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suggestion they had to make in respect to it was one for the increase of the fee for a licence to deal in Compounds of Opium and that the Attorney-General reported that the Solicitors were as satisfied as one could hope they would be.
may add that the result of much investigation and enquiry which preceded the legislation in question did not disclose serious evidence of so, an increase in the consumption of Compounds of Opium as could have contributed in a material degree to any losses which the Farmers had sustained.
4.
The second reason that events had proved their clients' tender for the Monopoly to have been too high is too vague to admit of useful comment.
If the Solicitors had stated that in order to make the Monopoly pay their clients had to raise the price of Prepared Opium to a point at which the consumption of it for smoking was diminished, they would probably have assigned the real reason for the Opium Farmers' difficulties.
In one of the communications addressed on behalf of the Farmers to the Government on the subject of the legislation in connection with Compounds of Opium it was stated that the consumption of Prepared Opium had fallen from 2,250 taels per diem prior to September last to 1,400 taels per diem at the end of March. The price of a tael weight of Prepared Opium was $2 prior to 6th September, 1903, and was subsequently raised to $2.50 and later to $3.
5.
The third reason alleged, viz., the increase in price of Raw Opium has no doubt foundation in fact. A chest of Patna Opium, the kind most used by the Farmers, was quoted in the local market at $1,075 on the 31st of August, 1903, at
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