CO129-486 - Public Offices - 1924 — Page 528

MINUTES.

until the Govt. of Indi-China has

furnished an import certificate in the form prescribed by the League of

Nations. I observed that this,

rather than the passage quoted by Mr. Perrins, appeared to be the real reply.

of the Indian Government, and seemed a

perfectly reasonable one.

I explained that I had not yet

minuted on the papers so I could not

say what view this Department would

ultimately take on the suggestion that representation should be made to the

India Office, but I said that it had

not up to the present occurred to me to

suggest any such action by this Dept. The Home Office, however, appear to

think that it is the duty of the

Colonial Office to do something of thie

sort as the Department chiefly concerned,

in view of the fact that a certain

amount of this Indian opium finds

its way to Hong Kong through Kwong Chau

Wan. The sort of suggestion which they

think should be made to the India

Office is that India should drastically

restrict, or even prohibit, further

exports of opium to Indo-China as

they have already done as regards

Formosa, on the grounds that the French Colonial Govta. import certificates have been demonstrated by there reports

from Hong Kong to be valueless just as

MINUTES NOT TO BE WRITTEN ON THIS SIDE.

524

the Japanese certificates for Formosa have already been ao regarded.

I observed that the question

of Indian opium finding its way to

Hong Kong is of minor importance to

that Govt. compared with the problem

of the smuggling of Chinese opium,

tachep. It seemed to me that

the right line to take would be to

concentrate on the question of

direct sales from India to the Indo-

Jsuggested

China Govt., and/ that the proper person to take this up was Sir Malcolm Delevingne, who, as the British

Representative in the League of Nations

Advisory Committee, might be regarded

as the appropriate person to co-ordinate

the actions of the various Departments.

In any case the Foreign Office would

have to be consulted.

I then pointed out that any representations to the India Office

would have to be supported by a full

memorandum summarising all the facta

I explained that have come to light, and that at

present the preparation of such a

memorandum would be rather a strain on

this Dept., which is already very fully occupied with other matters. expressed the purely personal view that

if the Home Office want to put the

point to the India Office and ask for

I

the

our