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This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
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would take a very long time to get or put through, that it would be better for all Koreans to remain here, where their presence helped to maintain the Japanese character. and that there was no need for him to go, as any Japanese subject would be assisted and put in the way of making an easy living in Manchuri, where Japanese subjects had special privileges. The Korean replied that he did not want to go in for the morphia business, which, without it being mentioned by the consul, he considered was the easy way suggested. The bearing this has upon our conversation is to show the probability of the drug being smuggled, and that, apart from the profitable nature of the transaction, the bearing its use is supposed to have in giving the Japanese the influence they undoubtedly possess amongst the Chinese in the way of trade must be considered. Any big firm that has the confidence of the railway people would have no difficulty in getting it through, and the more control they got over the customs the more easy it will be for them to do the smuggling."
On the 22nd he again wrote:-
"I now learn as an actual fact that the firm in question are the real distributors of opium in Manchuria. There is no secret made of it; in fact they advertise it, as you may see in the Manchuria Daily News. A medical certificate is necessary for its purchase at the Mukden branch, but it can be bought by anyone at the Dairen office without restriction. The usual procedure is to go to Dairen and purchase it, and bring it along in the train for disposal here or elsewhere. I am told there is no difficulty about the matter at all."
It is generally believed here that many of the exchange shops which have been opened recently, especially those in the neighbourhood of the Japanese railway station, are blinds for the sale of smuggled opium; and the railway town at Changchun is full of cheap hotels and other places where opium, brought from the north, is bought and sold. Now and then somebody is discovered smuggling, and his conviction and punish- ment are proclaimed in the newspapers, but, generally speaking, the trade goes on completely unchecked. The Chinese authorities are quite powerless, as the offenders are either foreigners (Japanese, Russians, Greeks, &c.) or take care to conduct their smuggling operations on territory under foreign administration.
A gentleman travelling for a home firm of surgical instrument manufacturers told me in 1914 that he had ascertained that it was possible in many places to buy from Japanese chemists and others a morphia syringe and a dose of morphia for 30 cents (74d.), and Dr. Colman, of Changchun, told me about the same time that jinriksha coolies and similar persons of humble degree could obtain an injection of morphia for 10 cents. There is no reason to suppose that circumstances are different in these respects at the present time.
I have, &c.
P. E. O'BRIEN-BUTLER.
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OPIUM.
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REG214 DEC17
[November 3.]
SECTION 1.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[210818]
(No. 514.) (Telegraphic.)
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Mr. Balfour.-(Received November 3.)
Peking, November 3, 1917.
MY telegram No. 502 of the 27th October: Opium. Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs in conversation to-day referred to question of opium negotiations, and expressed his wish that these might be concluded during his tenure of office. In reply to my enquiry whether he was not prepared to negotiate with combine direct, he replied that he preferred to deal with Legation, as an agree- ment with the combine direct will cause criticism. He added that, in view of sordid nature of earlier transactions, what was now desired was a clause of settlement between Chinese Government and British Legation, which would obviate criticism.
[2746 c-1]
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