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intention of smuggling. In order to eliminate the possibility of illicit trade due to this cause, the Farmer since 1900 has only been allowed to maintain one establishment.
If prepared opium bearing the Hongkong Farmer's "chop" is now found in China the "chop" is probably a forgery in order to obtain sale as foreign opium for what is really native opium. It is hardly likely that the Farmer would put his "chop on smuggled opium. If it is a fact that opium is still smuggled into China, it must be remembered that there are other non-British ports which are quite as favourably situated for the operations of smugglers as Hongkong is.
The price of prepared opium in Hongkong being double that in China there is obviously little inducement to smuggle the prepared drug, while the stall number of chests drawn by the Farmer (about half the number authorised) shews that it is improbable that raw opium is illicitly exported. There is moreover independent evidence to shew that any systematic smuggling is now practically extinct, though no doubt small quantities may be occasionally exported illicitly by casual individuals.
(a.) The Police have made no seizures to speak of for eight years. (b.) It has not come to my knowledge that the Chinese Customs, in spite of the large rewards they offer to informers, have made any important seizure.
(c.) The armed bands who in former days were met with from time to time and often offered resistance, appear to have been quite broken up.
(d.) The willingness of the Farmer to co-operate in preventing the smuggling of prepared opium to China, if the latter would reciprocate, goes to shew that he does not smuggle.
(e.) Finally there is conclusive evidence furnished by Mr. Clementi's recent examination of the Farmer's books to exonerate him from
any such charge.
The efforts of the Hongkong Government in recent years (and before the present agitation began) have therefere been consistently directed towards the abolition of illicit trade in either raw or prepared opium to China and there is evidence to shew that its efforts have been attended with a large measure of suc- cess. This is a benefit of the very first importance to China, and has only been secured by constant efforts and some pecuniary loss to the Colony. Recently China has pledged herself to reciprocate by checking the illicit importation of prepared opium from China into Hongkong, but her inability to translate her undoubtedly genuine desire into effective action is shewn by the fact that for the six months following that in which the agreement was made (viz., August 1907 to January 1908) the average number of seizures of prepared opium illicitly imported into Hongkong has exceeded one per diem. The smuggling takes place from various ports, Canton, Amoy, Swatow, Hoihow, etc. I have reason to know that the Viceroy at Canton is sincerely anxious to put a stop to this practice, and the Imperial Maritime Customs have done their utmost, but the effort to suppress smuggling is to attempt the impossible, so long as the price of opium in China is only half the price in Hongkong.
I have already observed that since China has appealed to the Indian Export from Government to make heavy pecuniary sacrifices in order to restrict the China. import of opium, it is reasonable to expect that she herself should abandon the authorised export of Chinese grown opium. The official returns* show that this export had continually increased up to 1907 when it fell to 84,737 lbs. The average for 5 years (including 1907) is 348,811 lbs. The re-export of foreign opium is slightly decreasing. In 1907 it stood at 48,400 lbs., the average for 5 years being 70,947 lbs. The total average export for the last 5 years through the Customs (ie., apart from smuggling) is therefore 419,758 lbs. the bulk of which goes to French Indo-China. There is also a considerable illicit export of raw opium from China, to the Straits, Saigon, Bangkok, America, and other places, which as I have said can only be checked by exhancing the price of opium in China, till it equals the price in the countries to which snuggling takes place.
• Memo. communicated by Mr. Harris, Commissioner of Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs. The Straits Opium Commission Report states that China is the chief if not the ouly source of smuggled
opium into that Colony.