CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 195

[This Document is the Property of His Pritannic Majesty's Government.?

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[13471]

No. 1.

Foreign Office to India Office.

17 [Aprit 10.]

SECTION

Sir,

Foreign Office, April 10, 1911. I AM directed by Secretary Sir Edward Grey to state, for the information of Viscount Morley, that the Chinese Minister came to see me on the 7th instant on the subject of the opium negotiations, and that on my observing that the principal difficulty now apparently lay in the question of "suppression by provinces," Mr. Lin said that he did not believe and he had made much study of the question-that this was practicable. Mr. Lin was of opinion that it would be far preferable that the Chinese Government should announce, as soon as they were in a position to do so, that the cultivation of opium was suppressed and at an end throughout China, and that there- upon at the expiration of a fixed period-one year, for instance-all importation from India should cease.

I replied that I could not say whether the Government of India would consider this plan a workable one, but I promised that I would mention it as an idea which had occurred to him.

(1973 -2]

I am, &c.

F. A. CAMPBELL

192

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