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preparation is manufactured in Hong Kong at the lowest price in the obvious reason that the raw material pays no duty there. How much profit is made by the Monopoly after paying $137,000 a year to the Hong Kong Government is a mystery which it is impossible to fathom; but there can hardly be any doubt that its exactions are based on a very large margin of profit, and that the demand and the sale of prepared Opium and the profits derived from it are yearly increasing with the increase of the Chinese population abroad.
The Commission of Inquiry recommend as the only expedient they can suggest that the Government should establish Boiling Houses under its own supervision, "making these the only places at which it shall be legal to boil opium and charging duty on the drug prepared by quantity or weight." This suggestion no doubt contains the correct principle, but its application would be attended with much risk and expense.