CO129-367 - Acting Governor May - 1910 [6-7] — Page 370

£

Enclosure 2.

368

25554

MECT

Reef 19 AUG 10

Telegram to Tai Wu Pa from Acting Governor-General.

the Vai

Pu at Peking.

I received your telegram of the 18th. (June

24) and instructed the Taotal in charge of the Opium Prohibition

Bureau to make further enquiries into the matter and furnish

me with a report which has now been submitted to me.

The Kuangtung Licence Tax is collected from prepared opium shops and from opiwm smokers after the raw opium has been botled down, and is not levied on raw opium at the

time it is taken out of bond, and in no way does it infringe the Additional Article of the Chefoo Convention. This I re-

-ported to you telegraphically on the 18th. (June 24.)

This levy is not ad additional tax on raw

an

opium; and foreign opium in the original packages in which it

is imported is not injuriously affected, either directly or in-

-directly, in the slightest degree. Moreover, foreign and native opium alike, after being boiled, must pay the tax, 80 that this is not an attempt to accord foreigners differential treatment; and besides, it is essentially a matter concerning

the internal administration of China.

As regards the limit of time allowed for

the boiling of the opium, that has been introduced with the

object of frustrating the intention of certain rascally mer- -chants in the interior to hoard opium.

You arranged with the British Minister the

following method of prohibiting the import of foreign spimaj starting from the 12th, moon of the 33rd. year of Kuang Han, amount was to be decreased by one-tenth per annum. I observe, however, from the Customs Trade Returns that the amount of fore- -ign spium imported in the 34th. year of Kuang Hsu only shows a decrease of 3% as compared with the 33rd. year of Kuang Hsu;

while in the 1st. year of Hsuan T1ung, there is actually an increase over the previous year's figures and not a decrease.

the

As