CO129-405 - Public Offices - 1913 — Page 103

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

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

'December 19.]

SECTION 4.

[54191]

Sir,

No. 1.

•

Messrs. E. D. and Messrs. D. Sassoon and Co. to Foreign Office.—(Received December 19.)

17, St. Helen's Place, London, December 19, 1912. WE have the honour to enclose for your information copy of a memorial, approved and supported by the banks, addressed by us to the India Office.

We have received cable advice that the Government of India have refused to accept as correct the position of the opium trade in China, as represented in the petition of the merchants in India presented a few days ago, as they have no official information that the position is so critical, and therefore are not prepared to suspend the sales.

Now that the full facts are so well known to the Foreign Office, may we beg that you will place them before the India Office, with a recommendation that the Government sales of opium should be postponed until the position improves.

We have, &c.

E. D. SASSOON AND Co. DAVID SASSOON AND CO. (Limited).

Enclosure in No. 1.

Memorial.

To the Most Honourable the Marquess of Crewe, K.G., P.C., His Majesty's Principal

Secretary of State for India in Council.

THE humble memorial of the undersigned merchants of the City of London; Respectfully showeth as follows:—

1. Your memoralists, besides being personally largely interested in the opium trade in India and China, also represent most if not all the other persons interested in that trade, and who being absent from England are unable to sign this memorial.

2. So far as India is concerned the trade is centred in the two ports of Calcutta and Bombay. At Calcutta the opium (known as Bengal opium) cultivated and manufactured in Bengal is disposed of, and at Bombay the opium cultivated and manufactured in certain independent native States and known as Malwa opium is disposed of.

3. The cultivation and manufacture of Bengal opium is, as your Lordship is aware, a strictly protected monopoly of the Government of India, carried on and managed by a special department of State known as the Indian Opium Department, the profits of the department forming part of the public revenues of India.

4. The Bengal opium as and when manufactured by or for the Indian Opium Department is from time to time sold by direction and for the benefit of the Government of India at auction sales held in Calcutta.

5. The Malwa opium, as and when manufactured in the independent native States above referred to, finds its way through various channels and in varying quantities to Bombay, where it is purchased by shippers from the dealers and packed in chests of a standard size for shipment.

7. On the 8th May, 1911, His Majesty's Government, as your Lordship is aware, entered into an agreement with the Chinese Government for the double purpose of reducing the importation of Indian opium into China and of reducing in corresponding proportions the cultivation and manufacture of opium in China itself.

In such

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