No more than half. The business suffers very much. Confirmed opium smokers suffer very much.
The nature of opium is cold, that of alcohol is hot. If either is taken simultaneously, the health suffers, resulting in injury.
The effects on persons differ, but the injury is the same. The consumption of opium is not confined to the lower classes, but the habit is equally injurious to all. Opium is cold and astringent and has a soporific effect. Wine is hot and volatile and leads to intoxication and madness. The evil effects of opium and wine are about equal.
7. The success of opium consumers in breaking the habit depends upon the strength of will. If he has really determined to break himself of the habit, there is nothing to prevent him.
11. If more opium is sent to China, those who have contracted the opium habit will naturally take steps to cure it. The majority of those who break themselves of the habit now do so because their time is wasted and their business is injured by it.
12. The revenue derived from opium in Hong Kong is larger than that derived from any other source. No doubt, if it was suddenly extinguished, a great loss would be caused to the revenue. But the wealth of England is so great that it ought not to wish to derive advantage from an injurious article. All kinds of goods enter Hong Kong, and there is a ready market for everything. A large revenue could be derived from them. If the land now used for the cultivation of opium is devoted to some other crop, the revenue derived from it will in future be more considerable than it is at present.
The Government will decide what is to be grown, and it is needless for me to make any suggestion.
13. People of European race are better acquainted with the evils of opium, and therefore very few consume it. Asiatics learn the practice from one another, and thus the habit has been developed, and the number of consumers is more than double that of other races.
14. Opium is used as a drug through illness, malaria, and fever. After the initial use, a craving has been established, and the craving arising from opium gradually increases. They observe with regret that the disadvantages outweigh the benefits and confess with remorse that they were mistaken.
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