CO129-385 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 92

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the precedure in that province altered so that it does not amount to a levy of a tax on raw opium.

Again, respecting the Soochow and Shanghai smoker's licence tax, on receipt of your Excellency's note of the 24th ultimo, my board telegraphed to the Governor of Kiangsu forbidding the collection of the tax by the raw and prepared opium dealers, and in reply we received a telegram as follows-

"Have instructed anti-opium bureau to alter regulations. Will examine question and report by despatch."

While awaiting a further report, we send this meantime for your Excellency's information. My board has never failed to give directions when required for the rectification of any departure from the spirit of the agreement which may have occurred in the work of opium suppression as carried out in the provinces, thus marking our zeal in discharging China's responsibilities under that instrument.

As regards your Excellency's proposal that all prohibitory regulations should be issued by this board alone, this involves the prerogatives of other boards, and the Boards of the Interior and of Finance must be consulted before any action can be taken.

Your Highness,

Enclosure 2 in No. 1.

I avail, &c.

Prince CHING.

Sir J. Jordan to Prince Ch'ing.

Peking, September 21, 1911 I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Highness's note of the 16th instant, in reply to my note of the 7th September, in which I drew your Highness's attention to the numerous provincial restrictions on, and the illegal taxation of, the trade in Indian opium, and requested your Highness to give me an explicit assurance that in future any regulations that may be considered necessary for the enforcement of the last paragraph of article 7 of the agreement of the 8th May, shall, in accordance with the terms of that agreement, be issued and published by the Chinese Government, and that the issue of further provincial regulations of any kind bearing on this subject shall cease.

In the reply now under acknowledgment, your Highness's board point out that the majority of the Fukien regulations and proclamations by which the restrictions in that province were imposed were issued prior to the signature of the agreement of the 8th May, and that instructions had long since been given for their withdrawal; but if your Highness's board will again refer to my note of the 7th September, they will find that these restrictions were not removed until the middle of July-more than two months after the signature of the agreement. They were in force before and after the agree- ment of the 8th May, but it is immaterial whether they were imposed before or after that agreement; they were in the first instance contrary to treaty, and their continuance was all the more intolerable after the conclusion of the agreement which provided for their immediate withdrawal. In my note of the 7th instant, I also pointed out that a month after the withdrawal of these restrictions, fresh restrictions were imposed by regulations embodied in a proclamation issued by the commissioner of police at Foochow, one of which makes it compulsory for raw opium shops purchasing foreign opium to take out passes from the Opium Eradication Office, and ordains that opium bought without such passes shall be confiscated. In extenuation of this illegal restriction, your Highness's board draws my attention to the fact that these passes are issued free of charge, and that there is no limitation on their issues, that they are specially intended as a ineans of regulating the trade, but that confiscation being too heavy a punishment for the omission to take out passes, the board has telegraphed to the Viceroy instructing him to modify the regulation.

I regret that I am unable to accept this explanation. Your Highness's board must be well aware of the procedure laid down by treaty, which is that the Customs shall issue gratuitously to the owner a transit certificate for each such package of opium, or one for any number of packages at the option of the owner, and that such certificate shall free the opium to which it applies from the imposition of any further tax or duty while in transport in the interior, provided that the package has not been opened and that the Customs seals, marks, and numbers on the packages have not been effaced or tampered with. There no charge for these transit certificates; there is no limit

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to their issue; and opium thus conveyed cannot be confiscated, nor can its owner be punished. It is not a modification of the regulation issued by the commissioner of police that is required, it is its withdrawal; and I have to request your Highness to telegraph at once to the Viceroy at Foochow to have it immediately withdrawn, and thereby prevent the presentation of further claims for compensation by British merchants at Foochow, whose business has been ruined by the restrictions already imposed upon it.

With regard to the tax on raw opium in the port of Changsha, and to the compulsory collection and payment of the smoker's tax by raw opium dealers at Shanghai and Soochow, I am not yet in receipt of assurances by His Majesty's consul at Changsha and His Majesty's consul-general at Shanghai that these irregularities have been removed, and I await a further note from your Highness's board as soon as the report from the Governor of Kiangsu has been received, and I also await your Highness's reply to my request for your explicit assurance that the issue of further provincial regulations of any kind bearing on the subject of opium shall cease, and that in future such regulations as may be considered necessary for the enforcement of the last paragraph of article 7 of the agreement of the 8th May, shall, in accordance with the terms of the agreement, be issued and published by the Chinese Government and the Chinese Government alone.

I avail, &c.

J. N. JORDAN.

P.S.-Since the above was written I am sorry to say that I have received a telegram from His Majesty's consul at Foochow, reporting further flagrant breaches of the opium agreement, and I must again solemnly warn your Highness that further claims for compensation will inevitably result.

J. N. J.

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