[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.)
OPIUM,
CONFIDENTIAL.
[45708]
(No. 435.) Sir,
622
[December 19.]
SECTION 1.
RECE Rest 7 JAN ||
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received December 19.)
Peking, December 1, 1910.
I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith a copy of a letter, dated the 25th November, which has been addressed to me by the provincial branch of the Chinese National Anti-Opium Society, together with a copy of my reply.
The anti-opium agitation in England, and the publication in this country of the "United Christian Appeal for the Ending of the Indo-Chinese Opium Traffic," have given rise to a similar movement in North China, especially in the port of Tien-tsin and in Peking. The chief leader of this movement, which is mainly confined to the student class, is an American citizen named Edward Waite Thwing, who styles himself "General Secretary for China of the International Reform Bureau.' He is the gentleman whose claim to sit as delegate from Hawaii, on the Shanghai International Opium Commission of 1909 was rejected by the American delegates to that commission.
The agitation is being carried on in the foreign and native press and by meetings and mass-meetings of anti-opium societies, some of them, including the Chinese National Anti-Opium Society, being quite recent institutions, and on the 3rd November, Mr. Thwing addressed a meeting of members of the Senate in Peking, exhorting them to demand the abrogation of the opium clause of the treaty of Ticn-tsin, and assuring them of the support of the American people and Government. At a meeting of the Senate, held on the 25th November, it was moved aud seconded that the Wai-wu Pu be requested not to sign any new agreement regarding the opium question, and it was further agreed that the Wai-wu Pu be asked to give information as to the agreement now in course of negotiation. At an anti-opium meeting, held at Peking on the 27th November, resolutions were carried that a petition be addressed to the Wai-wu Pu urging it to negotiate with the British Government for the abrogation of the clause legalising the opium trade, and demanding independence of action on the part of China in the matter of opium suppression; also that a petition be addressed to the Senate praying for a shortening of the period for the suppression of opium, and begging the Senate to communicate to the Wai-wu Pa a request for the abrogation of the opium clauses of the treaties.
Some of the letters which have appeared in the vernacular press base their demands for the abrogation of the opium clauses in the treaties on the unwarranted assumption that opium production in China has been completely suppressed, and that in future only foreign opium will be available for consumption, while that very press has recently contained in its columns the reports of the special Chinese commissioners deputed to investigate the extent of the diminution of production in China and a list of the punishments inflicted on various Viceroys and governors who had falsely reported the eradication of the poppy within their respective provinces.
The whole opium question is to form the subject of discussion in the Senate to-morrow, and it is suggested that the Wai-wu Pu, which is generally not too favourably disposed towards incursions by the Senate into its own field of activity, welcomes in this instance its action as tending to strengthen the hands of the Government in dealing with the opium proposals recently submitted by His Majesty's Government. The further consideration of these is fixed for the 5th instant, when I am to have an interview with the Grand Secretary Na T'ung regarding this and other questions.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
Mr. Thwing to Sir J. Jordan,
Tien-tsin, November 25, 1910. ON behalf of the people of China we send this direct appeal to your Excellency to aid us in the freedom of our country from the opium traffic.
We request your [1804 t-1]
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