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regulate the production of opium in the Shan States. We have also agreed to the action which he proposes to take in order to prevent the possible smuggling of opium into Chinese territory.
We have, &c.
HARDINGE OF PENSHURST,
BEAUCHAMP DUFF.
HARCOURT BUTLER. S. A. IMAM.
W. H. CLARK.
R. H. CRADDOCK.
W. S. MEYER.
Enclosure 2 in No. 1.
Government of Burma to Government of India..
August 20, 1913.
I AM directed to submit the preliminary report asked for in your letter of the 29th July, 1913, on the subject of the alleged cultivation of opium on the Burma- Yünnan frontier and the smuggling of the drug from Burma into Yünnan.
2. With your letter of the 2nd April, 1913, you forwarded copy of a letter, dated the 14th January, 1913, from the Wai-chiao Pu to His Majesty's Minister at Peking, complaining that, despite the 1st and 3rd articles of the International Convention signed at The Hague in 1912, whereby the contracting Powers bound themselves to enact effective laws or regulations for the control of the production and distribution of raw opium, and to take measures to prevent the export of raw opium into countries which shall have probibited its entry, and despite also article 11 of the convention of 1894 between Great Britain and China in relation to Burma, which prohibits the import and export of opium across the frontier, the Burma Government has made no attempt to check the cultivation of opium in the frontier districts which march with Yunnan, and that, in consequence of this neglect, Chinese subjects flock across the frontier and carry on the cultivation of opium in British territory, and thence smuggle the drug into China, thereby in a great measure nullifying the attempt to suppress the consumption of the drug in that country, which was represented to be progressing in a highly satis- factory manner towards complete success. In his reply of the 22nd January, 1913, to the Wai-chiao Pu, His Majesty's Minister challenged the accuracy of the statements made in their letter, and denied that there had been any lack of harmony on the part of Government in assisting China in the suppression of opium. He further called atten- tion to the reports that the cultivation of poppy in the province of Yunnan was scarcely less general than before the prohibition, and referred to the fact that the Yünnan Government had actually sent agents into Burina to buy opium. In his letter of the 23rd January, 1913, forwarding copies of the correspondence to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Sir John Jorda" presumed that it was not unlikely that, under the "trans-frontier cultivation," Chinese subjects living on the Yunnan system known as side of the frontier own and cultivate fields of poppy within the territories of Burma, and he suggested that the Government of India should be moved to take effective measures for the suppression of such cultivation and to furnish materials for a reply to memorandum from the Wai-chiao Pu. In your letter of the 2nd April, 1913, the Government of India ask this Government to report on the subject, and request that if the statements made by the Chinese authorities are correct, proposals may be put forward with the object of probibiting and checking (1) poppy cultivation in the regions in question, or (2) the smuggling of the drug into Chinese territory. Your letter further goes on to say that, whatever interpretation may have been placed on the Burma-China Convention of 1894 in the past, it appears to the Government of India that it is now necessary to take action in accordance with the provisions of The Hague Convention. In conclusion, it invites a reference to the correspondence printed on pp. 1 to 6 of this Government's Separate Revenue Proceedings for November 1912 regarding the alleged extension of poppy cultivation in the Shan States.
3. The correspondence in this Government's Separate Revenue Department Proceedings of 1912 arose out of certain statements printed on p. 7 of the Provincial Report on the Administration of the Excise Department for the year 1910-1911, where, inter alia, it was stated that many of the displaced opium growers from Yunnan are
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reported to have moved over from Yunnan proper into the Chinese and British Shan States and into unadministered territory. Prior to this, however, on the 26th March, 1910, a despatch was addressed by the Administrator of Foreign Affairs to the British consul-general, Yünnan-fu, regarding the clandestine importation of opium from Kokang in Burma into Yungkang in China. A translation of this despitch was received front His Majesty's consul-general, and as a result of the ensuing correspondence the Lieutenant-Governor instructed the superintendent of the Northern Shan States to convey through the Sawbwa of North Elsenwi and the Heng of Kokang a formal warning to traders and cultivators that any person who exports opium into China does so at his own risk. Copies of the correspondence were submitted to the Government of India in the Foreign Department with Mr. Rice's letter of the 31st May, 1910. Mention is made on p. 81 of the Report on the Administration of the Shan and Karenni States for the year ended 30th June, 1912, that the prohibition of the drug has led to a great increase in the area under the drug in British terri- tory. Prior to the issue of orders prohibiting the cultivation of opium in Yunnan there was, despite the prohibition in the convention of 1894 referred to by the Wai. chiao Pu, a large export of the drug from Yunnan into Burma. These exports of opium from Yunnan were in great measure used to pay for imports of merchandise, and they were regularly recorded in the statistics of trans-frontier trade.
The Report on the Trans-frontier Trade of Burma and the adjoining foreign countries during the year 1910-1911 and the triennial period ending the 31st March, 1911, commenting on a large decrease in the exports of opium, remarks that the last three years had been a period of transition in Western China, the cultivation of the poppy being restricted and the purchasing power of the people being temporarily impaired, while a substitute for the opium crop was being found. The history of the import of opium from Yunnan into Burma is dealt with in paragraphs 5, 8, and 9 of Mr. Rice's letter of the 19th October, 1909, to the Government of India in the Foreign Department. As an outcome of the correspondence which was based on that letter, this Government has regarded it as a guiding principle that while the transport of opium across the Burma-China frontier is prohibited by the convention of 1894, it rests with each Government to take such measures, if any, in its own territory as it may desire to enforce the prohibition, but that it is not incumbent on either Government to prevent exportation from or importation into its own territory. For this reason the Lieutenant-Governor concluded in Mr. Rice's letter of the 16th January, 1913, to your address, that there was nothing in the convention of 1894 to cause exception to be taken by this Government to the action of Yunnan in purchasing opium in the Northern Shan States and in transporting it across the frontier into Yünnan. The Hague Convention of 1912 was not referred to.
4. The Lieutenant-Governor concurs in the view of the Government of India, expressed in paragraph 2 of your letter of the 2nd April, 1913, that whatever interpre- tation may have been placed on the Burma-China Convention of 1894 in the past, it is now necessary to take action in accordance with the provisions of The Hague Conven- tion. He has, therefore, called for a report and proposals in the terms of your letter, on the ground that the complaints of the Wai-chiao Pu regarding the opium cultivation in the Shan States appear to be justified by facts so far as they are known. The Opium Act of 1878 is not in force in the Shan States, with the exception of certain head- quarter stations, the Myelar, and the lands occupied by the Mandalay-Lashio and Southern Shan States Railways. The cultivation of opium is carried on, it is believed, to a considerable extent in the more remote parts of the States, and it is at present subject to no control by any Government officer. The Financial Commissioner has promised a report by the end of September, but it is highly improbable that the superin- tendents of the Shan States will be able to get any reliable information regarding the extent of cultivation. The superintendent, Northern Shan States, was directed in 1910 to make it widely known among those persons within his jurisdiction who are interested in the opium trade with China that the transport of opium across the frontier was prohibited, and that any person who exported opium into China would do so at his own risk, and would not be protected by this Government from any So far lawful penalties which may be inflicted on him by the Chinese authorities. as the charges brought against this Government by the Wai-chian Pu are concerned, the Lieutenant-Governor is disposed to believe that they are true, and he is not yet prepared to say what measures it will be possible to take to prevent the exportation of opium across the frontier. So long as cultivation is allowed within the Shan States the prohibition against exportation would be very difficult, if not impossible, to enforce, and it will have to be considered whether it is possible to prohibit opium cultivation,
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