CO129-445 - Public Offices - 1917 — Page 249

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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty dvernment]

OPIUM

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CONFIDENTIAL.

[75694]

No. 1.

[April 12.]

SECTION 1.

245

Edinburgh Committee for the Suppression of the Indo-Chinese Opium Trafic to Foreign Ofice. (Received April 12.)

Sir,

THE morphia traffic.

120, Braid Road, Edinburgh, April 11, 1917.

I have only to-day noticed the answer which you gave to Sir William Collins in the House of Commons on the 26th February last regarding the export of morphia to Japan. When asked if the large quantity sent from this country was not evidence that it was finding its way into China as a substitute for opium, you are reported to have replied, "I am afraid I have no information on the point."

I desire to remind you that on the 11th January last I wrote you giving the details of this export, and mentioned that in May 1916 Lord Grey said he was aware of the evil, and was in consultation with the Board of Trade regarding it.

I regret to say that last week a communication from the Board of Trade instructed that, so far as their Department was concerned, nothing could be done. They were of opinion that, if morphia were regulated in the same strict way as opium and cocaine, the good standing of the firms engaged in the trade was such that licences could not be withheld from them. We regard this answer as most unsatisfactory. The trade is one which is as "morally indefensible " as the House of Commons repeatedly declared the opium traffic to be. It involves the moral and physical degradation of at least half a million Chinese. It is one which Mr. Montagu, Under-Secretary for India, urged the anti-opiumists to check and abolish as they had done with the opium. This we are resolved to do. The Edinburgh society is specially interested in the matter, as two-thirds of the morphia exported is made in our city, and our fair fame is not enhanced thereby. I have interviewed some of the gentlemen connected with the manufacture of the drug. They do not deny, and they deplore the evil effects of the trade in China, but they do not see their way to diminish the output so long as they are unhindered by law.

We trust therefore that you will do all in your power along with our Ally, Japan, to have the output of the drug restricted to medicinal requirements, and that at the soonest possible date.

[2684 m-

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I am, &c.

G. S. MUIR, Hon. Secretary.