CO129-482 - Public Offices - 1923 — Page 327

325

(1 2403/51/87).

Hadji Ali Akbar and Sons, Limited,

PRIVATE AND CONFLUNET EA

111, Portland Street,

air,

Manchester.

August 10th, 1923.

397%.

Opium Trade with China.

We used to be one of the largest importers of Persian opium to the London market, but since the prohibition of exports from England our trade has absolutely stopped and has been diverted to ow competitors abroad, For instance, up to recently H.M. Jenazee of Hongkong was only a small firm, but since the war they have become the sole buyers of Persian opiw in Persia, exporting the same in their own stammers to China, It is a well-known gact that ships owned by this firm go to Bushire regularly and take large quantities of Persian opium, clearing the same through the Persian Custom House for Hongkong, but actually landing the major portion of the our go at Macao, the Portuguese possession opposity Hongkong, ΤΟ believe that the opium farmer at Macae has permission to impor· 400 chests per annum, whereas they actually import 1,600 chest: by making 4 cases into 1 in Bushire, at the port of shipment, and thus importing actually four times the quantity.

There is also an opium farmer in Hongkong who is allowed to import a certain quantity of Persian opium, and from our information we gather that all the old opium dealers in Hong- kong are in a ring together with the Japanese firm of Mitsui and Company, Limited, of Hongkong, whose Kanager only is in the ring nominally instead of the firm, and the Persian opium goes into Chim in as large a quantity as it ever did, only instead of being in the hands of many exporters it is now the monopoly of Nemanes, who has, during the last two years bought

he Secretary of State

the /

for Foreign Affairs,

Foreign office,

London.