24
report, however, Mr. Tang Kuo-an, a member of the Chinese delegation, had himself He described the difficulties that had to be to acknowledge its shortcomings. contended against by the delegation in compiling it, and confessed that, owing to the absence of any proper Government machinery, it was well-nigh impossible for them to obtain reliable statistics of the area of land under cultivation, and no attempt had therefore been made to arrive at any conclusion in that respect. The Chinese report contained a table, which I here reproduce, giving the various estimates that have been made of the production of opium per province.
Manchuria
Chibli
Shantung
Kiangsu
Chekiang
Fakien
Kwangtung
Ifunan..
Provinces.
Total, coast provinces
:::
Estimate based
on Customs
Reports,
1906.
Estimate based
on Customs Reports, 1908.
Morse, 1905.
Leech, 1907.
Board of Revenue (Kuang Fisii, 32nd year),
1906.
Piculs.
Picals.
Piculs.
Piculs.
Piculs,
15.000
18,000
6,279
15,000
8,000
5.000
10,000
3,870
12,000
8,000
10,000
10,000
6,883
18,000
12,000
5,000
5,000
9,919
16,000
5,000
5,000
4,724
14.000
2,000
2,000
1,514
5,000
5,000 9,000 3,000
;}}
500
77
500
200
42,500
47,500
33,246
80,500
45,200
3,000
3,000
4.000
4,000
153 1,293
1,000
3.000
500 2,000
500
600
74
300
Anhwei
3,000
3,000
4.048
6,000
100 8,000
Total, Yang-tsze provinces..
10,500
10,500
5,573
10,300
5,000
Honan..
5,000
5,000
5.283
15,000
10,000
Shansi
5,000
5,000
9.666
30,000
20.000
Shensi.
10,000
10,000
10.815
50,000
33,000
5.000
5,000
7,988
34.000
23,000
Szechuan
250,000
200,000
57,463
238,000
159.000
Yuonau
30,000
80.000
7,928
78,000
39.000
Kweichow
15,000
15,000
9,350
48,000
32,000
Kwangsi
3,000
3,000
1
New territory
187
500 500
150
300
Total, inland provinces
Grand total
823,000
376,000
273,000
331,000
109,281
148,100
494,000
816,450
584,800
367,250
Hupei Kiangsi
Kansu..
::::
::::
::::
It
These are Morse's estimate of 1905, Mr. Leech's estimate, the estimate of the Board of Revenue in 1906, and estimates for the years 1906 and 1908, culled and joined together from reports sent forward by the commissioners of Customs at the various treaty ports. "These reports," we read, "are based on the personal investi- gations of the writers and assistance derived from inland postal officers, missionaries, and Chinese merchants, as well as an occasional recourse to official sources. is acknowledged that accurate statistics about opium are most difficult to obtain in China, and it must therefore be understood that the figures given are in many cases only approximate and the result of sifting the scraps of information received here and there and the putting of two and two together' in the minds of the framers of the estimates." This is more especially true in regard to the estimates of the inland provinces-the greatest opium-producing districts in China-where taxation is irregular and, for the greater part, evaded, and where public or official returns are practically unknown; where, in addition, the percentage of a nuncounted population, who locally consume the opium, is a matter of conjecture, the most carefully made computation may be easily converted."
Mr. Tang, however, insisted that "no manipulation of figures could alter the fact that more than 600,000 piculs of opium were consumed annually within the Empire up to the year 1906," instead of the more moderate estimates of Morse and Mr. Leech, and naturally, by increasing the estimate of the total output in 1906, it was easy to magnify the proportionate reduction effected in 1908.
As Sir A. Hosie said, in his speech at the sixth session of the commission, there was certainly no delegate present who was more in sympathy than he was with the
25
desire and aim of the Government of China to eradicate the cultivation of the poppy and the consumption of opium in China. His remarks were, as he himself said, made in no carping spirit, but were offered to show that we were still much in the dark regarding the actual production, consumption, and reduction of opium in China, and also in the hope that criticism and analysis at that stage might do something to obviate the difficulty and possible controversy which might occur if towards the end of next year the Chinese Government are not in a position to demonstrate with some approach to precision the actual progress that has been effected. It is in the same spirit and with the same intention and, I may add, with the same conviction as to the sincerity of the Chinese Government, and as to the reality of the progress already effected by China, that I reproduce Sir A. Hosie's criticism of the estimates presented to the commission in the Chinese report. Sir A. Hosie spoke as follows:-
"I come now to the question of opium production in China--a subject which has occupied many minds for many years. At p. 15 of the memorandum presented by the Chinese delegation some estimates for recent years are given by Mr. Morse for 1905, Mr. Leech for 1907, the Board of Revenue for 1906, Customs returns for 1906, and Customs returns for 1908. I eliminate from these Mr. Leech's estimate, which, with two exceptions, is the same as Mr. Morse's whereon it was based, and the estimate of the Board of Revenue, which is admitted to be altogether unsatisfactory and untrust- worthy, and has been challenged in an outspoken memorial by the Tartar general stationed at Ning-hsia, in the province of Kausu; and I ask the Chinese delegation when the Customs estimate for 1906 was compiled. Was it compiled in 1907 or at the end of 1908 along with the estimate for that year? There is, I think, internal evidence to show that the latter was the case, and that both estimates were compiled at one and the same time. For the moment one instance will suffice. At p. 18 the province of Anhui is dealt with. The commissioner of Customs at Wuhu, the only port open to foreign trade in that province, estimates the annual production of Anhui to be not less than 3,000 piculs at the present time, and he states that there has been a reduction in the area under poppy cultivation in some districts of from 50 to 80 per cent. The compilers of the memorandum then say that the estimate is consequently doubled for 1906. Such reasoning, to my mind, is perfectly illogical, for we have been informed that the area or acreage under poppy is an unknown quantity, and a conclusion based on the alleged reduction of an unknown area is of very little value. In other cases the estimate of production in 1908 is deduced by cutting down the estimated production of 1906 by certain percentages. For example, it is stated that the production of Yunnan has been reduced since 1906 by over 50 per cent., and that, as Kucichow is under the same viceroyalty, it is reduced by one-third. Again, although there is no connection between Yünnan and the provinces of Szechuan, Shensi, and Kausu, it is argued that because Yünnan production has been curtailed by one-half, the output of the other three provinces has each been reduced by one-third. It is really unnecessary to take up the time of this commission with multiplying such cases, but it is well to point out that from reductions such as these the conclusion is drawn that there has been a curtailment of production in China to the extent of 37 per cent, in 1908 as compared with 1906. It may be so, and I sincerely hope it is; but I am afraid that the figures on which such a conclusion is based would not satisfy any Western statistical society.'
A reply made by the Chinese delegation to a question of the British delegation emphasises still further the impossibility of securing reliable statistics on which to base our final conclusions, and as a deliberate expression of opinion of the Chinese Govern- ment I think that it is worth reproducing:
"In reply to the question of the British delegation whether trustworthy returns of the acreage under poppy and of opium smokers in each province will be compiled, and, if so, when they will be made public, we beg to state that no definite date can be fixed for the compilation of trustworthy returns, owing to the enormous difficulties involved in obtaining such returns under existing circumstances. It is too well known that under the present system of local and provincial administration there is neither proper Government machinery for the compilation of statistics nor proper survey and land records out of which statistics can be compiled. A number of the provinces have attempted to make such returns, but for the reasons given above the Chinese delegates do not consider them of much real value. In regard to the number of opium smokers in each province, the remarks given above as to the difficulties of
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