CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 549

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

C.

13608

OPIUM.

REC

[May 2.]

&

CONFIDENTIAL.

RES 16 JUN 11

SECTION 3.

[16409]

No. 1.

{

Sir,

India Office to Foreign Office.--(Received May 2.)

India Office, May 1, 1911. I AM directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 26th April, 1911, on the subject of a letter from Messrs. H. C. Dixon and Co., enquiring whether any new regulations enacted by China as a result of the present opium negotiations at Peking will apply to non-Indian as well as Indian opium.

I am to suggest that in place of the words "and that the opium of other countries, should it at any time be imported, would in any case not receive in the second paragraph of your letter, it would be correct to say, "but that the Chinese Government have laid down and enforced the principle that the opium of Persia or of any other country not having treaty rights shall not in any case receivo."

The authority for this is to be found in the Wai-wu Pu's letter of the 2nd December, 1907, to Sir John Jordan, and in Mr. Leech's second general report on the opium question.

I am, &c.

R. RITCHIE.

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