CO129-416 - Public Offices - 1914 — Page 51

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

No.

1. Instructions to British Delegates

2. Report of British Delegates..

3. Final Protocol of July 9, 1913

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Sir A. Johnstone to Sir Edward Grey..

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Correspondence respecting the Second International Opium Conference, held at The Hague, July 1913, comprising the Instructions to the British Delegates, their Report, and the Final Protocol of July 9, 1913.

[In continuation of "Miscellaneous, No. 3 (1913)": 'Cd. 6605.]

No. 1.

Sir Edward Grey to British Delegates to the Second International Opium Conference.

Gentlemen,

Foreign Office, June 30, 1913. YOU have already been informed that His Majesty's Government have selected you to be the British delegates at the International Conference which is to meet at The Hague on the 1st July to consider the question of the ratification of the Inter- national Opium Convention of January 1912.

You will doubtless remember with what difficulties you were confronted at the former Conference owing to the fact that, the Powers represented being limited in number to twelve, they were not alone competent to carry out the full extent of international co-operation contemplated by the convention, and owing to the danger also that the participating Powers might eventually find that they had unavailingly sacrificed their trade interests for the sake of international morality, while outside Powers, on whom no such obligation might rest, had merely profited by this altruism to advance their own interests, at the same time nullifying to a great extent the objects aimed at by the convention. The circumstances of the Conference were in this respect unprecedented, since some of the matters dealt with at its sittings were of world-wide interest and could not be adequately carried out by the small number of Powers represented, especially in view of the fact that some of the non-represented Powers occupied a very important position in regard to the questions under discussion, as for instance, Turkey in regard to raw opium, and Peru and Bolivia in regard to cocaine. It was difficulties of this sort that necessitated the special and original character of the "effectuating" clauses, according to which the first step after the signing of the convention was not to be ratification by the signatory Powers, but an invitation addressed to the thirty-four Powers of Europe and America not represented at the Conference, to sign the convention, and thus put themselves on the same footing as the original participating Powers.

Article 23 further provided that in the event of the signatures of all the Powers invited not having been obtained by the 31st December, 1912, the Netherland Govern- ment should immediately invite the Powers who had signed by that date to appoint delegates to examine at the The Hague the possibility of depositing the ratifications notwithstanding.

Accordingly in the month of January the Netherland Chargé d'Affaires com- municated to His Majesty's Government an invitation from his Government to a Conference to be held at The Hague in the month of June, to consider the possibility of proceeding to the ratification of the International Opium Convention. Accompanying the invitation was a list of countries which had signed the supplementary protocol provided for in article 22 of the convention, as well as of those countries which had at that date either failed or definitely refused to sign.

An examination of this list shows that of the thirty-four Powers invited to sign the additional protocol, seventeen bad actually signed, namely: the Argentine Republic, Belgium, Brazil, Costa Rica, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Ecuador, Guatemala, the Republic of Hayti, Honduras, Luxemburg, Mexico, Panamá, Paraguay, Salvador, Spain, and the United States of Venezuela.

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