CO129-382 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 463

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

[5508]

(No. 29.)

(Telegraphic) R.

No. 3.

Sir Edward Grey to Sir J. Jordan

Foreign Office, February 15, 1911.

YOUR telegram No. 35 of 8th February. Until by revision of existing treaties Chinese Government obtain power to exclude uncertificated opium, they are not entitled to discriminate between one class of opium and another. The Government of India are responsible to buyers of opium before 1911 and to buyers of certificated opium in 1911 that these two classes of opium shall not be denied, even in the event of treaty revision, entry into China, and they seek accordingly that in any treaty revision this shall be secured. But they are not under similar responsibility with regard to uncertificated opium sold in 1911, which may in the event of treaty revision be excluded from China.

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[6343]

со

6653

[February 16.]

Yrs 17 MAR

SECTION 1.

No. 1.

Question asked in the House of Commons, February 16, 1911.

Mr. Lloyd, To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has sny recent information respecting the decrease of poppy growth in China, and in which province is the decrease, if any, most marked.

Answer.

Sir Alexander Hosie, who is now making a tour of inspection in the provinces of China, reports that, so far as his information goes, poppy cultivation has ceased in Shansi, and has been reduced by 30 per cent. in Shensi and under 25 per cent. in Kansu. In those parts of Szechuan which Sir Alexander Hosie has visited, he reports that the suppression of the poppy cultivation appears to have been successfully carried out by the Chinese authorities.

[1897 q-1]

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