HE
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He also says "I cannot help feeling that we shall find that China has more than fulfilled her share of the bargain."
CL
In these circumstances we think that our Government ought to modify the ten years' arrangement. On the 29th July, 1907, three friends of our cause were accorded a private interview with Mr. Morley, when the present arrangement had just been announced and was the subject discussed. One point concerned a probable plea on the part of China for more speedy reduction, and the question was asked: "Would Mr. Morley be prepared to consider such a plea if deliberately put before him by the Chinese authorities? In reply he said he could only refer to his statement on the 30th May, 1906, that any deliberate proposals from the Chinese Government ou So far as we are the subject of opium would meet with sympathetic consideration." aware the Chinese Government have not thus deliberately proposed a modification of the arrangement, for they feel that as the weaker nation they must take what they can get rather than get what they ask. But Sir Alexander Hosie has distinctly certified to the anxiety of the Central Government to shorten the limit ("China No. 1, 1909," p. 4). And at the Shanghae Commission, when the possibility of a change was brought forward by the American delegates, Tong Kai Sun, the leading Chinese spokesman, said that, while China had no wish to go back upon the agreement, she would appreciate any assistance in curtailing the period of importation. China, he thought, was not precluded from asking that her case be taken into further sympathetic consideration. (Report, Vol. I, pp. 55-6.)
We therefore venture to suggest to you that it would be altogether worthy of Britain, with her record of justice and consideration for nations not so highly favoured as herself, if, even in the absence of any official proposal from China, the British Government intimated a willingness to modify the agreement, and to shorten the period agreed upon.
We note with interest the statement in your letter that there is nothing in the agreement which binders China antedating the ten years, and that she is well aware of this. But what she is not equally well aware of is our willingness to antedate in In replying to a that case the cessation of the Indian export of opium to China. deputation in Edinburgh on the 17th December, 1909, the Under-Secretary for India gave us hope that such might be the policy of the British Government. He said that, in the case of China thus antedating the production of her opium, "the trade in foreign opium will, under the arrangement with Great Britain, correspondingly cease." If Lord Morley confirms this statement, and it is approved by you, we trust you will not delay to communicate it officially to China, as we are certain that the knowledge of it would have an immediate and immense effect in stimulating her in her heroic efforts to eradicate the evil against which she is struggling.
If the concession regarding the shortening of the ten years' period is granted, the other matter treated of in your letter-the revision of the treaties--becomes less important. Yet we continue to think and to urge that the clauses which our Peking Legation deems so detrimental to China (“China No. 1, 1908," p. 32) should by mutual agreement be held in abeyance. We are thankful for the clear interpretation of these clauses which you give in your letter. We only wish that the "wholesale dealers," to whom you refer, and your consular agents would apply the clauses accordingly. We fear that they have not been so applied in regard to the Kucheng incident referred to in the "Times of the 11th January. The "unswerving sincerity" of the Chinese is deliberately certified to in a resolution at the Shanghae Commission drawn up by the British delegation. But in the case referred to their sincerity was called in question, although they had evidenced it by raising thousands of dollars voluntarily in place of opium revenue. You seem to think that the Kucheng authorities by their action in shutting the shops wished either to institute a monopoly of all opium, or to give an unfair opportunity for the sale of the native drug to the detriment of the Indian. We cannot see how the facts, carefully verified by Bishop Price, give any colour to this theory. The bishop wrote to the agent of Messrs. Jardine after he had a report of your reply to the Scottish memorial of last June, in which you said that, while upholding treaty rights, you would support bona fide steps for the suppression of the evil, and we cannot but think that he was right in supposing that the effort came under such a category. But even if, on enquiry, you find that the forcing of our Indian opium upon an inland district was thus in accordance with treaty right, surely, if such practices are to be allowed, it is high time that the clauses that make them legal were swept away. They seem to us to be entirely obsolete, belonging to a period when it was held that the destiny of Britain was to rule and the fate of China to be ruled," but totally foreign to a time when China is plainly seen to be qualifying herself for
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being included in the comity of nations, and likely before long to rank as a great world Power.
Ere closing, permit us to mention the matter of morphia. At p. 28 of the recent White Paper Mr. Max Müller refers to it. He says, "It is to be feared that, without the assistance of countries from which the morphia is exported, China will be unable to check the smuggling of it along her extensive sea and land frontier,' More than half of the world's supply of morphia is still manufactured in Britain (the larger part in Edinburgh), and quantities of it are sent directly or indirectly to the East. The Shanghae Commission, as you are aware, recommended that its "manufacture, sale, and distribution" should be supervised. We have asked the Board of Trade to put morphia separately among the export of drugs, so that the quantity sent out might be known, but this very slight "supervision" has not as yet been granted, and we should be glad if you could see your way to do something in the matter.
With every desire to assist and not to hinder a beneficent foreign policy, which shall redound to the good name of our country abroad, we remain,
On behalf of the Representative Board of British Anti-
Opium Societies,
JAMES L. MAXWELL, M.D.,
Chairman of Representative Board. On behalf of the Society for the Suppression of the
Opium Trade,
JOSEPH G. ALEXANDER,
Honorary Secretary.
On behalf of the Christian Union for the Severance of the Connection of the British Empire with the Opium Traffic,
B. BROOMHALL, Honorary Secretary.
On behalf of the Women's Anti-Opium Urgency
Committee,
RACHEL B. BRAITHWAITE,
A. CALDECOTT,
Honorary Secretary.
Chairman of the Church Anti-Opium
Committee.
G. S. MUIR,
Honorary Secretary, Edinburgh Com- mittee for Suppression of Indo- Chinese Opium Traffic.
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