CO129-385 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 13

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

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[35795]

No. 1.

[September 11.]2749

SECTION 2.970

29 OCT ||

Colonial Office to Foreign Office.-(Received September 11.)

Sir,

Downing Street, September 8, 1911.

with I AM directed by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to transmit to you, reference to letter from the Colonial Office of the 1st September, copy of despatch from the Governor of Hong Kong on the subject of the prohibition of the importation of opium into Hong Kong.

Enclosure in No. 1.

I am, &c.

JOHN ANDERSON.

Governor Sir F. Lugard to Mr. Harcourt.

(Confidential.) Sir,

Government House, Hong Kong, July 25, 1911. WITH reference to your Confidential despatch of the 13th July, 1910, I have the honour to inform you that on the 4th April, 1910, the Colonial Secretary wrote to the consular authorities in this colony for Siam, Japan, United States of America, France, and the Netherlands, forwarding copies of Government notifications Nos. 93 and 94 of the 1st April, 1910, and requesting them to be good enough to bring these notifications to the attention of their Governments, and to state that this step had been taken in order to give effect to the resolution of the Shanghai Opium Conference, and that I hoped that their respective Governments would reciprocate by prohibiting the export of prepared opium, dross opium, morphine, or compounds of opium to this colony except for medicinal purposes.

2. To this letter no reply has been received up to date from Siam, but on the 18th October, 1910, Mr. T. Funatsu, acting consul-general for Japan, replied as follows:-

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(1). Japanese Government is strictly prohibiting the use of opium, morphine, and compounds of opium except for medical purposes, and no one, without licence, is allowed to sell or buy or possess them. All of the dross opium is burnt by the Govern- ment and no one can obtain it.

(2.) Custom officers are exercising every effort to prohibit the import and exp

export of opium, morphine, compounds of opium and dross opium, other than for medical purposes.

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"(8.) As to the particulars of co-operation among the contracting parties of the Shanghai Opium Conference in carrying out its resolutions, the Japanese authorities are of opinion that it would be better to wait the decision of the coming conference, which the American Government invited the interested parties, with the purpose to make regulations in order to give full effect to the resolutions of the Shanghai conference."

3. On the 28th July, 1910, Mr. S. Fuller, American vice-consul in charge, replied as follows:-

"The Secretary of State of the United States of America notes your statements that the notifications in regard to the prohibition of the exportation of opiam from Hong Kong are in conformity with and are intended to give effect to the resolutions of the Shanghai Opium Commission, and your request that they be brought to my Government's attention with an expression of the hope of his Excellency the Governor that my Government will reciprocate by prohibiting the exportation of prepared opiam, dross opium, morphine, or compounds of morphine to the Colony of Hong Kong except for medicinal purposes.

"I am directed to inform you that the Department of State has drafted and transmitted to Congress amendments to the Opium Exclusion Act approved the

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