CO129-385 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 48

CO

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

OPIUM,

CONFIDENTIAL.

RECO

REGE20 OCT 11September 18.]

(Telegraphic.)

Enclosure in No. 1.

Government of India to the Marquess of Crews.

Simla, August 23, 1911. YOUR telegram of 14th August: Conference at The Hague on opium. Can you tell us what the business to be put before the conference will be? Its ostensible object was to be conventionalising of the Shanghai resolutions, but the detailed agenda originally suggested by the United States Government included number of objectionable issues which we trust have been now eliminated. We also presume that position of highest importance will be given to measures for stopping illicit trade in cocaine and kindred drugs, which threaten greater evils to India than opium has ever Increased caused, and which will become possibly substitutes for opium in China. international control over opium without corresponding restrictions over cocaine, morphia, and their congeners will be worse than useless. We have, however, little confidence in motives or the judgment of some of the promoters of the conference, and there are two subjects which we will urge upon His Majesty's Government to insist on excluding from recommendations of conference: one is the arrangement regarding our Indian trade with China, the other is our domestic regulation of the production and use of opium in India. The working of recent Peking agreement requires most delicate position handling, and China seems only too ready to seize on any excuse for making our more difficult. Rapid disappearance of trade which is now inevitable will strain severely resources of British India and the temper of a number of our native States, where serious hardship must result. We would most strongly deprecate any enhancement of these difficulties by outside interference as regards our internal regulations. We shall shortly address you by despatch, but the question which is associated with gravest political and humanitarian considerations is obviously one for the British Government alone, and it should be as clearly excluded from recommendations of proposed conference at The Hague as it was from those of the Shanghai Commission. On learning from you probable agenda of the conference, we shall send you materials for our case by despatch, and we would urge that Indian interests should be represented strongly.

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(No. 343.) Sir,

No. 1.

SECTION 2.

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received September 18.)

THE Wai-wu Pu have recently approached me on several occasions with regard

Peking, September 2, 1911. to the arrangements which we are prepared to make in conjunction with thera for carrying out the fourth article of the Opium Agreement of the 8th May last, and have intimated to me their intention of undertaking an extensive investigation of the provinces with the view of determining how far the suppression of the cultivation and import of native opium may have entitled them to claim the exclusion of Indian opium under acticle 3 of the agreement.

Chihli and Fukien have been specially mentioned as provinces in which there is a strong popular demand for total abolition, and it is expected that the National Assembly, when it meets next month, will bring great pressure to bear upon the Government to have effect given to the resolution which it passed last session for the extinction of the opium trade within a limited period of time.

The Wai-wu Pu are therefore naturally anxious to show that the agreement of 1911 is producing good results, and that they are ready to meet the wishes of any province which declares for exclusion.

In a note, copy of which I have the honour to enclose, they have requested me to inform them in due time of the steps we intend to take for the appointment of the necessary officials, and I bave therefore the honour to submit for your consideration. the following recommendations :-

Nothing can be usefully done in the matter until next spring, when the poppy crop will be sufficiently advanced for the purpose of the investigation. There would be at least ten provinces which would require to be examined within a limited space of time, and I would suggest that consular officers should be detached from the larger consulates to do the work in company with the delegates appointed by the Chinese Government. The provinces of Shensi and Kansu, for instance, might be allotted to an officer from this legation; the consulate-general at Tien-tsin might spare a man to examine Chibli and Shantung; from Hankow an officer might be detached to inspect Hunan and Hupei, and the provinces in the vicinity of Shanghai might, if necessary, be examined by a member of the Shanghai consulate-general. Fukien would be assigned to the Foochow consulate.

Sir A. Hosie, who has performed most valuable services in connection with the whole question, should, I venture to suggest, direct and supervise all these various enquiries and devote his time generally to seeing that the agreement of 1911 is effectively carried out in the interests of India. The Chinese Government are impatient of any delay on our part in giving effect to the wishes of the provinces, and consider that we have been most unreasonable in refusing to entertain their first application under article 3 until the restrictions mentioned in article 7 were removed. restrictions will be renewed and continued in one form or another, so long as Indian That these opium is imported, is a moral certainty, and Sir A. Hosie's presence here and his personal knowledge of the question are of the greatest assistance to me in dealing with the vast mass of correspondence which reaches the legation from the opium merchants, the Hong Kong Government, and the consuls at the ports on this vexed and complicated question. I trust, therefore, that sanction will be given to his retention here for the present.

I have, &c.

J. N. JORDAN.

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