An Explanation of British and Other Foreign Powers' Efforts at Suppression Peking, Feb. 1.
Reuter's Agency is authorized to amoke the following statement in regard to a letter addressed to the Press by the General Secretary of tthe International Anti-Opium Association, on January 2%, in which the writer asserts that China is being fettered& by foreign treaty rights in her "laudable efforts" to seontrol the traffic and that in particular she is unable to fulfil her compact with the League of Nations in the matter of the issue of import certificates, owing to the existence of the foreign sotiements -and concessions "As far as the British are con-
-cerned, legislation now in force, though it may not be identical with that prescribed by the League of Nations, does, in fact, restrict the import of narcotics by British subjects to medical and scientific uses only. The bond signed by the importer before his Consul, under Rule IV of the Customs tariff, besides giving full particulars as to quantity and value, guarantees that the arides imported will be employed for medical purposes only, either in private practice or in some specified hospital and the drugs cannot be imported until a special landing permit has been issued by the Chinese Maritime Customs. So it is not the British Consul, but the Chinese Government, through its representative, the Commissioner of Customs, that issues the import certificate and the writer is, therefore, entirely wrong in saying that the present system allows individual importation by Consular permits.' His inference that extraterritoriality prevents China from fulfilling her compact with the League of Nations is also entirely unjustified. Oni the contrary, it may be said without fear of contradiction that the presence of British and other foreign settlements and concessions in the principal ports of foreign entry into China is of material.assistance in regulating the drug traffic and checking smuggling, as witness the effective manner in which the police of the international foreign settlement at Shanghai ea-operate with the Chinese Customs in their constant fight with the opium smugglers.
"To say, ab a time when opium is openly grown in all parts of the country, in many places under official compulsion, when it is being transported by the ton from one place to another in packages under official seals, when opium smuggling on an organized scale has assumed. dimensions which have recently led the Inspector-General of Customs publicly to recommend legalization of the trade as the only
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.