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50 per cent. to be spread over a period of years. The latter part of this programme was, however, abandoned in 1908, and total prohibition imposed on the 25th July of that year.
Although there was considerable reduction during the season 1908-9, cultivation was still carried on during the season of 1909-10; but it was confined, so far as is known, to the departments of Fu Chou, always the chief opium centre of the province, Hui-li Chou (latitude 20° 36′ north, and longitude 102° 15′ east), and Mao Chou (latitude 31° 39′ north, and longitude 103° 45′ east), with a much smaller area in that part of the Wan Haien district, lying to the south of the Yang-tsze. In the department of Fu Chou the growers defied the local authorities, and a much larger area was sown and a much heavier crop barvested. In the summer of 1910 the province was mapped out into five circuits, and to each circuit an officer with the rank of taotai was appointed to carry out absolute prohibition. A large number of officials of inferior rank were also deputed to travel through the province and report progress or the reverse. Towards the end of November of last year it was discovered that at a place called Yün-t'ai-p'u or Yün-tai-ch'ang, in the district of Chang-shou Hsien, where it borders on the district of Tien-chiang Hsien (latitude 30° 21' north, and longitude 107° 23′ east), the farmers had sown the poppy, and when the magistrate of Chang- shou proceeded to uproot the young plants resistance was offered and the magistrate obliged to beat a retreat. The matter was reported to the Viceroy, who dismissed the magistrate and instructed the Prefect of Chungking to proceed to Yün-t'ai-ch'ang with sufficient force to compel the growers to destroy the crop. This was done, and Yün-t'ai-ch'ang is believed to be the only place in which cultivation was attempted throughout the whole province in 1910. It is true that the poppy was seen by reliable witnesses in the department of Mao Chou during the summer of 1910; but there can be little doubt that, as in Kansu and Shensi, the seed had been sown towards the end of the previous year, and that the crop belonged to the season of 1909-10.
Meantime, in November 1909, regulations had been issued prohibiting the import of native opium into Szechuan from the neighbouring provinces of Kansu, Shensi, Yunnan, and Kueichow, from the 10th April, 1910, and by the same regulations the export of opium from Szechuan was prohibited from the 7th July, 1910. Strong objection was raised by the opium merchants to the shortness of the time limit for export, and they contended that it would be impossible for them to clear their stocks before the 7th July. In answer to their appeal the period was extended for three months (ie., to the 3rd October, 1910). The opium dealers in Szechuan taking advantage of the high prices caused by reduced production and consequent shortage of supplies, adulterated the drug so heavily that down-river buyers suffered serious losses, demand slackened, and prices fell, leaving considerable stocks still unexported. Towards the end of September it became evident that the stocks in hand could not be cleared before the 3rd October, and a compromise was affected whereby all certificated raw opium was allowed to be stored in what is tantamount to a bonded warehouse pending export. At Chungking the three months' extension was granted conditionally on all stocks held there being reported to and duly certificated by the Raw Opium Bureau before the 6th July, the date originally fixed for the prohibition of export from the province. The amount so certificated at that date was 3,051 piculs, and the amount stored in the bonded warehouse between the 23rd September and 3rd October is given as 1,300 piculs. Export of this stock, provided with the necessary warehouse permit, is still proceeding through the Imperial Maritime Customs at Chungking, on payment of the usual export duty of 20 Haikuan taels per picul, for native customs duty (22 taels), li-kin (7 t. 28 m.), and railway tax (7 t. 28 m.), a total of 36 t. 56 m. per picul, were abolished from the 3rd October, 1910, and export now takes place through the Imperial Maritime Customs only. In addition to the Imperial Maritime Customs duty of 20 Haikuan tacls, each picul of opium continues to pay the T'ung-shui or consolidated duty of 115 K'u-P'ing taels on arrival at Ichang.
I have stated above that the arrivals of native opium at Ichang by the Yang-tsze route from the western provinces amounted in 1910 to 28,350 piculs against 51,817 piculs in 1909, a decrease of 23,467 piculs. This decrease was undoubtedly due in the main to greatly diminished cultivation, and it would have been more marked had not stocks held in the province from previous years been drawn upon to a larger extent than usual, and still greater had adulteration been practised on a less extensive scale. The export during 1910 must not, therefore, be taken to represent the opium surplus available from the one season of 1909-10.
I commenced my investigation into the cultivation of the poppy and the production of opium in Szechuan on the 12th January, 1910. On the morning of that day I left he junk in which I had travelled up the Yang-tsze from the port of Ichang at the
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district city of Wu-shan Hsien, in the east of the province, and proceeded northwards through that district and the district of Ta-ning Hsien as far as the city of that name. from Ta-ning Fisien I travelled westward through the north of the district of Yün-yang Hsein to the district city of K'ai Hsien, and then south through the districts of K'ai Asien and Wan Hsien to the north bank of the Yang-tsze, where I rejoined my junk after a journey of thirteen days. In these five districts I did not see a single poppy plant, and this was all the more remarkable because in former years the K'ai sien district held the second place among the chief opium producing centres of the province. At the city of K'ai Hsien and throughout the district generally I ascertained that poppy cultivation had entirely ceased after the season of 1908-9. In Wan Hsien, on the other hand, the poppy had been grown in small quantities during the season of 1909-10 in that part of the district which lies to the sonth of the Yang-tsze. In 1910-11, however, it had disappeared. From Wan Hsien I proceeded up-river through the department of Chung Chou and the district of Fêng-tu Hsien to the department city of Fu Chon, on the right bank of the Yang-tsze. In former years the banks of the river exposed during low water and the country adjacent thereto in those departments and district used to be covered with poppy, but a careful examination now showed that the only crops ou the ground were broad beans, rape, wheat, peas, and a certain amount of unharvested sugar-cane.
The department of Fu Chou, well known to have been the chief opium producing centre of the province, had offered the most strenuous resistance to the measures of suppression and, instead of reducing the area annually devoted to poppy, had largely extended it during the season of 1909-10. For this reason I travelled through the department from the city of Fu Chou south-west to the district city of Nan-ch'uan Hsien, thence west to the district city of Ch'i-chiang Hsien, and then north through the district of Pa Hsien to the port of Chungking. In the department of Fu Chou, as in the other three districts, my search was unrewarded with the sight of a single poppy plant. In 1882 I had travelled through the districts of Pa Hsien and Chi-chiang Hsien at the same season of the year on my way to the provinces of Kueichow and Yunnan and had then found the poppy in abundance, many of the valleys in the Pa Hsien district being entirely given up to it.
In February 1883 I had travelled overland from Chungking to Chêngtu, and in February 1903 from Chia-ting Fu to Chengtu. As my report of the former journey (China, No. 2, 1884) and my diary of the latter contain daily references to the abundance of the poppy, always holding its own with beans, wheat, or rapo, or at others the most prominent crop. I resolved to travel overland from Chungking to to Chêngtu by way of Chia-ting, and thus be able to compare the conditions to-day with those existing in 1883 and 1903. I left Chungking on the 13th February, and travelling through the districts of Pa Hsien, Chiang-Ching, Fi-shan, Yang-ch'uan, Ta-tau, Jung-ch'ang, Lung-ch'ang, Fu-shun, Jung Hsien, Wei-yian, Ching-yen, Chien- wei, Lo-shan, Ching-shen, the department of Nei-chow, Pêng-shui, Hsin-ching, Shuang-liu, and Hua-yang, arrived after fifteen days' continuous overland travel at Chêngtu, the provincial capital. It is unnecessary to go into details regarding each of these districts; but I may mention that seven years ago the district of Jung Hsien produced opium on a very large scale, and that from the city walls in March a magnificent view was obtained of one vast poppy garden in full bloom stretching to the horizon in all directions.
In not one of those districts did I observe the poppy, and the result of my investigation was fully corroborated by the testimony of missionaries whom I took the opportunity of questioning wherever possible. They had neither seen the poppy nor heard of its cultivation during the season of 1910-11.
On arrival in Chengtu I approached the numerous missionary bodies resident there, and their unanimous reply was that those of their members who had recently been travelling in their respective districts had seen no poppy, and that the information which they had received from other districts throughout the province was equally emphatic as to its disappearance.
As the result, therefore, of my own personal investigation, extending over thirty- four days' travel overland, and of the testimony of others, I am satisfied that poppy cultivation has for the present been suppressed in Szechuan, and there can be no doubt that this success is due to the ability and energy of his Excellency the Viceroy, Chao Erh-hsün, who assumed office on the 16th June, 1908, and left for Peking on the 5th February, 1911, and in a lesser degree of his brother his Excellency Chao Erh-feng, now warden of the marches of Szechuan and Yunnan, who was in charge of the province from the 4th March, 1907, to the 11th June, 1908, and of his Excellency
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