Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 3, 1907, (In two parts), Part I

File No. 774/91.

The Acting Secretary of State to Minister Rockhill.

[Telegram.—Paraphrase.]

Department of State,
Washington,July 11, 1907.

(Mr. Bacon states that the methods of investigation and other details will, of course, be left to the subsequent determination by China and the other cooperating powers.

Informs Mr. Rockhill that China is now simply asked to agree in principle to a joint commission for the investigation of the opium question, including the importation of foreign opium. States that the other six interested powers have all agreed, and adds confidentially that the inevitable abandonment of the project through China’s holding aloof will, in view of her anti-opium protestations, produce a peculiar impression.)