CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 362

This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majestys uovernment.Į

[B]

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[16412]

C O 16339

[May 4.]

MAY

SECTION 2.

No. 1.

Sir Edward Crey to Mr. Whitelaw Reid.

Your Excellency,

Foreign Office, May 4, 1911. WITH reference to your note of the 18th ultimo, in which your Excellency was good enough to give me the names of the United States delegates to the proposed Opium Conference at The Hague, I have the honour to transmit herewith, for your information, copies of a note which I have received from the Netherlands Minister, and of my reply thereto, on the subject of the date of the assembling of the conference.

Your Excelleney will observe that the German and Japanese Governments are not yet in a position to accept the conditions on which His Majesty's Government consent to take part in the proposed conference, and that the Portuguese Government have not yet concluded their investigations into the production and sale of morphia and cocaine, and therefore reserve their opinion as to the possible date for summoning it.

I am further informed by the French Government that they concur in the questions which His Majesty's Government have suggested should be brought before the conference, and that although they accept, as far as they are concerned, the date of the 1st July for the meeting of the conference, they will be unable to furnish by that date the statistics necessary to enable the conference to deal thoroughly and completely with the question of restricting the manufacture, sale, and distribution of morphia, and with the allied question of cocaine, as desired by His Majesty's Government. The French Government are, moreover, unable to indicate approximately when they will be able to produce these statistics.

I feel sure that, in bringing the above facts to the notice of your Government, the Secretary of State will readily understand the view of His Majesty's Government that until Germany, Japan, and Portugal, who are among the most important of the participating Powers, are agreed as to the necessity for placing effective restrictions on the sale and exportation of morphia and cocaine, and are able to furnish the necessary data, the conference could not accomplish what is desired and expected of it. On the other hand, as soon as these countries are in a position to comply with the conditions referred to, His Majesty's Government will be only too happy to take part in the conference.

I am glad to avail myself of this opportunity of asking your Excellency to be so good as to acquaint your Government with the fact that the Government of India are prepared, in accordance with the views expressed in the fourth resolution of the Shanghai International Commission, to prohibit the export of opium to prohibitionist countries, and to take all reasonable supplementary measures to make this prohibition effective, independently, if desired, of the meeting of the proposed conference.

I have, &c.

* Baron Gericke, April 22; to ditto, May 4, 1911.

[2011 d-2]

E. GREY.

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