CO129-486 - Public Offices - 1924 — Page 515

59890/24.

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my dear urindle,

1557

HOME OFFICE

WHITEHU

།

30th Dece..ber, 1924.

I am afraid the draft Declaration in regard to Hong Kong and Malays which has been prepared in your Far Eastern Department seems to me to be

wwww too indefinite to be of much use. AS egards the first paragravh, what authority or body would ever be in a position to say that China had permanently ceased to grow the onium poppy?: ww, As regards the second paragraph, a seclaration that replacem nt of the opium revenue in Malaya is extraordinarily difficult but that the uovernment will attempt to find

other sources of revenue to enable administration to be carried on as the

opium revenue decreases would, in my view, be worse than no declaration

at all: and why should action in alaya hinge upon action in liong Honu,

as proposed in the first two lines of your second paragrach:

It seems to me that what we want is

(1) as regards Hong Kong, a declaration which will make it clear that it is only the prevalence of opium smugling from China

that prevents the British Government from taking effective measures to

bring the use of prepared opium to an end, and that they are prepared

effective to do so as soon as the Chinese authorities are taking measures them-

selves and opium smuggling from Jhing into Hong kong entirely ceases or

is reduced to an amount which can be adequately dealt with by the

ordinary customs and police administrations. we camot expect that opium smuggling can be completely eradicated in the Far East any more

than it is in London, Cardiff or Liverpool, as long as orium is grown in the world), and

(2) as regards Lelaya, a declaration that will meet the charge that we are deterred by revenue considerations from carrying out our

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jo 598 90/29.

obligations/