yet reached a decision to accept immediate separate payment of the claims. It may be difficult to secure payment of claims after the sum of two million pounds sterling set aside for that purpose is exhausted. Authority is requested to present each American claim immediately upon its approval. It is further requested that the Legation be authorized to urge upon the Diplomatic Corps to give priority to such claims as are founded on direct and proximate results of the revo lution. REINSCH. File No. 493.11/457. The Acting Secretary of State to the American Minister. [Telegram-Paraphrase.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 20, 1913. Authorizes him to present each American claim upon its approval by the Department and to urge the Diplomatic Corps to give priority to claims for actual losses resulting directly from the revolution. His efforts to this end should not commit this Government to the prejudice of such freedom of action as might be necessary in case other Governments should support claims for actual but indirect losses. MOORE. SECOND INTERNATIONAL OPIUM CONFERENCE. REPORT OF THE AMERICAN DELEGATES. RATIFICATION BY THE UNITED STATES OF THE OPIUM CONVENTION.1 File No. 511.4A1/1364b. II. Doc. No. 33, 63d Cong., 1st sess. Message from the President to the Congress transmitting a communication from the Secretary of State. TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: In transmitting the accompanying report from the Secretary of State, I most strongly urge not only the immediate appropriation of the sum of $20,000 which is asked, the absolute necessity for which is so apparent, but also the enactment of the requisite anti-drug legislation to which this Government is pledged internationally. It is a source of gratification to me personally, and it will always be, I am confident, a subject of gratification to the nation, that this Government, realizing the extent of the opium and allied evils, should have initiated the world-wide movement towards their abolition. At this vital period of the movement, to fail to take the few final steps necessary definitively and successfully to conclude the work would be unthinkable, and I therefore trust that there may be no delay in the enactment of the desired legislation, and the consequent mitigation if not suppression of the vice which has caused such world wide misery and degradation. THE WHITE HOUSE, April 21, 1913. WOODROW WILSON. Continued from For. Rel. 1912, pp. 182-224; see also in that volume the Annual Message of the President, p. xix. * Referred to the Committee on Appropriations. The Secretary of State to the President. THE PRESIDENT: DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington. [Not dated.] Since the early days of our relations with China and other Oriental countries it has been a constant policy of this Government to aid such countries in their efforts to prevent the development of an opium evil within their borders, or to assist them towards the eradication of such an evil where it already existed. In conformity with this established policy, and as early as 1833, in the various treaties negotiated with China, Japan and Siam, American citizens were absolutely forbidden either directly or indirectly to engage in the opium trade, or were permitted to engage in the trade only in conformity with the laws of those countries. In the autumn of 1906, when this Government learned that China had set on foot earnest efforts to crush out the opium evil within her boundaries, it initiated an international movement which aimed to secure on behalf of the Chinese effort the cooperation of those Western Powers having territorial possessions in the Far East and who were concerned therefore in the economic, diplomatic and other controversies arising from the Far Eastern opium traffic. The international movement inaugurated by this Government was not only fully justified by the fact that it had since its earliest contact with the Orient forbidden American citizens to engage in the opium trade, but because it was found necessary to protect the population of the Philippine Islands against the effects of the traffic. In furtherance of its purpose this Government in September, 1906, entered upon a correspondence with the Governments of Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and China to ascertain if the time had not arrived for the interested Governments to determine if the entire Far Eastern opium traffic could not be brought to an end. The above mentioned Governments willingly offered to cooperate with the United States, and agreed to a joint investigation of the question. Thereupon six other nations, namely Russia, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Persia and Siam, particularly interested in the Orient, were also invited to join in the investigation, and in February, 1909, there met at Shanghai, China, the International Opium Commission. That Commission thoroughly examined the opium question in all its bearings, and arrived at nine unanimous conclusions which in substance condemned the evils associated with the production and use of opium and morphine, and contained recommendations as to the measures to be taken to bring such abuses to an end. But the International Opium Commission was not empowered to negotiate a convention binding the participating powers. It was a commission for the purpose of study, consideration and recommendation. To obtain a more positive result, a further step was necessary: an international convention to be agreed upon in conference by delegates of the interested Governments, such a convention to provide not only international rules under which opium should be produced and the traffic therein conducted, but also the general rules by which opium 1 For. Rel. 1906, pp. 352-369. 2 For. Rel. 1909, pp. 95–115. 1 should be confined to strictly medicinal purposes in the territories of the different countries. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1909 this Government issued a proposal 1 to those Governments which had been represented in the International Commission that there should be a conference composed of delegates with full powers to meet at The Hague or elsewhere to conventionalize the conclusion arrived at by the International Opium Commission and the essential corollaries derived therefrom. The proposal contained a tentative programme which proved to be generally acceptable. The Netherlands Government very promptly and courteously requested that the Conference meet at The Hague, and on December 1, 1911, on invitation of the Queen of the Netherlands, a conference of the powers represented in the Shanghai Commission, assembled there, and the delegates thereto were authorized by their Governments to formulate and sign an international convention. In the correspondence between the United States and the several Governments which led to the assembling of the Conference the necessity for the consideration not only of the opium evil, but also of the morphine, cocaine and Indian hemp drug evil was developed, and it was agreed by the interested Governments that those questions were to be included in the programme of work, and by convention were to be placed under the same limitations as opium. On the 23rd of January, 1912, the delegates to The Hague Confercnce signed a Convention composed of strict stipulations as to the production and the international and national traffic in opium, morphine and cocaine; and, an important point, it confirmed to China all that had been agreed upon between that country and Great Britain by virtue of their agreement of May 8, 1911. (See Senate Document No. 733, 62nd Congress, 2nd Session.") That the questions dealt with by the Shanghai Commission were not only humanitarian and moral but also questions of great economic importance, had been partly realized and was steadily developed during the sittings of The Hague Conference. Since it was found that they affected not only the revenue and economic interests of the twelve powers with Oriental relations whose representatives had assembled at The Hague but also the major part of the other nations of the world, the Conference came to the conclusion that to make its Convention effective it was necessary to secure adherence thereto by the other nations of the world. Therefore the Convention was so drafted that it was not to become effective until thirty-four other nations named in Article 22 of the Convention should add their signatures to the instrument by means of a Protocol of Supplementary signatures to be opened at The Hague. The necessary supplementary signatures to the Convention were to be secured by December 31 last, the Netherlands Government and the United States cooperating to that end. In the event of failure to secure all thirty-four signatures the Netherlands Government engaged immediately to call a final conference of all signatory powers, that conference to determine upon the deposit of ratifications of the Convention. Up to the 31st of last December, the two Governments had secured the signatures, or been assured of the signatures, 1 For. Rel. 1909, pp. 107–111. 2 For. Rel. 1911, p. 56. For. Rel. 1912, p. 188 et seq. Id., 193 et seq. of all of the Latin-American States except one; while but three of the European States had declined to sign. Since a few of the necessary thirty-four signatures have not been subscribed to the Convention, a second and final conference has now become necessary, and the Queen of the Netherlands has therefore invited all the signatory Governments to send delegates with full powers to The Hague in June next to agree upon the deposit of ratifications of the Convention, which it is to be hoped will definitively bring to an end the deplorable and ruinous abuses connected with the production and traffic in opium, morphine and cocaine. This, Mr. President, is a movement which I have closely followed for the past six years. I have examined all the essential facts and documents relating thereto, and have been gratified to review the growth of this humanitarian, moral and economic movement from a consultation between this Government and five or six of the great powers of the world to one which now embraces the cooperation and has the sanction of almost the entire group of civilized states, and this in spite of the fact that it means past and future financial losses to the powers concerned of over fifty million dollars aggregate annual revenue. The entire movement illustrates a principle abroad in and stamped with the approval of the world to-day, namely, that the peoples are now agreed that an evil such as the opium evil is never wholly national in its incidence, can never be suppressed by two nations alone, as was supposed to be the case with the Far Eastern opium traffic, but that such an evil as it appears in one State is a concomitant or reflex of a similar evil in other States, and therefore is international in its moral, humanitarian, economic and diplomatic effect; further that few evils can be eradicated by national action alone, and therefore that there must be cooperation of all the states directly or indirectly interested before such an evil is mitigated or suppressed. This movement, in which the United States has taken so large a part, was thought at first to concern only those countries of the Far East or those Western nations having territorial possession in the Far East, five or six in number. But it has proceeded by way of a sober international Commission of inquiry composed of Commissioners representing thirteen nations, and by a Conference composed of delegates with full powers representing twelve of these nations. Those delegates having formulated and signed on behalf of their Governments a Convention containing strict pledges for national legislation and international cooperation, it was presented to the remaining states of Europe and America, thirty-four in number, for their signature; and so far only three of the thirty-four have hesitated. I have seen in the Orient and elsewhere the havoc wrought by the abuse of opium, and I feel a pride that our Government has been i.. the forefront of a progressive movement which by the cooperation of the other nations of the world, has been carried to the point where but a final step is necessary effectually to put an end to the misuse of drugs which, while of inestimable benefit to humanity when properly used, are such a curse when abused. That this international movement for the suppression of the opium traffic has been of incalculable benefit to China, and has been one of the chief factors in her modern rehabilitation cannot be denied, and there can be no doubt that the civilized world has rallied to the support of that country in her opium crusade, because of the fact that that crusade is not spasmodic and a matter of authority, but genuine, and of and by the will of the Chinese people. The economic burden imposed upon China by the abuse of opium was well-nigh unbearable. It has been stated on the highest authority that up to the time the opium reform movement began the Chinese people expended over 150 million dollars a year on the consumption of foreign and native opium; that the value of the land given over to the production of native opium, were it planted with wheat or other more useful crops, would yield to the Chinese people an annual return in the neighborhood of 100 million dollars; that the average earning capacity of the millions who were addicted to the habit of opium smoking was reduced one quarter, resulting in an annual loss in productive power of nearly 300 million dollars, or a total annual loss to China of about 550 millions of dollars. In this calculation no account is taken of the capital loss involved. It would be easy for me to point out that the release of China from her opium evil will redound to the credit of all nations concerned and leave a vast number of her people free to spend their energies in the development of internal and foreign commerce to an extent that our commercial bodies have long realized, to the material benefit of China and of those nations who have so loyally assisted her in her great internal movement for reform, and should soon enable the Chinese people to stand as economically free as any other people in the world. I regret, however, that there is one feature of the international and national effort for the suppression of the opium evil that should be disquieting to the Government and people of the United States. It has been stated that a reflex effect of the initiation by the United States of the international movement for the abatement of the opium evil took the form of improved legislation in nearly all countries concerned, and of very drastic legislation in some. Yet, despite this, this Government since February, 1909-the time of the passage of the Federal Opium Exclusion Act-has taken no further definitive action for Federal control of the opium and allied traffics in the United States. The passage of the Opium Exclusion Act was the first step which the Congress took to put our own house in order. There were three bills introduced in the last Congress which aim to supplement and perfect that act.' I understand they are to be introduced in the early days of the present session, and will be pressed to enactment, thus placing this Government in a rightful position before the world. This is greatly to be desired. The necessity for our representation at the forthcoming Conference at The Hague is so apparent that I need not enlarge upon it, and I therefore have the honor to recommend that the Congress be asked immediately to appropriate the sum of twenty thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to enable this Government to meet expenses incidental to and in continuity of its efforts to stamp out the opium evil through the forthcoming final Conference at The 1 For. Rel. 1912, p. 220. |