CO129-510-8 Policy on sale of Opium 12-1-1928 - 24-7-1928 — Page 52

"eye-wash".

S

23.

However, as I have said, domestic considerations

were not the only motive, nor indeed the chief motive,

for my action. I was more concerned with the palpable

failure of this Colon, to fulfil the international

obligations undertaken on its behalf. No one who

has perused the voluminous literature that has

flowed from the Secretariat of the League of Nations

since its assumption of duties in relation to the

Hague Opium Convention, can fail to observe that,

if there is one note more constantly reiterated than

another, it is a note of alarm lest smugglers should

defeat the objects of the Convention; and, if there

is one remedy more consistently urged than another,

it is the assumption of governmental control over

opium traffic. That diagnosis and that remedy

were, as you know, finally embodied in the most

formal way in the preamble and first article of the

agreement made at the First Opium Conference at

Geneva.

24. In the present condition of southern

China, the Governments of European Colonies

established on her coast Hong Kong, Macao,

Kwong-chau-wan

can maintain control over the

opium traffic in one way only, namely, by themselves

supplying the insistent demand within their own

territories and resolutely holding their own market

against all smugglers. This can only be done by

adjusting the quality and price of official supplies

23

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