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This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
202
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL,
(20109]
No. 1.
[June 6.1,
со 8596
SECTION 1.
RECO
Rear 18 JUN 10,
(No. 159.) Sir,
Mr. Max Müller to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received June 6.)
Peking, May 19, 1910.
I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith a most interesting account published in the "North China Daily News of the 5th and 6th May of an interview with Mr. E. S. Little in regard to his recent journey through the country inhabited by the Lolos on the border of the provinces of Szechuan and Yunnan.
I have, &c.
W. G. MAX MÜLLER.
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Enclosure in No. 1.
Extract from the "North China Daily News" of May 6, 1910.
OPIUM CULTIVATION.
MR. LITTLE made special enquiries with reference to the cultivation of opium, and as a result he says that all over the Szechuan province there is no question that opium has almost entirely ceased to be grown. He travelled 1,200 miles through country which formerly grew opium and he never saw a single plant anywhere. He made the most rigid enquiries of officials, merchants, travellers, coolies, innkeepers, farmers, and all sorts and conditions of men, and their reply was always the same that the injunction was so severe that it was impossible for anybody to grow opium. Mr. Little saw proclamations posted up in various places, and they were couched in the most curt and emphatic language--"You are absolutely prohibited from growing opium. If you do, you will be punished." He also saw proclamations forbidding the carrying of opium over the roads either into or out of the country after the 1st of the 6th moon this year. There were no opium dens to be seen in any of the towns in Szechuan, but the fact remained that opium could be got, because Mr. Little's own opium-smoking coolie obtained it from somewhere, but the business is carried on so secretly that a stranger would not be able to get opium. In only one place did he see opium growing, and that was in Hueli, on the far border of Yünnan and Szechuan, where he saw quantities of opium being grown without let or hindrance. Mr. Little mentioned the matter to the official at Hueli, but he professed to be ignorant of the fact, giving as his excuse that he had only just arrived. He said that he would send men into the country to find out the exact state of affairs, but in fact, by that time, the crop had been partly reaped, as it was in the process of being reaped when Mr. Little passed through. The traveller found the same state of strict prohibition through the whole of the district of Yünnan through which he journeyed. Mr. Little is not able to speak so fully of the entire province of Yunnan as of Szechuan, but all his enquiries led him to think that opium growing in Yunnan generally has ceased, but there are some districts in which, for a consideration, the local officials have not been able to see opium growing. Generally speaking one of the most wonderful transformations that any country can show has taken place in these two opium-growing provinces-the word of the Government has been, almost universally, absolutely obeyed. The reply given to Mr. Little universally by the Chinese when he asked them why they did not grow opium was: "It is forbidden; we do not dare to disobey.”
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