CO129-372 - Public Offices - 1910 — Page 490

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

OPIUM,

CONFIDENTIAL.

[25500]

C

24839

[July 14.]

RECR

SECTION 2.

Rre 12 AUG 10,

No. 1.

(No. 210.) Sir,

Mr. Max Müller to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received July 14.)

Peking, June 24, 1910. SINCE writing my despatch No. 173 of the 31st ultimo, the tax of 30 cents. per tael on prepared opium has been enforced in the province of Kuangtung, and my telegrams No. 113 of the 15th June and No. 116 of to-day, have informed you of the representations which I have in consequence made to the Wai-wu Pu, though my action does not hitherto appear to have produced the desired effect.

On receipt of your telegram No. 84 of the 9th instant, I instructed His Majesty's consul-general at Canton to protest against any measure violating the rights secured to us by the additional article to the Chefoo convention, and I asked him to report whether the new tax was being enforced, and whether he had received a satisfactory reply from the Viceroy to his note of the 4th May. The substance of Mr. Jamieson's reply, which was to the effect that in his opinion the new regulations did now infringe the additional article, was communicated to you in my telegram No 110 of the 11th June. The same day I received the accompanying telegram from the officer administering the government of Hong Kong, and the following day a further telegram from the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce, protesting against Mr. Jamieson's attitude and stating that they had telegraphed direct to you.

I have since received the enclosed despatch from Mr. Jamieson forwarding a translation of the regulations, which at first sight do not appear to be so objectionable, especially as their purpose is to prevent the storing of large stocks of opium against the time when total suppression is enforced.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to endorse some of the statements made by Mr. Jamieson to a representative of Messrs. Sassoons, and reported in his despatch. For instance, it appears to me impossible to accept his statement that "by treaty we have no grounds of protest unless taxation were differential," or that "it was open to the Chinese Government to deal with the suppression of opium smoking in any manner they saw fit, so long as equality of treatment between foreign and native raw opium obtained"; or again, "that in the extremely unlikely event of every ounce of Chinese opium having ceased to exist, and no further supplies being grown, the Chinese Government could, with a perfect show of right, approach the British Government with a request that the sale of British opium cease.' On the other hand, there is a good deal to bo said in favour of Mr. Jamieson's refusal to interfere on the ground that the tax was levied on the actual weight of prepared opium, and collected from the boiler, who recovered from the smokers. I remember that in the course of the conversations which I had in Shanghai last December with the heads of the Sassoon firms, it was admitted that it would be exceedingly difficult to entirely exempt foreign opium from the effect of a tax levied on prepared opium, as it might well happen that foreign and native opium might be boiled together, so that even if we obtained in theory the exemption of foreign opium in treaty ports from a tax on prepared opium, it would be difficult to obtain it in practice.

I would draw your special attention to what Mr. Jamieson writes as to the object of the present regulations. He says:----

"The former" (ie., the well-to-do classes) "are willing to pay any price for their favourite drug, and are commencing to hoard opium against the time when total suppression comes into force. It is with a view to endeavouring to check this propensity and to retain raw opium under observation that the authorities are calling for a return of sales effected by the wholesale dealers."

Turning to the regulations themselves, I see nothing that we can reasonably object to in Nos. 1 or 2, nor do I agree with Sir F. May that clause 3, by which every importer of raw opium, after payment of the prescribed duty, must report to the Kuang Yuan office the quantity imported, and of any sales effected before the opium

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