CO129-396 - Public Offices - 1912 — Page 31

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

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

[August 3.]

SECTION 1.

[32646]

(No. 370.) Sir,

*

No. 1.

Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Bertie,

Foreign Office, August 3, 1912. I TRANSMIT to your Excellency herewith copy of a despatch from His Majesty's consul at Saigon, stating that he has learnt from a private but well-informed source that the Government of French Indo-China are contemplating entering into a contract with the provincial Government of Yunnan for a regular supply of opium.

Yunnan was one of the provinces where the suppression of the cultivation of the poppy had been most rigorously enforced, but it is unfortunately only too true that since the outbreak of the revolution the cultivation has recommenced throughout the province on a very considerable scale. For the past few months His Majesty's Govern- ment have been repeatedly urging on the Chinese Government the necessity of adhering to their agreements of 1907 and 1911 for the progressive suppression of the cultivation of the poppy; and though they recognise that, under present circumstances, the observance Provisional Government at Peking are not in a position to secure the proper

of their treaty obligations in many of the provinces, they have received repeated assurances from Yuan Shih-kai that, as soon as more orderly conditions are established, the policy of suppression of the poppy will again be rigorously enforced.

Your Excellency should bring the above facts unofficially to the knowledge of the French Government, and point out to them with what regret we should hear that the Government of Indo-China had really entered into such a contract as that mentioned by Mr. Carlisle. Any purchases of Yunnan opium by the French colonial authorities must be a great incentive to increased cultivation of the poppy in the province of Yunnan, and must thus tend to defeat the humanitarian objects for which the Indian Government have made such great sacrifices. You may add that the British delegates at the Opium Conference at The Hague carried away the impression that their French colleagues were fully alive to the sincerity of our policy in regard to the opiam trade with China, and that I feel sure that the French Government would hesitate to sanction any action which might hinder the full effects of that policy.

The British delegates further understood that the Government of French Indo- China were desirous of concluding an arrangement with the Indian Government by which the latter would undertake to limit the export of Indian opium to Indo-China to opium purchased by, or consigned to, the Colonial Opium Régie. Your Excellency may inform the French Government that if the Government of Indo-China still contemplate such an arrangement, I would be pleased to recommend it most earnestly to the Govern- ment of India.

I am, &c.

E. GREY.

*Consul Carlisle, No. 1, June 18, 1812.

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