697
14
taxation, uprooted the young plants, a reassuring Proclamation was issued. Registra- tion of poppy land is described as a farce. It is said that many people have voluntarily given up the opium habit.
In the K'ai Hsien and Wan Hsien districts of K'uai-chou Prefecture, also in the east of the province, nothing whatever has been done to check use or cultivation, and although Proclamations have been issued in the O-mei district, in the Chia-ting Prefecture, south and west of the provincial capital, announcing official control of opium, nothing has been done to enforce obedience. Some of the gentry and scholars have abandoned the habit, but there is no reduction in cultivation.
Poppy cultivation has been practically abandoned in the districts of Pa Hsien and Chi-chiang Hsien, lying between the port of Chungking and the frontier of the Province of Kueichow. One traveller states that, with some very few exceptions, he saw nothing in this part of the province but wheat, beans, &c., where last year opium grew in profusion. In the Pa Hsien district opium growers are all registered, and in spring many fields of poppy were summarily destroyed by their owners to avoid being found out by yamon runners sent out with a deputy on a tour of inspection. In these districts opium houses have been reduced in most instances from ten or more in a market town to two or three. Food-stuffs were cheaper than for many years, owing to their larger production.
It is at the district city of Sui-ning, in the Prefecture of Tung-chuan Fu, which between the Prefectures of Pao-ning aud Chengtu, that experiments are being made with the Malay opium cure already referred to. Reference has also been made to the orders given by the Governor-General for curtailment of cultivation in future, and to the special deputies appointed to report on the areas under poppy. In Szechuan the poppy seed is sown during the present month (November), so that it is yet too soon to say what measure of success will attend the instructions enjoining curtailment.
Kueichow-In last Report it was mentioned that a genuine attempt was being made in this province to stamp out the evil. This may be applicable to Kuei-yang, the provincial capital, and the immediate neighbourhood; but Reports recently received from other prefectures tell quite a different story. Of the Prefecture of An-shun Fu, in the west of the province, it is stated that Proclamations were issued last year and this year, but no action has been taken locally in pursuance of them. No steps have been taken to restrict the area under cultivation. Nearly all the available land is given over to poppy growing, and very little wheat is cultivated. In the beginning the officials made a pretence of closing the opium houses and shops, and the signboards were taken down, but now both houses and shops are in full swing again, and no inspection is carried out. The only step taken to cure the smokers has been to open a temple as a place for dispensing medicines to help in the cure.
Writing from the Prefecture of Chen-yuen Fu, in the east of the province, a correspondent says that a Proclamation was issued last March warning residents of a certain locality that the Opium Regulations were still in force, and that planting of poppy was a violation thereof, but no official action has been taken.
Last year's anxiety on the subject has quite disappeared, and none of the officials are really giving. up the habit. One Magistrate near Chen-yuen sent deputies to destroy the poppy fields, but appeal was made to the Governor, and he was made to pay heavy restitution. There are no restrictions on smokers in this district, nor are any medicines being given out by the officials.
Another report states that in the Tsung-yi Prefecture, in the north of the province, nearly 85 per cent. of the fields in the writer's district are under poppy, and that more opium is being bought than last year. No fresh Proclamations have been issued, and the opium houses and shops are neither closed nor inspected, and there are no restrictions on smokers.
The above is rather a black picture, but Kueichow is probably the most opium- sodden province of the Empire, and eradication of the evil will take time.
Yünnun.---I have already referred to the energy displayed by the Governor- General of Yünuan and Kueichow, and to his determination to eradicate opium from the former province during the present Chinese year. The following is the gist of the Proclamation which he issued on the 21st July: Those who have contracted the opium craving must free themselves of it during the year; all fields hitherto under poppy must be sown with beans and wheat, and the cultivation of poppy must cease; and all stocks of raw and prepared opium in shops and godowns must be speedily removed out of the province. All who still smoke after the 21st January, 1909, will be prosecuted and severely punished; all who cultivate the poppy after that date will
15
have their crops uprooted, and the land will be confiscated for the public benefit; all prepared opium shops and godowns for the storage of the raw drug must be closed and. their business cease; and any daring to have secret stocks of either the raw or prepared drug will have the same confiscated and be themselves punished.
The Governor-General has taken the further step of telegraphing to the provincial authorities ordering them to prevent the passage of opium through any Customs or li-kin barriers within their jurisdiction on and after the 21st September. If these instructions are carried out opium in Yünnan will cease to have a marketable value. He has had secret agents at work in the province inquiring into the poppy areas and watching the measures being taken for suppression.
Reports speak of crops having been uprooted in the neighbourhood of the provincial capital, and of areas being reduced in some districts from a fourth to a third with a consequent lowering of the price of food-stuffs; but as a whole, and taking into consideration the steps that have been taken in the matter, they cast some doubt on the ability of the Governor-General to eradicate opium within his time limit. They also point out the great difficulty that will be experienced in dealing with cultivation in the mountainous country in the west of the province inhabited by Lolos, Kachins, Shans, and others, as well as by Chinese, where control is somewhat weak, but here, as everywhere else in China, success must largely depend on the energy and good faith of the local authorities.
In condensing these reports, which are necessarily fragmentary dealing as they do with only parts of provinces, I have endeavoured to extract and present the most salient points bearing on the carrying out of the task which China has imposed upon herself. They reveal a curious mixture of energy and apathy; but it must be admitted that through the former considerable progress is being made, especially in curtailment of production. As regards smoking, the closing of opium houses, if here and there somewhat lax, has placed a stigma on the habit, and a public opinion strongly adverse to the drug is discernible in several important centres. The registration and licensing of opium shops and smokers is gradually being enforced, but, although some provinces lag behind others in this respect, time has been insufficient to carry out what has only been completed in the metropolis less than a month ago. There is evidence that smokers are voluntarily breaking off the habit, but the information regarding the cures affected by anti-opium medicines is somewhat indefinite, and it is to be feared that in many cases opium and morphia eating is taking the place of opium smoking.
There are two questions calling for some attention in connection with the suppression of opium in China. They are-
1. What can be grown in place of the
poppy
2. How is the revenue hitherto derived from opium to be made good ?
The time of opium harvesting differs with the provinces, but in general terms it may be said that in Western and South-Western China, where the great bulk of the drug is produced, the poppy occupies the ground from November to the middle of April, and in Manchuria and North China from March to July. In the West wheat, rape, beans, and peas are cultivated during the poppy season; and in the North, where the rigorous winter stops all cultivation, the poppy shares the ground with the usual summer crops. The advantage of opium production, in addition to the higher value of the harvest per acre, is the portability of the drug in a country where lack of means of communication bars access to a market. One man can carry a load of opium for hundreds of miles over atrocious roads to a market without unduly raising its cost, whereas grain or other produce of the same value could not be moved many miles and yield a profit; and it is to the development of railways that the Chinese cultivator must look to enable him to grow and dispose of the crops best suited to climate and soil. Where communication is easy and cheap the farmer will lose little by abandoning the poppy.
It is a much more difficult matter to say whence China will derive the revenue. which the suppression of opium (native and foreign) will necessarily cut off. Although China considers the abandonment of that revenue of no account in comparison with. the eradication of the evil, the sacrifice is a heavy one. Certain steps, have, however, already been taken to make good the loss. Increased taxation of land under poppy is only a temporary relief, and will cease with the suppression of cultivation; but in Szechuan the Provincial Government, under instructions from the Board of Finance, has imposed a tax of 3 cash a catty on the salt production of that province, and an additional tax of 5 cash per catty on salt exported from Szechuan to upei. The