CO129-372 - Public Offices - 1910 — Page 539

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

535

25501

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[28340]

No. 1.

REC

REG19 AUG 10) [August 5.

SECTION 1.

India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received August 5.)

India Office, August 4, 1910.

Sir,

I AM directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 22nd July, 1010, transmitting for any observations which Lord Morley may have to offer a copy of a despatch with enclosures from. His Majesty's chargé d'affaires at Peking on the subject of the Canton opium regulations.

In reply, I am to say that the views of the Secretary of State in Council on the regulations and as to the extent to which they infringe the provisions of existing treaties have been communicated to you in my letter dated the 25th July, 1910, and that Lord Morley has no further observations on this head to offer.

With regard to the last paragraph of your letter, I am to say that Lord Morley fully agrees that His Majesty's Government is not called upon to sympathise with or support the efforts of dealers to secure large profits before prices of opium fall to a normal level. The only consideration which should weigh in the matter is whether the provincial regulations substantially and obviously abrogate existing rights of British traders, and discriminate between native and foreign opium to the prejudice of the latter. The Imperial Chinese Government has been invited to agree to the extension for a further term of the prescut agreement, and has been informed of the willingness of His Majesty's Government to discuss any points on which its conditions appear to require amendment. His Majesty's Government, having thus evinced their good-will and their wish to deal with China in a most considerate spirit, may reasonably expect that the central Government of that country will insist on a proper observance by the provincial Governments of the conditions of the present, as of any future,. agreement between the two Powers. At present this is not the case.

I am, &c.

[2860 e---1]

R. RITCHIE.

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