9
8
6. Decrease in Smoking.
Kuang-yuan.--About one-fifth as compared with last year.
One-half of consump-
tion before the movement. The cost makes smoking impossible for many nowadays.
Fushun.-A decrease, owing to increased cost.
Paoning.-Marked decrease.
Chiating. Very marked decrease.
La Chou-Decrease marked.
Teh yang. At the very least, one half.
Sui Fu-Certainly a marked decrease, but opium smokers still numerous.
Pa Chou-Decided decrease.
Jung Hsien-Marked, but very bad yet; the only hope for many is the supply being exhausted.
Chung-chiang-Not very marked, but anti-opium pilis largely resorted to. Sintu. Opium very dear: 100 oz. cost 44 taels. San-tai-Somewhat reduced.
Mien Chou. A decrease, due to (a) largely enhanced cost; (b) deterrent effect on those who would under the old conditions be filling up the ranks of smokers.
7. Attitude of (a), Officials; (b), Gentry; (c), People. Kuang-yuan.-(a.) Getting less strict; (b) doing nothing; (e) yielding to force of
circumstances.
Fushun.-(a.) Magistrate is a smoker, as he suffers from piles; (b and e) favourable to speedy eradication.
Paoning-(a.) Anxious to carry out edicts as far as these concern other people; (b.) feeling ashamed of the habit, but not above doing a deal in opium at the present high prices; (e) glad to be rid of it on the whole.
Chiating. Not heard a word of disapproval; but it will go hard with the poor, especially chair-coolies.
Lu Chou-All favoumble.
Teb-yang.~(a.) Officials generally are earnest and faithful; (b) gentry don't seem very patriotic, yet many help the poor to break off the habit; (c) conscience is sound, if practice is shaky.
Sui Fu-Anti-opiun feeling gets stronger.
Pa Chou--(a.) Magistrate dead against it, and his wife, over sixty, has broken off the habit and unbound her feet; (5) lots of the gentry smoke secretly; (c) the people have left off through force of circumstances.
Jung Hsien.--Down with the drug, as it is China's greatest curse.
Chung-chiang,(a.) Late magistrate smoked much; has given up the seals, but has not yet left; (b) a good number still smoke, and seem likely to continue as long as they can afford it; (c) so with the people; all look on opium as doomed, but are sceptical as to the time when it will cease. They do not seem at all disaffected in consequence of the prohibitions.
San-t'ai.--Favourable except among smokers.
The above reports may be briefly summarised thus ----
1. No poppy has this season been sown, except in a few out-of-the-way spots.
2. The farmers are making the best of it; there are no serious disturbances.
3. Poppy is replaced almost everywhere by wheat, rape, and pulse, with some
sugar and barley; no crops new to Szechuan have been tried.
4. Official divans have been closed, but some reopened; private dens still exist, especially in the salt wells, but are being suppressed. The regulations for registration of smokers are little observed.
5. At Han Chou, Sintu, and Tung-ch'uan city are refuges; at most places anti- opium remedies are sold.
6. There has been a notable decrease in smoking.
7. The officials, unless themselves smokers, are in earnest; the gentry are often lukewarm; the people submissive,
The situation could not, I think, be summed up more tersely or more truly than by my Mien Chou correspondent, a church missionary :---
"There are some few amongst each of the three classes-officials, gentry, and people-who are enthusiastic about reform. Others are compelled by the trend of
events to assume the attitude of reformers. disfavour, or indifference, according as they have, or have not, any pecuniary interest in The major part regard it with favour, the matter."
(Translation.)
I have, &c.
W. H. WILKINSON,
Enclosure 3 in No. 1.
Proclamation by Chao, Governor-General of Szechuan. THE Court has forbidden the sewing of poppics; this year, therefore, in Szechuan Province, orders are issued to every department stopping entirely the planting of opium. Whatever the quantity hitherto grown there, whether in populous tracts or in byeways, autumn and winter inspectors will travel noting and stopping with rigorous certainty. Should any venture to privily cultivate,
all will be trodden and scraped away utterly; landlord and tenant most heavily dealt with, tithing and trainbands alike will be punished. Magistrates backward to note and prevent it, shall be cashiered without hope of indulgence; if others sow, you may act as informer, gaining rewards that are truly substantial. All must with one accord root out the evil, men as good citizens doing this thoroughly, thus to recover their prowess and energy, showing the worth of pursuits that are serious. Those with the craving must haste to renounce it, die of the craving you'll meet with no pity;
if you have fields you must haste to recrop them, cotton and mulberry being your staples. Millet and pulse, with maize, rice, and barley; first thing to do is to better your cereals, after that sugar and rape-oil and indigo, bamboos and medicines, trees and tobacco. Growing these rightly it only needs method, doubling your harvests is not at all difficult, Farmers' societies started with energy, minds set on learning are sure to be thorough. If you don't cease from the planting of opium you'll not succeed in the struggle for fortune; lop stalks from now on, and dig up the roots of it, government does not consist in much speaking. Word has gone forth, the law's action is certain; dread and obcy, do not trifle nor loiter. Translated March 1, 1910.
W. II. WILKINSON.
Note. A translation that would preserve, as nearly as the differences in the two languages allow, the rhythm and rhyme of the original, would run much as follows:-
[2917 bb-3)
Edicts bid the poppy cease,
Therefore in the present year Orders through the province bear,
Stop the poppy everywhere. Whether more or less was grown,
Be it here or be it there,
D
59