CO129-385 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 51

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

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL,

CO

33819 October 4.]

RECO

Rra£20 OCT IT

SECTION 1.

[38887]

No. L.

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received October 4.)

(No. 362.) Sir,

Peking, September 18, 1911, WITH reference to my despatch No. 301 of the 26th July, I have the honour to transmit to you herewith a copy of a note which I addressed to Prince Ching on the 7th instant on the subject of the various restrictions imposed on the Indian opium trade in the provinces of Fukien, Hunan, and Kiangsu, and requesting an explicit assurance that all regulations considered necessary for the enforcement of the last paragraph of article 7 of the agreement relating to opium of the 8th May shall, in accordance with the terms of that agreement, in future be issued by the Chinese Government and not by provincial authorities.

I have, &c.

Enclosure in No. 1.

J. N. JORDAN.

Sir J. Jordan to Prince Ching.

Your Highness,

Peking, September 7, 1911. IT will be well within your Highness's recollection that after a controversy lasting several months between this legation and your Highness's board the illegal restrictions placed by the provincial authorities at Canton on the Indian opium trade at that port have only recently been removed by the tardy assurance of the Governor-General that he must comply with the Imperial decree of the 25th July. And this assurance was com- municated to His Majesty's consul-general only as recently as the 18th August, more than three months after the conclusion of the agreement of the 8th May, 1911, article 7 of which provides that "on confirmation of this agreement, and beginning with the collection of the new rate of consolidated import duty, China will at once cause to be withdrawn all restrictions placed by the provincial authorities on the wholesale trade in Indian opium such as those recently imposed at Canton and elsewhere, and also all taxation on the wholesale trade other than the consolidated import duty, and no such restrictions or taxation shall be again imposed so long as the additional article to the Chefoo Convention remains as at present in force.

"It is also understood that Indian raw opium having paid the consolidated import duty shall be exempt from any further taxation whatsoever in the port of import."

Although the restrictions at Canton have now been removed, your Highness is aware, from the frequent representations which I have recently found it necessary to make to the Wai-wu Pu, that restrictions of various kinds have been and are still being imposed in other provinces, notably in Fukien, Hunan, and Kiangsu. As early as December 1910 regulations for the prohibition of opium in the Fukien province were issued, and these regulations inter alia made it a punishable offence to import raw opium after the time limit arbitrarily fixed for the extinction of the trade in opium by the framers of these regulations, while, as your Highness is aware, the prohibition of the import of Indian opium into any province of China is a matter for arrangement between our respective Governments. I have the honour to enclose a copy of these regulations. In March of the present year, again, other regulations for the suppression of the use of opium were issued in Fukien, and these regulations made it incumbent on buyers of raw opium locally or at outports to take out transit passes from the Auti-opium Association, and classed opium purchased without passes contraband, and liable to confiscation. I enclose a copy of these regulations, which are a violation of the additional article to the Chefoo Convention, wherein the procedure to be followed in the case of opium conveyed into the interior is clearly laid down. Again, at

[2226 d-1]

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