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[This Document is the Property
g Britannic Majesty's Government.] 23533
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[June 30.]
SECTION 1.
[23514]
Sir,
No. 1.
Foreign Office to Board of Trade.
Foreign Office, June 30, 1911. I AM directed by Secretary Sir E. Grey to transmit to you herewith a copy of a letter from the India Office,* enclosing a letter from the Government of India drawing attention to the spread of the cocaine habit in Burmah and other parts of India, and expressing the view that their efforts towards the suppression of the evil will be fruitless unless something is done to restrict the export of the drug and its congeners from the chief manufacturing countries.
It will be observed that the cocaine introduced into India is mostly exported from Germany and Great Britain.
The Opium Conference has, as the Board are aware, been indefinitely postponed, so there can at present be no question of discussing the matter at The Hague. Moreover, it seems to Sir E. Grey that no steps of any kind can be taken in the sense desired by the Government of India until the Board of Trade have completed the statistics which they are preparing with regard to the trade in morphia and cocaine in this country. The matter is clearly one of great importance to India as well as to China and other Eastern countries, and he therefore hopes that these statistics may be forthcoming with the least possible delay, and, at the same time, he would be glad to receive the views of the Board as to the most effective means of putting a stop to the exportation of these drugs. Sir E. Grey would then be in a better position to press the German Govern- ment to adopt similar measures should it appear that there is no probability of the postponed conference meeting in the near future.
I am, &c.
F. A. CAMPBELL.
* India Office, June 15, 1911.
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