CO129-457 - Public Offices - 1919 — Page 253

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

OPIUM.

CONFIDENTIAL.

246

16614

[February 4.]

SECTION 1,

[19541]

(No. 530.) Sir,

RESO No. REG 17 MAR 19

Sir J. Jordan to Mr. Balfour.-(Received February 4, 1919.)

Peking, December 5, 1918. SINCE addressing to you my telegram of the 1st November the opium question appears to have entered upon its final phase. The Chinese Government has declared its intention to destroy publicly all remaining stocks, and thus to bring to an end the foreign opium trade after an adventurous and harassing history extending over come

300 years.

It will be remembered that, in accordance with the agreement concluded between His Majesty's Government and the Government of China in 1911, the export of opium from India was reduced pari passu with the suppression of cultivation in China, and the Chinese provinces have gradually been cleared of the poppy whilst all import from India has ceased.

There still remains, however, an unconsumed and undistributed stock amounting to some 1,577 chests, and, by a series of private agreements ranging between 1915 and the summer of this year, corrupt Chinese officials and unscrupulous foreign holders have endeavoured to prolong a highly profitable trade in the face of public opinion both in China and the outer world.

On receiving information as to the negotiation of the latest of these agreements I addressed a strong protest to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and warned his Excellency that His Majesty's Government repudiated all connection with any negotiations which might have taken place between the Chinese Government and the Opium Combine, whilst the purchase of the stocks by the Peking Government, and the resale to a Chinese syndicate, would be regarded not only as a retrograde step, but as tantamount to a breach of faith with Great Britain.

In spite of this emphatic warning the negotiations were carried to a conclusion, and 1,577 chests were purchased from the Combine for 6,200 taels a chest, the late President, Feng Kuo-chang, being one of the principal participants in the venture. The stocks were paid for in bonds, redeemable within ten years, and carrying interest at 6 per cent.

Acting under your instructions I obtained an interview with President Hsü Shih-chang on the 18th November, and entered into an exhaustive statement of the whole opium question. I reviewed its history during the last twelve years, in which his Excellency and I had both been personally concerned with the efforts of our respective Governments to eliminate the cultivation and use of the drug among the people of China. I acknowledged the effective co-operation which we had received from the Chinese Government until the agreement of 1915 was made with the Combine without our knowledge or consent, And I recalled the fact that since then a series of agreements had been concluded between wholly corrupt men and a number of Chinese officials, including ex-President Feng Kuo-chang himself on one side, and the British opium merchants on the other.

These secret agreements had culminated in a position at Shanghai which had evoked passionate protests from all in China who cared for the welfare of the country. The Chinese Government was known to have purchased 1,577 chests of opium at prices which had no relation to the value of the article, but which were largely composed of bribes and illicit exactions of various kinds. 300 cheats had already been sold at 16,000 taels a chest-as compared with the 6,200 taels paid for them a few weeks before-and the position was being openly exploited for the profit of the holders.

I pointed out that, if this was to be the end of all these arduous years of reform, the result would be a recrudescence of cultivation throughout the country, for which the late President and his Government would be held responsible by the public opinion of the world.

President Ilsü reminded me that he had been a member of the Grand Council of the late dynasty when the question of opium suppression was first undertaken, and that he had given his cordial support to the measure. He had since followed with genuine

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