Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 8, 1908

File No. 774/406.

The Acting Secretary of State to Ambassador Leishman.

Department of State,
Washington, November 27, 1908.

No. 447.]

Sir: The department acknowledges the receipt of your telegram of the 19th instant, in which the department is informed that you have been advised by the Sublime Porte that since the Ottoman Government has no representative in China it has found it impossible to be represented on the International Opium Commission.

You will inform the foreign office that the department regrets that the conference has lost the benefit of Turkish participation, and express the hope that although unable to share in the proposed deliberations the Sublime Porte will sympathetically consider measures which may be adopted by the international commission for the general suppression of the opium evil.

I am, etc.,

Robert Bacon.