184
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.] C.0
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[41285]
No. 1.
35260
REC?
RECE 7 NOV 2
[October 2.]
SECTION 4,
India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received October 2.)
Sir,
India Office, October 1, 1912. IN reply to your letter of the 23rd September, I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to suggest that it should be pointed out, in reply to Colonel d'Andrade's note, that the passage relating to the opium shipments from India is vitiated by two misapprehensions. In the first place, the figures quoted from the "Economiste français" do not relate to "opium exports from British India to China," but to exports from British India to all destinations. The correct figures regarding the exports to Hong Kong and China are given below. In the second place, as was pointed out in the "Economiste français," the increase in the value of opium exported is due to the exceptional rise in the price of opium per chest, while the actual number of chests exported has steadily declined.
The following figures are taken from the Indian trade returns :—--
EXPORTS of opium from British India.
idia
1908-09
1909-10
1910-11
1911-12
Year.
No. of Chests.
Value.
Average Value
per Chest.
£
£
66,956 56,192 43,921 38,189
6,232,829 6,209,105 8,509,816 8,726,060
93
115
194
228
Of which, exports to Hong Kong and to China (excluding Macao).
1908-09
1909-10
1910-11
1911-12
Year.
No. of Chests.
Value.
Average Value
per Chest.
£
£
52,758 41.469
31,824 25,398
4,934,626 4,611,654 6,166,934 6,634,745
94
111
197 261
It is thus evident that the exports of opium from British India to China and Hong Kong, instead of having increased considerably as understood by Colonel d'Andrade, have, in fact, been reduced by more than 50 per cent. in the four years in question. Further, it will be within his knowledge that, by the agreements with China of 1908 and 1911, the Government of India have engaged themselves, subject to the fulfilment by China of certain conditions regarding the reduction of opium cultivation in China, to adopt a policy of progressive reduction in the exports of opium for the China market.
I am, &c.
LIONEL ABRAHAMS.
[2660 b-4]
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