[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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Rece IRLG 5 JAN 12
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL
[47421]
No. 1.
[November 27.]
SECTION 2.
Dr. Maxwell to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received November 27.)
31, Hammelton Road, Bromley, Kent,
November 25, 1911. AS chairman of the representative board of the anti-opium societies of Great Britain and Ireland, I was instructed at our meeting on the 22nd instant to beg your urgent consideration of the accompanying protest.
Sir,
It expresses our unanimous conviction that the attitude assumed by the British chief commissioner at Shanghai in 1909 forbids the hope of any international agreement on the opium question, and that it is of the utmost importance that it should not be repeated at The Hague. Our present anxiety is due to the fact that the first name among the British delegates to The Hague is that of Sir Cecil Clementi Smith, who acted as chief commissioner at Shanghai.
I have, &c.,
JAMES L. MAXWELL, M.D.,
Chairman of Representative Board.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Statement adopted by the Representative Board of British Anti-Opium Societies held in London, November 22, 1911.
Dr. J. L. MAXWELL in the Chair,
THIS board respectfully enters its protest against the proposed appointment of Sir Cecil Clementi Smith as first British delegate in the forthcoming International Opium Conference at The Hague on the following grounds ----
1. At the Shanghai International Commission, which was preliminary to the conference, and where Sir C. C. Smith filled a similar position, he maintained throughout an attitude at variance with the intention of His Majesty's Government, as expressed in the Speech from the Throne of December, 1908, to assist China in her purpose of eradicating the opium trade in the Chinese Empire," and with the thrice repeated declaration of the House of Commons (in 1891, 1906, and 1908-on the two latter occasions unanimously adopted) that the opium trade between India and China is "morally indefensible." It is true that in words he expressed sympathy with China's efforts, but his speeches and votes throughout the commission, except where overruled by the majority of his British colleagues, were opposed to every effort of the Chinese delegation to support a radical and satisfactory solution of this question, so profoundly important to China. It was thus left to the American and German delegates to give to China the practical support which she ought to have received from the Britishi.
2. This attitude on the part of Sir C. C. Smith was conspicuously shown in the debate on the American delegations proposal, supported by the Chinese, to declare that, in the judgment of the commission, "a uniform effort should be made by the countries represented to confine the use of opium to legitimate medical practice," which he opposed by the frank declaration that "the British delegation is not able to This accept the view that opium should be confined simply and solely to medical uses.' opposition, which was not prescribed by the instructions of His Majesty's Government (published in "China No. 2, 1909"), and as to which we have yet to learn that it was authorised by any decision of the British delegation, appears to us to strike at the root of all efficient international regulation of the opium trade. It runs counter to the legislation of all Western States, to the vigorous anti-opium policy adopted by Japan
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