CO129-482 - Public Offices - 1923 — Page 700

A.

10906

RE

IR.

2 MAR 23

698

lat arch, 1923.

Dear Grindle,

I send you an extract from a dispatch which the Foreign office have sent us from their Consul at Vladivostok, and of a note of an interview here with reference to an application for the export of opium from this country to Formosa. You will notice that the firm of Nemasee is concerned in both. This is the firm

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which le mainly responsible for the extensive trade which being carried on between the Persian Gulf and the Far East (vide the dispatches you have sent us from time to time from the Government of Hong Kong). It is abundantly clear that this firm, which has its headquarters at Hong Kong, is deeply implicated in the illicit

arch

offender. opium traffic in the Far East, if it is not the Mr. N.L. Smith tells me that they are an extremely wealthy firm who have given largely to the University Endowment and other public objects. I do not know what powers of search or interrogation the Government of Hong Kong has, but if it has the powers of search which the British Government are proposing to take in clause 1 of the Dangerous Drugs Bill which was read a second time yesterday in the House of Commons, I think they ought to make the most thorough examination possible of the firm's books and papers with a view to discovering the nature and extent of the ir transactions, and, if possible, bringing them to justice. If the Government has not got these powers, or the local law does not provide for the punishment of such transactions as the firm has been engaged in,

I/