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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[July
Sec43503
[F 2762/15/10]
No. 1.
31 G 21
Extract from the "New York Times" of July 3, 1921-(Received in
Foreign Ofice, July 28,)
OPIUM EVIL UP TO LEAGUE.
THE opium question is again before the world. According to the terms of the Versailles Treaty, the opium question was placed under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations. America, being neither a party to the Versailles Treaty aor to the League of Nations, had no official voice in the recent meeting held in Geneva. But America cannot be eliminated from its solution, as opium is a problem which she has
to meet.
The United States inherited the opium question along with the Philippine Islands. In taking over the Philippines, Americs was confronted with the opium problem, as it affected her Chinese and native population. In her effort to protect the people under her jurisdiction from this curse she was drawn irresistibly into the maelstrom of discussion that for a hundred odd years had agitated the Far East. At the instance of President Roosevelt an international commission was invited to meet in Shanghai to study the entire situation, with the hope of arriving at some conclusion,
The Shanghai Commission met in 1909. There followed, under the leadership of the United States, three international conferences at The Hague. A wide international movement developed which, at the Third International Conference held at The Hague, seemed fast approaching its goal. But a few weeks later the great war broke out and the opium question was not the least of constructive movements making for good that suffered under its destructive grip.
Before the war, India and China, inspired perhaps by the advent of the United States and a new spirit at work, made the ten-year agreement: India agreeing to cease the exportation of opium to China on that country's promise to stop her domestic cultivation.
China assailed her problem at home with such fervour and success that, in an incredibly short time, the poppy had been practically eradicated from Chinese soil. And the Indian Government, convinced of China's sincerity, generously reduced the agreement by several years-so that, in 1913, it was officially announced in Parliament that the Indo-Chinese opium trade had come to an end. Thus a trade which had existed over a century, from which the Indian Exchequer had vastly benefited, was brought to a close voluntarily on the part of India, in recognition of China's good faith. This won from the world immense commendation for the Indian Government. For the question of taxation is no easy one in Eastern countries and the matter of substitution often a perilous experiment.
If, on the heels of India's sacrifice and China's admirable effort, The Hague Convention had been promptly enforced, the recent complications in China could not have occurred. In 1914 every nation in the world save two had either signed or ratified the convention and had given a further guarantee to sign the protocol drawn up at The Hague, by which the convention, with its rigid obligations as to foreign and domestic legislation, would go into force and China and the world be internationally safeguarded from the menace of drugs. But the war broke out and the good work and intentions of The Hague conferences were abruptly checked. Out of all the nations present at the Conference of 1914 but five signed the protocol at The Hague.
China, isolated by the war, became the victim of selfish individuals and nations. Morphine was substituted for opium; China was deluged with it. The price of drugs went soaring upward and the cultivation of the poppy was renewed.
The direct exportation of opium from India was checked, it is true. But the thousands of odd chests let loose in the East inevitably made their way to China. Morphine was poured into every crack and crevice of China. And American wholesale druggists, under cover of the general confusion, were not slow to take advantage of the
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