CO129-451 - Public Offices - 1918 — Page 551

This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

57366

RECE

(Reg! 28 NOV 18

[September 24.]

SECTION 1,

[161258]

Sir,

No. 1.

India Office to Foreign Ofice.-(Received September 24.)

India Office, September 23, 1918. IN reply to your letter dated the 20th September, I am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to say that he sees no objection to the proposal to instruct Sir J. Jordan to carry out forthwith the instructions communicated to him in Foreign Office telegram No. 417, dated the 3rd August.

As regards the question of the disposal of the stocks of opium, in the event of the Chinese Government cancelling their agreement with the Combine, which was raised in Sir J. Jordan's telegram No. 659 of the 7th August, and on which Mr. Montagu's obser- of a vations were invited by your letter, dated the 14th August, I am to forward a copy telegram from the Government of India, dated the 17th September, and to say that Mr. Montagu concurs in the views expressed therein. A copy of the Government of India's despatch of the 18th March, 1914, was forwarded to the Foreign Office with Sir Lionel Abrahams' letter of the 6th April, 1914.

I am, &c.

E. J. TURNER.

Enclosure in No. 1.

i

(Telegraphic.)

Government of India to India Office.

YOUR telegram dated the 22nd August.

September 17, 1918.

We adhere to views expressed by our despatch dated the 13th March, 1914, that we are under no obligation whatsoever to repurchase unsold stocks of Indian opium held by Combine at Shanghai and at Hong Kong, and Combine's failure to effect clearance of stocks which, as Jordan admits, was perfectly feasible in order to obtain additional profit from high ruling prices, deprives them, in our opinion, of any claim on our consideration, or on that of His Majesty's Government. As purely business matter we are, however, in view of present position of our opium stocks, prepared to offer 3,000 rupees per chest c.if Calcutta for quantity not exceeding 1,500 chests or there- abouts. Payment to be made in England.

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