Appendix III. [Reprinted from the American Journal of International Law for October, 1912, pp. 865-889.] THE INTERNATIONAL OPIUM CONFERENCE. (Part I.) This conference-the latest of The Hague conferences to which the United States was a party-was proposed by the United States on September 1, 1909, and convoked by the Netherlands Government on December 1, 1911. It dealt in a judicial manner with the varied and conflicting interests, diplomatic, moral, humanitarian, and economic, of those Governments represented and with the known similar interests of those not represented. Several of the Governments in making pledges for the obliteration of the opium evil did so in the face of an eventual large financial sacrifice, but this was done thoughtfully and generously. The conference determined upon, and on January 23 last signed, a convention for the suppression of the obnoxious features of their national and of the international opium, morphine, and cocaine traffics, and for the regulation of that part of the production of and trade in the drugs which may be said to be legitimate. To China was confirmed much that she had contended for for a hundred years or more as to the vexatious export of Indian opium to her shores. This act, however, was but a broader recognition of what the British Government had, as between India and China, already yielded to China by virtue of the so-called 10-year agreement of 1907, and by the modification of that agreement signed at Peking on the 8th of May, 1911.' To the United States is due the credit of having initiated an international and national movement of such wide scope, involving diplomatic and economie interests and difficulties that scarcely anyone foresaw. For in the autumn of 1906 the American Government, after repeated urging, and as the result of a pressure not easy to define, boldly ventured on a solution of the opium problem as seen in the Far East, a venture which has been extended by the cooperation of 12 other powers to a solution of the problem as it affects the world generally. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State John Hay had held favorable, though judicious, hearings on the subject with many people representing humanitarian, moral, and economic interests; following these Mr. Elihu Root, the then Secretary of State, formulated a plan, the design of which was to bring the Far Eastern opium traffic to an end, it being plain that that traffic was generally regarded as deplorable, as one of the most serious causes of the first Anglo-Chinese war, and of repeated, if not continuous, friction between China and Great Britain, with adverse economic and diplomatic consequences felt by every power having intercourse with the former. To secure the end sought for, it was essential that the United States obtain the support of those western powers having territorial possessions in the Far East, and of certain of the oriental States, more particularly China and Japan. The United States had become a Far Eastern power in the larger sense through the acquisition of the Philippine Islands, and having maintained a fairly high record of accord with China as to the viciousness of the opium traffic and having attempted, as far as this could be done by national and local legislation, to protect the population of the Philippine Islands from the opium vice, it was in the best diplomatic position to approach the interested Governments. The cooperation of the major powers having treaty relations with China was early and willingly offered to the United States, but one may suppose not without some misgivings in European chancelleries at the temerity of this Government's venture. From that moment the design of the Department of State broadened and embraced several other Governments directly or indirectly interested in some phase of the problem. By the autumn of 1908, 12 States of Europe and Asia had ranged themselves beside the United States in international brotherhood, and up to the present moment have remained there. 1 Vide this Journal, October, 1909, p. 835 (this volume, p. 249 et seq.). 2 Vide post, p. 276-277. The so-called Opium War of 1839-1841. 4 Vide Journal, October, 1909, p. 649 (this volume, p. 237 et seq.). CHINA. Mr. Robert Bacon was Assistant Secretary of State at the time the American Government initiated the international movement for the settlement of the opium problem, and upon him fell the responsibility of the negotiations which led to the assembling of the International Opium Commission. If The Hague conference with which this paper particularly deals-achieved a decisive resuit, it was largely due to the broad lines upon which Mr. Bacon encouraged and kept the negotiations for the International Opium Commission, and to the official support and confidence, which later as Secretary of State he accorded to the American representatives on that commission. The International Opium Conference, composed of delegates with full powers, was a sequel of the International Opium Commission which met at Shanghai, China, February, 1909. That commission was, generally speaking, a commission of inquiry, somewhat conforming in action to such commissions as rovided for by The Hague Peace Conference of 1899. What that commission accomplished, both directly and indirectly, was described in the journal for July and October, 1909, and the progress of the movement since the commission adjourned has been outlined in the editorial columns of the journal for April, 1911. It is the purpose of this paper to continue the narrative of international ccoperation to solve the opium and allied problems, and to demonstrate that by the steady, persistent effort of the United States, by a continuity of policy running from the hands of Mr. Root into the hands of Mr. Bacon and Mr. Knox, the world will shortly see the obliteration of the Indo-Chinese opium trade, the release of China from the bonds of her own unnecessary production and vicious consumption of opium, as well as the regulation of the legitimate opium and allied traffics of the nations of the four continents. As stated above, the International Opium Commission met at Shanghai in February, 1909. Its conclusions that the opium vice should cease and that the illicit morphine traffic must be discontinued, were unanimous. But these conclusions were on their face only moral in effect. Nevertheless they cleared all doubt as to future action, and left it open to the United States to proceed to propose that a conference, composed of delegates with full powers, should meet at The Hague to conventionalize the conclusions of the commission. Therefore on September 1, 1909, the Department of State addressed a circular proposal to the interested governments--that is, to those represented on the International Opium Commission-in which inter alia it was stated that the Government of the United States had learned with satisfaction of the results achieved by the International Opium Commission; that it was the opinion of the leaders of the antiopium movement that much had been accomplished and that both the Government and people of the United States recognized that the results were largely due to the generous spirit in which the representatives of the governments concerned approached the questions submitted to them. The American appreciation of the magnitude of the opium problem and the serious financial interests involved were dwelt upon, and it was pointed out that as the result of inquiries in the Philippine Islands and the United States itself, the opium prob. lem was of great material as well as humanitarian interest to the American people and Government. Mention was then made of the fact that on February 9, 1909, during the sitting of the International Opium Commission, the Congress had passed and the President had approved of an act forbidding the importation of opium into the United States except for medicinal purposes, thus cutting out by a stroke of the pen a previous per annum importation of nearly 200,000 pounds of opium prepared for smoking, used mostly by Chinese residents in the United States, but also of over 150,000 Americans. Continuing, it was stated that the United States was not an opium-producing country, and that to enable it to effectuate the above-mentioned legislation, it was necessary to secure international cooperation and the practical sympathy of opium-producing countries. Further, that although no formal declaration had been made at the International Opium Commission, it was a matter of discussion by the commissioners that however important the commission's conclusions were morally, they would fail to satisfy enlightened public opinion unless by subsequent agreement of the powers they and the minor questions involved in them were incorporated in an international convention. Greatly impressed by the gravity of the opium prob International commissions of inquiry recommended by The Hague Peace Conference, 1899. articles 9-14. Vide resolutions supplement to the Journal, 3:275 (July, 1909). For. Rel. 1909, pp. 107 et seq. lem and the desirability of divesting it of local and unwise agitation, as well as the necessity of maintaining it upon a basis of fact, as determined by the Shanghai commission, the United States proposed an international conference to be held at The Hague, and that the delegates thereto should have full powers to conventionalize the resolutions adopted at Shanghai and their necessary conse quences. A tentative program, composed of 14 items, was submitted, nearly all of these items becoming a part of the definite program of the conference. They included such items of interest as follows: Effective national laws to control the production, manufacture, and distribution of opium; restriction of the number of ports through which opium might be shipped by opium-producing countries; prevention at the port of departure of the shipment of opium to countries which prohibit or wish to prohibit or control its entry; reciprocal notification of the amount of opium shipped from one country to another; regulation by the universal Postal Union of the transmission of opium through the mails; restriction or control of the production of opium by countries which did not then produce it to compensate for the reduction in production being made in British India and China; the restudy of treaty obligations under which the opium traffic was being conducted; uniform provisions of penal laws concerning offenses against any agreement entered into by the powers in regard to opium production and traffic; uniform marks of identification of opium in international transit; government authorization to be granted to exporters and importers of opium; recip rocal right of search of vessels suspected of carrying contraband opium; meas ures to prevent the unlawful use of a flag by vessels engaged in the opium traffic; the application of a strict pharmacy law to the nationals of the powers in the consular districts, concessions, and settlements in China; the advisability of an international supervisory commission to be intrusted with the carrying out of any international agreement concluded by the powers. The proposal of the United States did not attempt to prescribe the scope of the conference or to present a program which might not be varied or enlarged; and finally the powers were asked that a delegate or delegates be appointed, furnished with full powers, to negotiate and conclude an agreement based on the conclusions of the Shanghai commission and other important questions involved in them.' It is to the great credit of 11 of the powers to which this proposal was made that they promptly and heartily responded and offered to continue cooperation with the United States for final international settlement of the opium problem. By the middle of May, 1910, the American proposal had been almost generally accepted and the Netherlands Government had very courteously and quickly offered to assemble the conference at The Hague. However, one power had regretted its inability to send delegates to the conference, and another had failed to respond definitely to the American proposal by May, 1910, namely, Great Britain. There has been considerable ill-advised criticism of this delay on the part of the British Government, but the delay, as will be shown later, was due not to a want of sympathy or to a determination not to cooperate with the other Governments, but partly because Great Britain was then negotiating a modification of the 10-year agreement made between herself and China in 1907-it being the natural desire of statesmen like Sir Edward Grey and Lord Morley that the opium question as between Great Britain and China should be advanced more nearly to the fulfillment of China's desires before the conference met. In add t'on to this, the British Government was greatly concerned over the morphine and cocaine traffics; for it had been shown beyond a doubt that immense quantities of these drugs were being smuggled into British India to take the place of opium, also that in China they tended to supplant the use of opium which the British Government had agreed that India should soon cease to export, and the production and use of which China on her part had agreed to suppress. But in September, one year after the American proposal was made, the British Government tendered its cooperation with the American and other Governments, laying down as a condition of its acceptance of the American proposal that the powers should agree before the conference met to study the question of the production of and traffic in morphine and cocaine, and pledge themselves beforehand to the principle of drastic legislation against such production and traffic equally effective 1 For proposal, vide supplement, p. 258. Austria-Hungary, which nevertheless expressed a determination to watch the confer ence with sympathy. (For Rel. 1910, pp. 307–308.) with the measures she had taken or proposed to take for the ultimate obliteration of the Indo-Chinese opium trade.1 Had the British proposals in regard to the morphine and cocaine traffics not been made, there is little doubt that the conference would have assembled early in 1911, but it was recognized by all concerned that though the British proposals were sound and necessary, they required the grave consideration of several of the Governments whose subjects were heavily interested in the manufacture of and traffic in these drugs. They were particularly important to Germany, as one of the largest producers. Nevertheless, after due consideration, all of the Governments accepted the British proposals, and the date of the assembling of the conference was finally fixed by the Netherlands for December 1, 1911.' In the meantime the Italian Government had proposed that the production and traffic in the Indian hemp drugs be included as part of the program of the conference. It was stated above that the delegates to the International Opium Commission which met at Shanghai in February, 1909, felt on the whole that the conclusions of the commission as embodied in its resolutions would be only moral in their effect unless by subsequent agreement amongst the interested States the resolutions and their necessary consequences were converted to and given the force of international law and agreement. This, too, undoubtedly was the popular estimate of the work of the commission. Soon, however, this conclusion had to be modified, for within a few months from the adjournment of the commission several of the powers more particularly interested gave the resolutions of the commission a binding effect by legislating in accord with them. This was notably true of the British Indian Government, of the Governments of the British self-governing colonies, and of several of the Crown colonies; also of the French colonial governments. These actions were in accord with modern statecraft, which recognizes that moral conclusions unanimously arrived at by an authoritative international body of wide representation have nearly the. force of distinct pledges entered into by a conference composed of delegates clothed with the full power of their States. In former articles dealing with the International Opium Commission there was outlined the opium problem as seen in the home territories and possessions of the Governments represented in the commission, and an account was given of the different measures taken by the different Governments to put new restrictive or prohibitory opium laws into effect before the commission assembled. The same plan will be followed in the present paper. CHINA. The first resolution of the Shanghai commission is as follows: "That the International Opium Commission recognizes the unswerving sincerity of the Government of China in their efforts to eradicate the production and consumption of opium throughout the Empire; the increasing body of public opinion among their own subjects by which these efforts are being supported; and the real, though unequal, progress already made in a task which is one of the greatest magnitude." It will be noticed at once that, though the commissioners at Shanghai recognized the unswerving sincerity of the Chinese Government in its attempt to suppress the production and use of opium in China, there was prevalent, nevertheless, the feeling that China's effort to this end had been unequal. It may be stated that the commission contained many doubting Thomases who could not believe in the ability of the Chinese Government to accomplish the task to which it had set itself or to fulfill its part of the so-called 10-year agreement of 1907. There were a few, however, who believed that the Chinese Government and people had at last been aroused to the truth, that the individual Chinese, as well as his Government, could not command the entire respect of these powers having treaty relations with China until China had shown a capacity to secure the great moral and economic reform in view. It had become only too obvious that China's inertia both at home and abroad was due to the poppy, and that if she had been unsuccessful in some of her dealings with the western powers it was not because of any superiority of intelligence on the part of the representatives of those powers so much as the inability of a num For. Rel. 1910, pp. 312-313. 140322° 18 For. Rel. 1911, p. 56. ber of Chinese metropolitan and provincial officials to efficiently transact business and perform their duties after emerging from an atmosphere of opium smoke. At the International Opium Commission the Chinese representatives made a strenuous effort to bring under discussion and secure a modification of the 10-year agreement between China and Great Britain such as would be more in accord with and more helpful to the Chinese Government in the task before it. There can be no doubt that the strong men at Peking and in the Provinces were in hearty sympathy with the efforts of their representatives in the commission, for the commission had no sooner adjourned than the Peking Government renewed its efforts to secure a modification of the 10-year agreement. The attitude of the British Government was not unsympathetic, for the world at large had had it from Lord Morley, who was then at the head of the India office, that Great Britain would meet China more than halfway in the event of her showing a determination and capacity to suppress what was now being generally recognized as the great economic as well as moral obstacle to the advance of the Chinese Government and people. Quite naturally, however, the British Government was loath to make further concessions to China in regard to the Indo-Chinese opium traffic until China had demonstrated beyond peradventure of a doubt her capacity to fulfill her part of a solemn engagement. China was determined to show the world her latent energy. To this end the authorities at Peking, encouraged by the proposal for an international conference made by the United States, and aided by energetic, enlightened, and faithful viceroys in the Provinces, renewed their efforts to suppress the cultivation of the poppy and the use of opium in the Empire, expecting thereby to secure from Great Britain terms as to the Indian opium trade which would be more helpful. In this they were successful, as will be presently shown. During the months from the end of February, 1909, to the spring of 1911, there were varying and sometimes contradictory reports from many observers as to what the Chinese Government and people were accomplishing toward the suppression of the production of opium and its abuse in the Empire. To those who were watching the situation closely it was seen that decided progress was being made, and that China was more than carrying out her part of the terms of the 10-year agreement. China is so vast a country, with so great a population and such varying local conditions that it would be quite impossible to give in this paper in detail the methods adopted and the results attained by the central and provincial authorities in achieving her reform, so that a statement of the case must be based on memoranda compiled from many sources by one of the highest authorities on the question. Mr. Charles D. Tenney, Chinese secretary of the American Legation at Peking, and one of the commissioners for the United States at the International Opium Commission. Mr. Tenney's conclusions follow: "It is now possible to make a general statement in regard to the progress of the crusade against the growth of the poppy and the production and use of opium in the Chinese Empire. By the agreement with Great Britain in 1907the so-called 10-year agreement-China undertook to suppress the growth of the poppy within a period of 10 years, by gradual reduction, and Great Britain agreed, on her part, to reduce the amount of opium exported from India to all countries by one-tenth annually; this agreement was to continue only if after three years China was able to show that she had lived up to her part of the program. A great moral awakening had occurred in China before this agree ment was entered upon. Upon the conclusion of the agreement a remarkable impetus was given to the movement both in Government circles and amongst the scholars and gentry throughout the Chinese Empire, and there aros› a general determination to suppress entirely and at once the production of native op'um without reference to the 10-year agreement. The difficulty of dealing with this question in so vart an area as that of the Chinese Empire and through a Ledy of subordinate officials, n any of whom are corrupt, must be evident, and the results that have been obtained, though somewhat uneven, are in the aggregate surprising and most gratifying. The evidence of both Chinese and other observers is conclusive that the growth of the poppy has been practically sup 1 Vide Journal, October, 1909, p. 847. For the important beginnings, vide Edicts, etc., Journal, October, 1909, pp. 828-812. For agreement, vide Journal, October, 1909, p. 835. |