CO129-383 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 590

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

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10008

OPIUM.

[May 26.]

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CONFIDENTIAL.

16 JUN 11

SECTION 1.

[20179]

No. 1.

(No. 199.) Sir,

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received May 26.)

Peking, May 8, 1911. I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith one of the copies of the agreement which was signed to-day by myself and his Excellency Tson Chia-lai, President of the Wai-wu Pu. Attached to the agreement is an annex, also signed, which deals with the question of uncertificated opium in bond at the treaty ports and in stock in Hong Kong, prescribes the conditions under which uncertificated opium may be imported into China for a period of two months from the date of signature of the agreement, and specifies the reductions to be made in the export of certified opium from India during the years 1912, 1913, and 1914, in consideration of the treatment accorded by China to the existing stocks of uncertificated opium.

The agreement, which is a continuation of the 1907 arrangement for the unexpired period of seven years, has been drawn up on both sides with an earnest desire to meet the requirements of the present situation, and to provide, as far as possible, for future developments. It recognises the signal success which has so far attended the Chinese efforts to suppress the growth of native opium, and, as a token of their readiness to facilitate the continuance of this work and to ensure its ultimate consummation, His Majesty's Government undertake that the export of Indian opium to China shall cease in less than seven years if the Chinese Government are in a position to furnish proof of the complete absence of native opium in China.

But as all the available evidence went to show that the work of suppression had not been uniform, and that some provinces had made much more rapid progress than others, it was considered necessary, at the risk of appearing to duplicate the arrangement for total extinction, to make provision for prohibition by provinces so as to ensure any province which had rid itself of native opium against the possibility of finding foreign opium taking the place of the native article.

It has therefore been agreed that Indian opium shall not enter any province which can establish by clear evidence that it has effectively suppressed the cultivation and import of native opium. Provinces like Shansi, Chihli, and possibly Szechuan will doubtless soon qualify for a place on the list of prohibition States, and will not be exposed to the risk of any reaction in favour of opium while more backward provinces are still working out their emancipation. As, however, it was frankly admitted in the course of the negotiations that considerations of revenue and various other circum- stances made it impossible to apply this provision for the present to Canton and Shanghai, which have long been distributing centres to large areas drawing their supplies of opium almost entirely from abroad, a formula had to be framed which would exclude these two ports from the immediate operation of the agreement, while reserving to them the privilege of benefiting by it as soon as the condition of their finances and their success in abandouing the opium habit permitted. The agreement, as it now stands, makes Canton and Shanghai the last ports to be closed to Indian opium, and no one who is at all acquainted with the circumstances will deny that this is the natural order which those two ports should occupy in any arrangement of the kind.

Under article 4 of the agreement His Majesty's Government are granted permission to take steps for obtaining continuous evidence of the diminution of the native cultivation, and here I may be allowed to state, on the authority of high Chinese officials, that the investigations which we have made into this question during the past three years have proved of the greatest value to the Chinese authorities in their task of opium suppression. The former Viceroy of Szechuan, his Excellency Chao Erb- hsiin, who has done more than any other man to rid his country of opium, told me a few days ago that the knowledge that British eyes were watching and British observers reporting on the progress of the opium campaign in every corner of the province had served as a great stimulus to himself and his subordinates to carry on the struggle to a finish. It is no exaggeration to say that the reports furnished to this legation by missionaries and travellers, and more recently by Sir A. Hosie, have furnished

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