A
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smokers or to reduce the small amount of poppy grown. On the contrary, in some districts more poppy was grown last season than before, and, as far as I can ascertain, no order has been issued forbidding the cultivation.
In the remaining province of Kiangsi there has never been any cultivation of opium worth mentioning.
It may be urged that throughout this report I am devoting all my attention to one single feature of the movement, viz., the suppression of production, to the practical exclusion of the other features, such as the regulation and final abolition of the facilities for procuring the drug, the prevention of smoking, and the cure of smokers. As a matter of fact, I have described the various steps taken in each separate province, but the Chinese themselves seem to have come to the conclusion that the object that they must now aim at is the suppression of cultivation.
It is clear that if the native supply is cut off, while the supply of foreign opium continues to be gradually diminished, opium smoking must in a few years become a thing of the past in China; therefore, the great thing to aim at is to diminish and ultimately extinguish the supply. The agreement with the Government of India involves a corresponding reduction in consumption as well as in production, but the annual reduction of the imports of foreign opium, Persian and Turkish, as well as Indian, being now assured, à decrease of production must, when the reserve stocks of opium are exhausted, imply a corresponding decrease in consumption.
The one preventive regulation that has, as far as one can judge, been enforced with a certain uniformity throughout all the provinces, except the very bad ones, such as Shensi, Kansu, Hupei, and Kweichow, is the closing of the opium dens. What happens in villages and on the country roads in this respect it is impossible to ascertain, but in the majority of cities and towns all dens have been officially closed, though a certain number of clandestine dens doubtless still exist in many cases withi the connivance of the venal police. I have also described the different systems of licensing of shops and of smokers that have been introduced in the various provinces. In several instances this licensing business has seemed likely to take the form of a monopoly of the trade in both raw and prepared opium, and has called forth protests from the foreign importers, on the ground that it interfered with their legitimate trade. It is clearly impossible here to discuss such a complicated and controversial question, in which it is so difficult to determine where right ends and wrong begins. His Majesty's Government are naturally bound to uphold British treaty rights where it can be shown that they have been infringed, but they have every desire to support any bond fide measure for the suppression of the opium traffic, such as a properly devised and honestly worked system of opium licences, which would not only restrict consumption, but would bring in revenue. In the case of the licensing regulations issued in Kiangnan, Kwangtung, Chekiang, Hapei, and Anhui, the regulations appeared to His Majesty's Minister to go rather far and to tend towards the establish- ment of a monopoly to the detriment of the British importers of foreign opium. On this ground His Majesty's Minister has in each of the above cases made friendly representations to the Chinese Government, and requested that the various provincial authorities might be instructed to exclude foreign opium from any clauses in the regulations which applied to the wholesale trade, and that there should be no unfair discrimination against foreign opium in favour of the native product. China can, of course, take what measures she likes to regulate the sale and consumption of native opium, but there is no real need for her to take any further steps for the suppression of the trade in foreign opium, as that result is already assured. She has merely to fulfil her part of the bargain with Great Britain and the extinction of the traffic in foreign opium follows as a matter of course. In most cases the provincial authorities have replied that their regulations were not intended to apply to the foreign drug.
His Majesty's Minister has had to protest against another proposed measure of the Chinese Government in regard to opium. In October of last year an Imperial decree approved certain proposals for the levy of additional taxation to make good the deficiency in the revenue from native opium. Among other taxes, it was suggested that from the beginning of 1909 all purchasers of opium should pay a fee of 60 cents per tael's weight of prepared opium and 40 cents per tael's weight of raw opium. His Majesty's Minister pointed out to the Wai-wu Pu that this tax, if applied to foreign opium in a treaty port, would be an infringement of the treaty provisions. The treatment of foreign opium on importation into China is regulated by the additional article of 1885 to the Chefoo Convention. Under that article no tax whatever over and above the tariff duty of 30 taels per chest of 100 catties, and a sum not exceeding
29
80 taels per like chest as li-kin, can be levied on foreign opium in the treaty port of entry; in the case of foreign opium transported into the interior when, but not before, the package made up in bond has been opened at the place of consumption, the opium becomes liable to any further tax levied on native opium. The Chinese Government attempted to make out that they had the right to levy additional taxation on foreign opium even in a treaty port as soon as the package was broken, but His Majesty's Minister was able to show that such was not the intention of the additional article.
As far as our information goes, no serious attempt to grapple with the question of providing a revenue to replace that previously raised on opium has been made since the publication of the above decree, imposing additional taxation on the sale of both raw and prepared opium. Sir A. Hosie has already mentioned the increase in the taxes on land planted with opium and on salt, and in certain provinces additional fees have been imposed during the past year for the issue of licences to opium shops and opium smokers. Various suggestions have been made as to measures which might be adopted to make good the deficiency; the Governor of Shansi, for instance, suggested higher taxes on tobacco, sugar, and wine, while the Governor of Hunan proposed that all business establishments should be required to take out a licence, on which a small fee would be charged. But, as I said before, the Central Government has not as yet devised any workable and satisfactory plan to make good the loss of the revenue hitherto derived from opium,
Another question closely connected with the above that still awaits solution is the question of discovering the most profitable crops to plant in the place of poppy in the various provinces. It has been pointed out in previous reports that one great obstacle to the abolition of the growth of the poppy is the extremely profitable nature of the crop as compared with other crops; while another obstacle, I understand, is that poppy so impoverishes the soil upon which it is grown that it is difficult to get any other crop to
grow well on it. Some of the Viceroys and governors have already taken steps to find out what crops could be most profitably substituted for the poppy, but no practical steps have, as far as I can ascertain, been taken anywhere to assist the farmer by providing seeds or young trees. The Viceroy of Yunnan reported that he was studying the possibility of planting rubber trees in Yünnan. The Viceroy of Szechuan has been experimenting with American cereals. In Shansi potatoes are being grown in increased quantities; in Manchuria, beans. Among other substitutes suggested from various sources have been cotton, hemp, tobacco, cocoa, ramie, tea, and the planting of trees, especially of mulberry trees for silkworm culture.
Many of the reports received from consular officials and missionaries mention the growing habit of eating opium in the form of pills-which, from all accounts, is now very prevalent and also of hypodermic injections of morphia. Many Chinese, it is said, have ceased to be opium smokers only to become caters or morphia injectors. By the consent of all the Powers the importation of morphia into China was prohibited from the beginning of the present year, and the Chinese Government issued elaborate instructions to prevent the import of morphia except for medicinal purposes; but it is to be feared that, without the assistance of the countries from which the morphia is exported, China will be unable to check the smuggling of morphia over her 7,000 miles of land and 4,000 miles of sea froutier. The Chinese Government and the provincial authorities appear to be fully alive to the danger of this vice, and stringent regulations have been issued against the unauthorised sale of morphia; and any person caught selling morphia or instruments for its use is to be banished to a pestilential frontier of the Empire." It is difficult to estimate how far the habit of morphia injections has taken root in various parts of the Empire, but to judge from Dr. Gray's report about Peking it was only a passing craze directly after the issue of the opium ediets and is already on the wane.
C
Apparently a much more prevalent vice is that of opium eating in the insidious form of so-called "anti-opium" pills, which are sold everywhere as a cure for opium smoking. I have already described the result of the analysis by the Government analyst in Hong Kong of different kinds of anti-opium pills openly sold in Canton, many of them under Government authority. Medical authorities appear to differ as to the comparative degree of harm wrought by opium smoking and opium eating, but I would call attention to what Dr. Gray says as to his personal experience on the subject in the capital.
At the beginning of this report I spoke of the continued zeal and determination shown by the court and Central Government in their prosecution of the objects embodied in the Imperial edict of the 20th September, 1906. I further stated that
[2494 p-1]
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