CO129-406 - Public Offices - 1913 — Page 422

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2

For the further information of Mr. McKenna and for convenience of reference the following documents are enclosed :-

1909.

2. Report of the proceedings.

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

1. Correspondence relating to the International Opium Commission at Shanghai,

¡B]

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

3. Instructions to the delegates to the International Opium Conference, 1911-12. 4. Report of the delegates.

5. International Opium Convention, 23rd January, 1912.

6. Instructions to the delegates to the International Opium Conference, 1913. 7. Minutes of the Conference.

43460

tre 19 DEC 13

[December 5.]

SECTION 1.

I am,

&c.

W. LANGLEY.

[52675]

(No. 352.) Sir,

No. I.

420

Sir Edward Grey to Sir J. Jordan.

Foreign Office, December 5, 1913. I HAVE had under my consideration recently two letters, copies of which are enclosed herewith,* from the Board of British Anti-Opium Societies and Mr. Lavington Hart urging that His Majesty's Government should release the Chinese Government from their obligations under the Opium Agreement of 1911 to admit the stocks of Indian opium at present lying at Chinese ports.

You will observe that the writers claim that the presence of these stocks at Shanghae and elsewhere has impressed the Chinese reformers with a deep-seated sense of wrong, and that although the latter appreciate what Great Britain has done to help China, the feeling uppermost in their minds is the difficulty with which they are faced in enforcing the suppression of the native drug while the foreign article continues to be sold under the protection of a foreign treaty. This feeling, the writers urge, is causing grave prejudice to British interests generally, whereas the withdrawal of these stocks as a spontaneous act would give this country a great opportunity not only in restoring the confidence of the Chinese, but in securing fresh markets for British trade.

These arguments, to my mind, deserve close attention, and I shall be glad if you will furnish me with your views on them.

It would in any case, of course, be necessary to await the reply of the Chinese Government to the note which Mr. Alston recently addressed to them in connection with the question of the revision of the 1911 Opium Agreement, but a favourable reply cannot be anticipated with any confidence.

On the other hand, it seems not unlikely that when the spring comes His Majesty's Government will have to agree, at China's request, to the closing of several more provinces to Indian opium under article 3 of the agreement, and there will then probably be a large number of chests for which there will be no market in China, or practically none.

In these circumstances it seems desirable for His Majesty's Government and the Government of India to consider now in what way that problem should be dealt with, and I should be glad of your views. His Majesty's Government will then be in a position again to consider how far it would be wise and possible to make a virtue of necessity and to arrive at some bargain with the Chinese Government and the opium merchants even before the spring.

I am, &c.

E. GREY.

"

Tome

India

• Not printed.

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