had met at Peking with nearly all the provincial governors and they were unanimous in agreeing with him that the opium question, so far as China was concerned, must be settled before the three years of probation are out. It should be noted that these three trial years were never contemplated by China, but were proposed by the Indian Government. On the other hand, while ten years was agreed to by China, so far as the Indian import was concerned, the Imperial Decree of the 22nd March, 1908, makes it clear that a possible shortening of the limit was to be kept in view by the provincial governors in their operations against the home growth (China No. 2 (1908)," p. 15).
Again, the influential Viceroy Tuan Fang, who has since been promoted viceroy of the metropolitan province of Chili, in opening the Shanghae Commission last February, said: "Poppy cultivation may be entirely stopped within the next couple years. Fortunate it will be if, by the labours of this conference, a way is found to shorten the limit and bring about the abolition of opium at an early date."
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Once more, the senior delegate to the commission, his Excellency Tang Kai Sun, said, in reporting for China: "The experience of the past two years convinces us that speed in the extermination, instead of increasing the difficulties, will minimise them. When a nation is ready to abolish an evil it should be done as soon as possible."
That this opinion is general in China is, we think, made indisputable by the report of Sir A. Hosie, dated last November and published in June ("China No. 1 (1909)"). He there says (p. 41): "It is well understood that the Government are
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