DAVID SASSOON & CO., LD.
251
A
the prevention of smuggling,requesting that they be placed on record and that notices be issued to inform the people and to direct Fiat", officials, to afford the necessary protection.
The consise rules 8 in number having been scrutinised and found
practicable, should be approved. Besides collecting in full the
advance deposit of taxes paid in and requesting the authorities to
placo the above facts on record and issuing orders to various dis-
tricts for compliance, it is right that a notice should be issued anxxx for goneral information. This notice 18 therefore issued and is to be complied with by the merchants, scholars and the populace of
the whole Province, you should know that ohui Hung Vau etc, merchants
of the said guild, have been authorized to take over the management
or the license fees for the whole Province on their undertaking to
pay the taxes, the object being to devise means for making good the
revenue from the gambling (monopoly) and to assist in opium-suppression.
The lovy (or the fees ) shall be put in operation from the 1st
day of the 1st moon of the 3rd year of guen Tung and the undormentioned
rulos shall be complied with. You are not to disobey or make sport
of them otherwise you will bo severely dealt with. All should
respectfully comply with this special notice.
1.
The eight concise rules are set forth as follows:-
By the regulations originally framed by the General Association
for opium-suppression, the proportion fixed is 50% of prepared opium
being
Ootained Tron every taol or raw opium and a license fee of 30
cents is to be paid on every tael of prepared opium after preparation.
It is also declared that the fee shall bo gradually increased, as the consumption of prepared Opium gradually decreases. The sources of the foreign and native opium are already diminishing day by day in the present period of opium-suppression, with the natural con- sequence that the consumption of prepared opium dally decreases, The fixed rule as to the gradual increase of the fee payable should therefore be complied with. The sum or 50 cents shall be paid on