JAPAN AND OPIUM

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 716, 16 December 1933, Page 7

JAPAN AND OPIUM

("Post" Snecial Corresnondent.')

CHARGED WITH USING MANCHURIA TO DEVELOP TRAFFIC.

Geneva, November 4. Wh'en the Opium Committee of the League of Nations met to-day, Mr. Stuart Fuller, the United States delegate, made a strong attack on Jiapan, declaring that she had introduced in Manchuria a monopoly of making opium, which was making big profits. The culture of opium there had, he said, doubled since the Japanese occupation. He declared. "In view of the menace to the United States which might result from the accumulation in Manchuria of opium of high morphine eontent, I desire to protest against the evasion of the obligations under the Hague Convention of 1912, which appears to be eontemplated by proposals made by the Chinese- Japanese Advisory Committee in respect to the so-called •Manchukuo import certificates." Mr. Fuller referred to a European firm which, he said, had been endeavouring to ' engage in the import of Persian, drugs into Manchuria. An attempt had been made to legalise the position of this firm, he continued, b'y the reeognition of licenses for the import into Manchuria of opium t and other dangerous drugs. "Provinces of China." Throughout Mr. Fu,ller spoke of Manchuria, not as Manchukuo,. but as "the three north-eastern provinces of Ghina." He said: "As longi as the sovereignty of China over Manchuria is recognised by the Powers the proposal to facilitate the shipment of raw opium to Manchuria, where its import is prohibited by Chinese law, would seem to be plainly a derogation of The Hague Convention. The motive is greed, desire for gain, the same sordid motive as that of all the other ' illieit traffic. A-eroplanes have' been employed on the part of certain. Powers to drop propaganda to encourage the peasants to grow the poppy."