CO129-384 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 285

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

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[29548]

No. 1.

2825 20484

[July 27.] Rec?

SECTION 1.

Dear Alston,

India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received July 27.)

India Office, July 26, 1911.

I SEND you a copy of a letter from the Secretary to the Government of India in the Finance Department, explaining their position with regard to the sales of certified Bengal opium. You will see that it refers to a Foreign Office telegram of the 4th July to Jordan. It might be well to let the latter have a copy of Meston's letter.

Yours sincerely,

T. W. HOLDERNESS, Secretary,

Revenue and Statistics Department.

Enclosure in No. 1.

Government of India to India Office.

My dear Holderness,

WILL you kindly refer to Sir Edward Grey's telegram No. 105 of the 4th instant

Simla, July 6, 1911. to Sir John Jordan. In that telegram it is mentioned that we have sold our year's supply of certificated opium at Calcutta, and that the sales of July and future months will contain uncertified opium only.

I am sorry that, owing probably to the brevity of our previous telegrams, this statement is not quite exact. We had, it is true, offered the full amount of the China export for auction during the first six months; but we could not compel purchasers to export to China only. What we did was to offer the chests for sale with the option of certificates for China, that option to be exercised when delivery was taken at the Calcutta warehouse. On making up our accounts, we find something between 1,100 and 1,200 chests on which certificates could have been claimed were taken out without certificates, no doubt in order to meet the more imperative demands of our other customers. The result is that we shall be at liberty to sell this amount during the last six months of the calendar year; and it appears that the Bengal Government had promised the trade to divide up any residue of this character by equal instalments over the six sales from July to December inclusive. This explains the 195 chests which we sold on Tuesday with the option of certificates. A similar amount may be expected to be offered at each of the next five auctions.

Yours, &c.

JAS. MESTON.

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