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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majestys Government162
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CHINA TRADE.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[40076]
(No. 372.)
Sir,
No. 1.
[November 1].
SECTION 2.
NOV 09
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received November 1.)
Peking, October 12, 1909.
I HAVE received from the Governor of Hong Kong two copies of his memorandum on the opium question as it affects Hong Kong, and in accordance with the instructions contained in your despatch No. 177 of the 22nd June, I have the honour to offer the following observations in regard to it.
The greater portion of the memorandum is devoted to a description (a) of the action of the Government of Hong Kong in prohibiting the export of prepared opium from Hong Kong to China and preventing the smuggling of opium into China; and (b) of the methods adopted by the Colonial Government to restrict and control the consumption of opium within the Colony. It is obvious that I am not in a position to enter into any discussion on this portion of the memorandum; in fact, taking the memorandum as a whole I am so entirely in accord with what Sir Frederick Lugard says, that it is not at all an easy matter for me to offer any observations. I notice, moreover, that the suggestions as to the line of action which, in Sir Frederick Lugard's opinion, should be taken by the Chinese Government in order to regulate the opium traffic and which appeared in the memorandum as originally prepared, have been omitted from the published version. I will, therefore, confine myself to stating in regard to these suggestions that I should personally be very reluctant to recommend any particular course of action to the Chinese Government.
The Chinese nowadays think that they know their own business best, and are not likely to act on the unsolicited advice of foreign officials, however kindly meant, unless they can by doing so satisfy some ulterior object. Even if they did for some reason or other adopt suggestions put forward by us, it appears to me that we should be incurring unnecessary responsibility in regard to the success attending their adoption. Whenever I have had to make representations to the Chinese on the subject of their regulations for the suppression of opium smoking, I have been. careful not to advise the adoption of any particular measures, but have always spoken in general terms and confined myself to requesting that care should be taken that the regulations issued should not be allowed to interfere with the wholesale trade in foreign opium. China can take what measures she likes in regard to the production and sale of native opium, but there is no need for her to take any steps for the suppression of the trade in foreign opium. Under the terms of her agree- ment with Great Britain China has only to fulfil her part of the bargain and the extinction of the traffic in foreign opium will follow as a matter of course.
Sir Frederick Lugard proves very conclusively that there is practically no raw opium smuggled from Hong Kong to China, and, as to prepared opium, it would not pay to smuggle it as the price in Hong Kong is so much higher than in China. On p. 3 of the memorandumi, however, he shews that, in spite of the pledge given by China to prohibit the exportation of prepared opium from China into Hong Kong, smuggling still takes place on a large scale, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the Viceroy of Canton and the Imperial Maritime Customs to put a stop to illicit traffic. He suggests that the only efficacious method of stopping the practice would he by removing all pecuniary inducement to indulge in it, and this could be done by raising the price of prepared opium in China, which is at present about half of the Hong Kong price, to a parity with that price. This suggestion, in itself an admirable one, was, I understand, communicated by His Majesty's consul-general at Canton to the Viceroy, and is now put forward by the latter as a reason for imposing additional taxation on prepared opium, foreign as well as native, in contra- vention of the Additional Article of 1885 to the Chefoo Convention. As I said before, it is dangerous offering suggestions to the Chinese as to the measures they should adopt.
In the next paragraph Sir Frederick Lugard suggests that China should abandon her exports of Chinese-grown opium to Siam and Cochin-China, both of which countries, like herself, have declared their desire to restrict the consumption of opium. It
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