THE OPIUM DIFFICULTY.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXIX, Issue 58, 4 March 1913, Page 8

THE OPIUM DIFFICULTY.

THE POSITION IN INDIA.

The Government has ret used to lend moiey to baufcers upon Indian eeturities to relieve the money market owing to the lock-up of opium in nnv warehouses.

Commenting on Britain's reported intention to terminate ' tao '•opium agreement arrived at with China, jn 1911, the 'Daily Chronicle' says; "It has been inevitable for dome time that Great Britain would be compelled to take acton on -the opium question, in view of the serious- situation in which Indian merchants have beean placed. The position briefly i? this: In 1907 an edict was issued in China that the cultivation of opium should cea.se; whereupon the Indian Government undertook to reduce the export of Indian opium to. China by one?tenth annually, which would extinguish the trade, in a decade.... As China was fulfilling her and was gradually suppressing the opium trade, a hew agreement was made in 1911, whereby, the trade was to ceaio in seven 'years, India reducing her expoite in the same ration as China retlu'-ed the poppy cultivation. ■cover, India, undertook.- not to export opium to those provinces where the cultivation lad Entirely ceased. , -"111(11811 opium is pracfc'CoUy a St.ie monopoly, and is disposed of by auction. In view of the on the assumption that as the stool.s were curtailed the price would rise, Indian merchants bought extensively at enhanced prices, greatly to the benefit of the Indian Budget. Since the Revolution in China the cultivation of the poppy has been recommenced on an extensive scale, and the prov.noial authorities, in violation oi the treaty, have refused to let in lndim ooium and set up other illegal restrictions. Huge stocks of Indian opium have thus been held up in bond in tH treaty ports of Shanghai and Canton —one account puts their value at 11,000,000 —and merchants and bankers are faced with financial ruin." Consequently, they appealed to tf* Indian Government to adopt one of three courses: (1) to insist <n the observance of the treaty, (2) to take back the opium purchased on the supposition that the treaty would be carried out and refund the money, or *3) stop further sales in India until the merchants' stocks had been cleared.