CO129-395 - Public Offices - 1912 — Page 578

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

570

C. 0.

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

PEPO AUG 12

[July 11.]

SECTION 2.

[29380]

No. 1.

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey,—(Received July 11.)

(No. 205.) Sir,

Peking, June 25, 1912.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 163 of the 8th instant, requesting to be furnished with my opinion as to the necessity for prohibiting the importation of Turkish and Persian opium into Hong Kong.

In my telegram No. 184 of the 28th August, 1911, I pointed out that were Hong Kong kept open to the import of Persian opium while its entrance into China was prohibited, the colony would run the great risk of being made a base for smuggling into this country. When the opium merchants in Hong Kong were notified by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs that the importation of Turkish and Persian opium would be prohibited from the 1st January, 1912, they appealed to me, through the Governor of Hong Kong, to obtain for them an extension of the time limit, and in their appeal they stated that for some qualities of Persian opium the demand is practically limited to China, the requirements of Formosa being for a grade of Persian opium yielding over 8 per cent of morphia, while the bulk of their stocks did not consist of this standard of quality.

At the present time considerable quantities of Persian opium are shipped from Hong Kong to Kwang-chow-wan, and there can be no doubt that it is thence smuggled into China, so that the prohibition of the importation of Turkish and Persian opium into the colony would, in my opinion, materially assist in checking this contraband trade which the present freedom of import tends to encourage.

I have, &c.

J. N. JORDAN.

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