CO129-405 - Public Offices - 1913 — Page 545

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

OPIUM,

CONFIDENTIAL.

[21156]

(No. 166.) Sir,

No. 1.

Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.(Received May 8.)

[May 8.C.O

BBC+10:20085

SECTION

REC? REG413 JUN 13

Peking, April 24, 1913. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your telegram No. 119 of yesterday's date in which, with reference to my report that the Chinese Government's proposal to buy up the existing stocks of Indian opium has probably been abandoned, and to my opinion that the revival of Indian sales is out of the question, you call for an expression of my views on the general question of the Indian opium trade with China, and especially on the question of the situation which will arise in regard to the Agreement of 1911, when the stocks now in China have been cleared by the continuance of the present normal process.

As I have said before, I have always regretted that the Indian sales were not stopped in June last year, for the continued influx of opium has added considerably to the difficulties of dealing with the situation. As indicated in my despatch No. 145 of the 10th instant, however, the problem of the stocks is in a fair way to reaching a solution within the next two years, if not sooner.

It

Although the demand for opium has diminished, partly on account of the odium now attached to the habit of smoking, and partly on account of the enhanced value of the drug, there is no doubt that the demand is still amply sufficient to absorb speedily ali the present stocks, provided that the trade in supplying this demand is left to take its natural course. The comparative weakening of the obstructive measures recently adopted at Shanghai may be attributed not only to the corruption of the officials employed in carrying them into execution, as described in my despatch above quoted, but also to the fact that the attention of the obstructionists have been diverted by the investigation now going on into the cultivation of opium in the provinces-a measure which is giving the anti-opium agitators a certain amount of satisfaction, would be too sanguine a view to expect that no further difficulties will take place in working off the stocks. We shall in all probability have to insist repeatedly on our rights under the Agreement of 1911 before this part of the problem is finally solved, and it is an essential condition that we adhere to that provision in the Agreement by which Canton and Shanghai are the last ports to be closed to Indian opium. It is not certain that we shall be able to insist, successfully, on our treaty rights, and it may eventually be necessary to abandon the hope of disposing of the stocks in China and to have them reshipped to Singapore or other markets. But in view of the way things are going at present, and of the possible future last resource thus indicated, it is permissible to regard the problem of the stocks in hand as one within reach of solution, and to pass on to the consideration of the policy to be pursued in the future.

The period of one or two years during which the present stocks are being cleared represents, in my opinion, the utmost extension of life that can be expected for the moribund trade in opium between India and China. The reasons why I regard the revival of opium sales in India as practically out of the question have been, I think, sufficiently indicated in previous despatches. Even if the Chinese Government fail in their endeavours to suppress opium cultivation in China, the trade in ludian opium is none the less doomed to speedy extinction. It is not for me to speak of public opinion in Great Britain, but I venture to assert that public opinion in China is alone powerful enough to ensure the permanence of the stoppage of the Indian sales. It may seem premature to appeal to the public opinion of a country whose masses are still inarticulate, and paradoxical to do so when Chinese farmers are cultivating the poppy for Chinese consumers. But the public opinion to which I allude is that of the civilised parts o. the country, not of the provinces far distant from the seaboard, where the cultivation and the consumption of opium are alike most prevalent. The outery againt the opium traffic that is continually raised by Chinese officials, pressmen, and parliamentarians, encouraged as it is by British and foreign missionaries and publicists-only a small proportion of whom can be justly called mischievous busybodies serves to keep up a friction prejudicial to other and larger interests of the United Kingdom and of British India in China, and we cannot therefore afford to ignore it.

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