CO129-516-5 Policy of Hong Kong government on the purchase and supply of opium 25-2-1929 - 10-5-1929 — Page 4

4

مدك

one but not one we can advertise.

It

(2) There is real force in the contention

that any action tending to increase Government

control over the Opium trade is desirable.

might be true that immediately, since the result

will merely be to transfer the trade from the

smugglers to the Goverment, there will be no

decrease in the consumption of Opium and may even,

in spite of the Governor's protest, be an increase.

None the less I believe that if once the Government

got the traffic effectively under their control hing

they could then take measures to restrict amaging,

e.g. by increased price, without necessarily causing

any considerable revival of smuggling because once

the smuggling organisation is broken up it will be

hard to re-establish, and the price of Government Opium may be considerably above that at which smuggled Opium might theoretically be sold without

the profits on the latter being sufficient to repay

the risk involved.

I admit, however, that this is

largely a matter of opinion and is not a contention

it would be easy to defend successfully against the

doctrinaires here or in Geneva.

(3) The experiment previously instituted

was described by Sir Malcolm Delevingne at the last

It did not

No. 1 in 60864/29 meeting of the Advisory Committee.

(dvoru fion. page 16 of the

166 Report that

apparently call forth any protest and the Committee

seem to have been sympathetic with Hong Kong's

Possibly, therefore, a very much more

experiment of the type now suggested

the Otter thisked position.

qur, restricted

barkling the - tion of the leave.

-

on y fath might occasion no comment at Geneva.

geure from China which with woot four difficulter

In any case

no official mention of it at Geneva would be

necessary until the 1929 report was presented,

that