[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
F
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No. 1.
345
[November 3.]
SECTION 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received November 3.)
(No. 351.) Sir,
Peking, October 7, 1914. I HAVE the honour to enclose herewith copy of a despatch from His Majesty's consul at Harbin, reporting on the conditions of opium trade in Northern Manchuria. The despatch is interesting in that it reports the first signs of an inclination on the part of the Russian authorities to suppress the use of opium by opposing the illicit trade in the drug, which appears to have attained considerable dimensions in Northern Manchuria, with its centre at Harbin.
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN.
Enclosure I in No. 1.
Consul Sly to Sir J. Jordan.
(No. 28. Confidential.) Sir,
Harbin, September 27, 1914. BEGGING reference to my despatches Nos. 1 and 2, dated respectively the 9th January and 6th February last, I have the honour to enclose herewith copy, in translation, of an article published in the local Russian press of the 19th instant, detailing the circumstances of the discovery in Harbin of a Russian organisation, in which it is alleged was centred the illicit opium trade in North Manchuria. I forward also copy, in translation, of a railway bye-law, No. 40, of the 24th June (7th July) last, which is directed against the smoking of opium and the misuse of morphia and other narcotica throughout the area of the Chinese eastern railway.
In view of the fact that hitherto the Russian authorities have, not without justification, been credited with indifference to the evils caused to the Chinese race by indulgence in the opium habit, and have not, in the past, exhibited a genuine desire to facilitate the suppression of the vice, the above documents are to be welcomed as marking, prima facie, an agreeable change of attitude, and a step forward in the right direction. As an instance of the previous indifference, if not connivance, of the Russian authorities, I may mention, in the first place, the development during the past few years of the poppy cultivation in the Ussuri province, to which my despatch No. 1 of the 9th January last, and the enclosure thereto, referred in considerable detail. It is also to be noted that, during the negotiations connected with the Anglo-Russian draft agreement of the 30th April last, which was forwarded to you in my despatch No. 9 of the same date, the Russian representatives, MM. Trautechold and Daniel, showed at that time no disposition to encourage the adoption of any measures which might help to restrict the use of opium in this and other railway settlements, though I expressed myself as willing to assent to any reasonable regulations to that end. Their opposition, I gathered, had for its basis a determination not to facilitate the Chinese authorities in this respect in the absence of some quid pro quo which had not then, at least, been obtained. Another example is to be found in the attitude first assumed by the local railway authorities towards the Chinese Maritime Customs, when the later administra- tion seized on the railway earlier in the year three baskets and two trunks full of opium which it was sought to pass as passengers' luggage going in transit across North Manchuria. The Commissioner of Customs strongly rebutted the contention advanced by the railway that he had no authority to examine passengers' luggage carried in transit, and the Russian authorities realising, apparently, that their pretensions could not be sustained, finally decided to let the matter drop. M. de Luca, relying for his arguments on the stipulations of "The Provisional Regulations for the Working of the Chinese Customs House at the Stations Manchuria and Pogranitchnaya (Suifenho)," drew a distinction, which he successfully maintained, between "luggage in transit" and "goods in transit." A copy of these regulations was forwarded to you in my
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