CO129-372 - Public Offices - 1910 — Page 305

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

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[17685]

No. 1.

Foreign Office to India Office.

C

20142

[May 25,]

SECTION 2.

Sir,

WITH reference to the letter from your department of the 6th ultimo, and

Foreign Office, May 25, 1910. especially to the last paragraph of that letter, I am directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to state, for the information of Lord Morley, that an opportunity has been taken of consulting Sir J. Jordan as to the conditions on which the Government of India suggested that the Chinese Government should be offered an extension for a further term of three years of the existing arrangement for the progressive reduction of the Indian opium traffic with China.

It was considered desirable that His Majesty's chargé d'affaires at Peking should be asked whether he saw any objection to putting forward the conditions mentioned in paragraphs 12 and 13 of enclosure 2 in your letter.

I am to transmit berewith a copy of a telegram from Mr. Max Müller in reply,* suggesting that it might be as well to defer addressing the Wai-wu Pu on the subject of prolongation until he is in a position to return an answer from His Majesty's Government in regard to the question raised in his despatch No. 110 of the 20th April (a copy of which was forwarded to you in the letter from this department of the 18th instant), as to the importation of a quantity of opium from India in 1909 in excess of the number of chests agreed upon between China and Great Britain.

Sir E. Grey is disposed to agree in the course proposed, if Lord Morley also

I am, &c.

concurs.

F. A. CAMPBELL.

* Mr. Max Muller, No. 95, Telegraphic.

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