File No. 774/407.
Ambassador Reid to the Secretary of State.
London, November 19, 1908.
With reference to your telegram of the 6th instant re opium commission, Sir Edward Grey asks to be informed whether modifications therein suggested may be interpreted as superseding draft instructions numbered 1, 2, and 3 in your cipher telegram May 7, it not being clear to him how instructions to British delegates should now be worded.
It appears to him that the new proposals are intended to take the place of clause 3 in your cipher telegram May 7. Wording now proposed would seem to accept principle that the commission should first investigate the facts regarding production, commerce, use, and disadvantages of opium in China and the Far East, and that findings of these facts and actual remedies required must precede useful discussion of amendments needed in the opium regulations of countries other than those in the Far East, and, therefore, that clauses 1 and 2 of the original instructions mentioned are no longer required.
Sir Edward Grey requests reply at your earliest convenience.