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Board suggested a tax of 4 cash on production, but this was reduced to 3 cash at the request of the Governor-General, who, in his Proclamation imposing the tax, explains that he is acting under the directions of the Board of Finance, and that the additional levy is to compensate for the loss of revenue derived from opium. As the annual output of salt in Szechuan amounts to about 500,000,000 catties, of which some 100,000,000 catties are exported to Hupei, the annual revenue derivable from this new tax should fall little short of 2,000,000 dollars (about 200,000l).
Further proof of the curtailment of production is found in the fact that the Director-General of Native Opium Taxation, whose head-quarters are at Wuchang, the capital of the Province of Hupei, has recently represented to the Grand Council that, owing to the decrease in the revenue from native opium taxation, it is impossible for him to remit the full amount which he has been directed to furnish out of this revenue. He states that since the enforcement of the prohibition of opium the consolidated tax has yielded a smaller return; that many offices do not collect sufficient to pay expenses; and that, with the shortening of the time-limit, the revenue will be still further reduced, and it will be necessary to close several offices during the current year. As, therefore, the abolition of opium necessarily entails decrease in the revenue from its taxation, he requests that some other means may be found for making up the deficiency. The answer to this representation is a Memorial by the Board of Revenue stating the steps that have already been taken in the provinces for making up this deficiency by an addition to the price of salt, which is a Government monopoly, and instituting from the 1st of the coming Chinese year (22nd January, 1909) a new tax on opium, in the shape of a fee, to be paid by every person buying the drug, amounting to 40 and 60 cash per Chinese ounce of raw and prepared opium respectively. The Memorial further states that, if it be found at the end of next year that these additional levies on salt and opium are insufficient to make good the loss of revenue hitherto derived from opium taxation, the Head Consolidated Opium Tax Office will have to provide the deficiency. A translation of this Memorial, which was approved by Imperial Decree on the 24th October and appeared in the "Official Gazette" of the 7th November, is annexed.
ALEX. HOSIE,
Peking, November 10, 1908.
(Signed)
Acting Commercial Attaché.
Appendix (A).
Extract from the "Official Gazette" of the 30th July, 1908.
MEMORIAL by the Board of Laws and the Imperial Commissioners for Law Reform reporting on a Memorial by the Governor of Kiangsu recommending the enactment of special penal laws against the sale of morphia.
(Translation.)
On the 14th December, 1907, a Memorial was submitted by Ch'en Ch'i-tai, Governor of Kiangsu, in which he proposed that special laws should be laid down providing for the punishment of those convicted of selling morphia or of manufacturing needles for its injection. In accordance with the Imperial Rescript, "Let the proper Department consider the matter and report," the Memorial was referred to the Board of Laws.
The Memorial of the Governor was as follows:——
Morphia contains poisonous substances fatal to human life, but foreigners use it in compounding medicines for treating certain diseases, and its use has now spread to China, where it is taken by injection to satisfy the craving for opium. Its effects are very similar to those produced by opium, but whilst there is some chance of curing the opium habit, when recourse has once been had to morphia its use cannot be abandoned, and as time goes on, and more injections are constantly made, the whole body finally becomes corrupted and death ensues.
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In view of the fact that this drug is still more pernicious than opium, clauses were inserted in the Commercial Treaties with Great Britain and America prohibiting its importation except under special Customs permit and for medical purposes, and the 10th Article of the Rules for the Prohibition of Opium submitted to the Throne by the Government Council last year provided that instructions should be sent to Customs authorities to call attention to this Treaty provision, and that shopkeepers, whether native or foreign, should be strictly prohibited from manufacturing morphia or instruments for its injection.
Unfortunately, there are still unprincipled persons who, in their greed for gain, delude people into using morphia, and, as all the opium saloons have been closed owing to the enforcement of the prohibition of opium, and the poorer people cannot procure the utensils for opium smoking, when they find that they can satisfy their craving with morphia at a fraction of the cost there are few with sufficient strength of mind to resist doing so. This being the case in Kiangsu, the same conditions are probably to be found in other provinces, and it therefore appears advisable that special laws should be provided so that one man's punishment may act as a deterrent to a hundred others.
"By law it is an offence punishable with decapitation to manufacture, or cause others to manufacture, poisons dangerous to human life; and further, if a man be poisoned, the seller, if aware of the purpose for which the poison was bought, is liable to the same penalty as the murderer. Now, if a person manufactures morphia, which is poisonous in its effects, and sells it to another to satisfy his craving for opium, if the latter finally dies through inability to abandon the use of morphia the case is really similar to that of a man who manufactures poison for the purpose of committing murder. The law formerly in existence against opium provided for the death penalty, and as morphia is much more dangerous than opium the death penalty in accordance with the law against the manufacture of poisons would not be excessive. However, the object of its manufacture is not murder but gain, and as, too, the victims of the craving voluntarily bring their death upon themselves, the conditions are somewhat different, and I would therefore venture to suggest that the Board of Laws should be directed to consult with the Commissioners for Law Reform with a view to drawing up special enactments on the subject."
We were instructed by Imperial Decree to report on this Memorial, and have the honour to observe, in the first place, that morphia is a natural salt, forming the essential constituent of opium, from which it is extracted by chemical processes and made into medicines for treating diseases. It possesses the property of producing sleep, whence its name morphia, from Morpheus, the God of Sleep, is derived, and its effects are still more powerful than those of opium.
Last year an Imperial Decree was issued ordering the entire abolition of opium, and the Regulations prepared by the Government Council contained a provision that arrangements should be made for the prohibition of the import of foreign opium so that the evil might be cut off at the source. It was also provided that, as morphia and the instruments for its injection were still more injurious than opium, full effect should be given to the 11th Article of the British Commercial Treaty and the 16th of the American Treaty, and instructions be given to the Customs to prohibit the importation of any morphia not covered by special permit and imported for medical purposes. Shopkeepers, whether native or foreign, should also be strictly forbidden to manufacture morphia or instruments for its injection, so that this evil might be completely eradicated.
These Regulations were sanctioned by the Throne and circulated, but, in spite of the stringent nature of this prohibition, it appears that there are still unprincipled persons who delude people into using morphia, and the trade has not been entirely suspended. The prohibition of opium is now being enforced, opium saloons have been closed, and the poorer classes having no other means of allaying their craving have recourse to morphia, being attracted thereto in the first place by its cheapness. As time goes on their consumption of morphia constantly increases, and they cannot abandon its use; their system becomes full of the poison, and in the end their bodies become covered with sores from the injecting needle and their health is ruined. Seeing that the evils of morphia are so difficult to avoid even now before opium has been entirely eradicated, after the abolition of opium it is to be feared that there will be still greater danger of falling a victim thereto, and we shall merely pass from Scylla to Charybdis.
The Governor's suggestion that a special enactment against morphia, founded on the law against the manufacture of poisons, should be laid down, springs from an earnest desire to extirpate the evil and preserve the lives of the people. The original law against the manufacture of poisons provided that, whether any person was actually killed or not, the maker was liable to decapitation, the punishment being thus more severe than in the case of ordinary homicide, on the grounds that this class of criminals made murder their trade. Now, in the case of persons manufacturing instruments for the injection of morphia and selling them to people for the purpose of satisfying their craving for opium, the maker is on the same footing as a person manufacturing poisons, but as his object is merely gain and not murder, and as, moreover, the victims of the craving bring about their own death, the conditions are, as the Governor has pointed out, somewhat different, and justice requires that the law should be made slightly less severe.
As regards the sale of morphia by shops, the Customs should be directed to enforce the provisions of the British and American Treaties prohibiting the import of morphia except under special permit for medical purposes, and a punishment must be fixed for any evil-disposed persons in the interior who may conspire to carry on an illicit trade in the drug. A person who knowingly sells poison is liable to the same punishment as the actual murderer, and a person who sells morphia, knowing its poisonous properties, should therefore be liable to the same punishment as the man who manufactures the instruments for its injection. Again, under the now obsolete law against opium, the person preparing and the person selling the drug were liable to the same punishment (strangulation), and therefore, although the death penalty need not be decreed either against the person making instruments for the injection of morphia or the person selling the drug, the two classes of offenders should be treated as being on the same footing.
After careful deliberation we venture to recommend that those convicted of manufacturing instruments for the injection of morphia should be sentenced in accordance with the law against the manufacture of poisons, the punishment being reduced from decapitation to banishment to ...
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