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through the use of the medicines which it supplies, but it is careful to add that proof must be forthcoming that claimants for the prizes were actually smokers.
On the 2nd July an Ordinance was passed by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong to prohibit the exportation of prepared opium to China and to French Indo- China, and proposals dealing with the subject of opium within the Colony have been submitted to the British Government.
On the 30th June 25 per cent. of the opium-smoking houses within the Inter- national Settlement at Shanghae were closed, and lots for the closing of another 25 per cent, by the 31st December were drawn on the 3rd October. It is stated that the opium houses left open after the closing on the 30th June did not benefit from the reduced competition to the extent anticipated by their proprietors. Although notice has been given by the Council that it is proposed to follow in the French Settlement the procedure adopted in the International Settlement, no steps have yet been taken and the question is still under discussion..
In the International Settlement of Kulangsu, Amoy, all opium-smoking houses were closed on the 31st August, and all shops for the sale of the drug, fourteen in number, will be closed, one-half on the 31st March, 1909, and the balance on the corresponding date 1910. The Shanghac procedure of drawing lots will be followed in January next.
Towards the end of September, Japan notified China of her consent to the prohibition of the general importation of morphia and instruments for its injection, and the Chinese Government at once notified the foreign Representatives that the prohibition would take effect from the 1st January, 1909. The prohibition also includes the manufacture of morphia and instruments in China. Due provision has been made for importation for medicinal purposes, in accordance with Article 11 of the British Treaty with China of the 5th September, 1902, and the import duty has been reduced from 3 Haikwan taels an ounce to 5 per cent. ad valorem. The high duty of 8 Haikwan taels (about 9s.) per ounce imposed by the Tariff drawn up in accordance with the Protocol of the 7th September, 1901, led to extensive smuggling, for, while the morphia habit was rapidly spreading in China, the importation, as shown in the Returns of the Imperial Maritime Customs, has steadily declined.
On the 14th December, 1907, a Memorial was submitted to the Throne by the Governor of Kiangsu, recommending the enactment of special penal laws against the sale of morphia and the manufacture of instruments for its injection. The Memorial was referred to the Board of Laws which, jointly with the Imperial Commissioners for Law Reform, presented their Report, and recommended that those convicted of manufacturing instruments for the injection of morphia should suffer banishment to the most remote and unhealthy regions of the Empire, and that those convicted of selling morphia, except under a special Customs permit, should suffer the same punishment, together with confiscation of their shops. This recommendation was approved by Imperial Decree on the 16th July. A copy of the Report embodying the Memorial of the Governor of Kiangsu is annexed.
In view of the assembling of the Joint Opium Commission, which will commence its sittings at Shanghae on the 1st January, 1909, the Acting Inspector-General of Customs and Posts was instructed by the Chinese Government to associate a member of the Customs Service with the Commission, and for this purpose he has nominated Mr. J. L. Chalmers, the acting Statistical Secretary, who resides in Shanghae, and on the 31st August be addressed a Circular calling upon officers of the Revenue and Postal Departments to report on various phases of the opium question to Mr. Chalmers before the 30th November. Owing to the large number of post-offices established in every province of the Empire, the resulting information should be more comprehensive than anything hitherto obtained, and should prove of value to the Commission, and of great interest to the world at large.
A Memorial recently addressed to the Throne by the Board of Finance, the proposals contained in which received Imperial approval on the 4th October, gives an interesting, if somewhat sanguine, forecast of the prospects of suppression. It states that prohibition will be made effective during the present Chinese year in the Provinces of Kiangsu, Anhui, Honan, Yunnan, Fuhkien, and Hei-lung-chiang (in Manchuria), that production, will be entirely suppressed during the following year in the Provinces of Fengt'ien and Kirin (in Manchuria), Chihli, Shantung, Kiangsi, Chekiang, Hupei, Hunan, Hsin Chiang (the new Dominion), Kuangtung, and Kuangsi, which are credited with a small output, and that a reduction, as compared with 1907, of 20 cent. in the area under poppy in, and of a similar proportion of, the export of opium per from the Provinces of Szechuan, Kueichow, Kansu, and Shensi, will be carried out.
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The memorialists leave the entire suppression in Shansi, which, although a large producer, consumes its whole output, to the Governor of the province, who has since C presented a Memorial to the Throne requesting sanction to the total prohibition of opium cultivation within his jurisdiction from the beginning of next year, and he proposes to request the authorities of other provinces to issue instructions forbidding the export of native opium to Shansi, and states that he will direct the frontier Customs officials to take strict measures against smuggling.
The opinion is further expressed that poppy cultivation and opium smoking will be abolished well within the period of ten years originally fixed, and that, in the absence of demand, the import of foreign opium will ipso facto cease. These, as stated above, are sanguine views, and it is hoped that they will be realized.
The Memorial also deals with the production and sale of native opium and the consumption of foreign opium in China, and an attempt is made to show that the production of native opium has of late largely decreased, while the import of foreign opium has not. It is a very simple matter for the Chinese Government to obtain reliable statistics of foreign opium from the Returns of the Imperial Maritime Customs; but the figures given for the production of native opium are from native sources, and are on the face of then a manifest underestimate. To any one with the least knowledge of poppy cultivation in China, the statement that the opium production of the whole Empire amounted in 1905, 1906, and 1907 to 142,698, 148,103, and 119,983 piculs respectively is nothing short of ludicrous. The Memorial, a translation of which is appended to this Report, is interesting from other stand- points. It was presented in accordance with an Imperial Decree suggesting the establishment of an official monopoly which the memorialists declare to be impracticable and undesirable for several reasons; it seems to confuse reduced export from India with decreased import into China, and it states that, as the Hong Kong opium farmer is permitted by his licence to boil 15 chests of raw opium daily, while less than 3 chests suffice for the consumption of the Colony, the difference is smuggled into China, whereas it is known that the farmer boiled on the average less than 2 chests a-day in 1907, and that part of the drug prepared by him was exported to Annam and the Straits Settlements. Apart from these misconceptions and misstate- ments, the Memorial is worthy of perusal, grappling, as it tries to do, with a question whose solution depends on the support, energy, and loyal co-operation of the local authorities.
This Memorial may be assumed to express the views and aspirations of the Central Government on the subject of opium, and I propose now to pass in review the steps that have been taken. in the provinces since last Report towards the abolition of cultivation and the eradication of the habit. This review is based for the most part on the Reports of His Majesty's Consuls, who are indebted for much of their information to British missionaries residing or travelling in the interior of the country.
Manchuria.--The northern Province of Hei-lung-chiang has always been the great centre of opium production in Manchuria, the principal poppy-growing districts lying to the north of the River Sungari. No Report has been received from this or the central Province of Kirin for the last six months. Opium is still produced in the southern Province of Fengt'ien, but in diminished quantities. Writing of the prefectures of Chin-chou Fu and Hsin-min Fu, a correspondent says that on the whole there is a decrease in the area planted, in smokers, and in shops which openly sell the drug, but the underground traffic cannot be easily estimated. He enumerates thirteen places in these two prefectures, and in eleven of these the decrease in acreage is described as ranging from a little less to one-half. In the remaining two places, one is said to grow as much as before, while in the other production is reported to have doubled. These two places are on the Mongolian border, and the successful cultivation is alleged to have been carried on by the use of bribes. In cases, however, where the bribes offered were insufficient the crops were uprooted. Taxation of poppy-growing land rose from 50 cents in 1906 and 1 dollar in 1907 to 2 dols. 50 e. per mou in 1903. The price of the drug has increased, and it pays better to grow the poppy now than when the tax was lighter. There was a shortage in 1908 through a partial destruction of the crop by rain at the time of gathering the opium. In seven of the places the smokers are described as fewer to much fewer; in five they are said to number as much as before; and in the remaining one my correspondent would not hazard an opinion. In several places shops for the sale of opium are fewer in number, but the drug is sold in other places, principally in secret.
According to the approved proposals of the Board of Finance, poppy cultivation
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