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may be the case in other countries, centuries of inherited experience have taught the people of India discretion in the use of the drug, and its misuse is a negligible feature in Indian life. Even if it were possible to suppress the cultivation of opium in India, geographical and political limitations would place it beyond our power to prevent illicit import and consumption on a serious scale. The point is one which we do not propose to labour. But some useful light is thrown upon the use of opium by the results of the latest medical enquiry, conducted under our orders, into the drug habit in India. It will be seen from the statistics of lunatic asylums in India during 1909 that, among the cases of insanity caused by the use of intoxicants, the use of opium in all its for us is scarcely responsible for any appreciable number. While 10 per cent. of the cases are due to hemp in its various forms, 3:35 per cent. to alcohol, and 1-26 per cent. to other drugs (principally cocaine), only 0'46 per cent. are due to opium. These figures are all the more remarkable when we contrast the old-established use of opium in India with the entire novelty of cocaine, coupled with the fact that the use of the latter has hardly penetrated yet beyond the limits of the large towns."
Again (I quote from a later portion of the same despatch) :---
"The great majority of Indian opium eaters are not slaves to the habit. They take small doses as required, and can and do give up the allowance when the need of it is past. Opium is in virtually universal use throughout India as the commonest and most treasured of the household remedies accessible to the people. It is taken to avert or lessen fatigue, as a specific in bowel complaints; as a prophylactic against malaria (for which its relatively high anarcotine content makes it specially valuable), to lessen the quantity of sugar in diabetes, and generally to allay pain in sufferers of all ages. The vast bulk of the Indian population, it must be remembered, are strangers to the ministrations of qualified doctors or druggists. They are dependent almost entirely on the herbal samples of the country; distance and the patient acceptance of hardships standing in the way of prompt access to skilled medical relief. In these circumstances, the use of opium in small quantities is one of the most important aids in the treatment of children's sufferings. It is also a frequent help to the aged and infirm, and an alleviation in diseases and accidents which are accepted
as incurable. To prevent the sale of opium except under regular medical prescription would be a mockery; to many millions it would be sheer inhumanity."
But though, for these reasons, we cannot admit the total suppression of the opium habit in India, we claim that consumption is, to use the words of No. 3 of the resolutions of the Shanghai International Commission, soigneusement réglementé, the subject of careful regulation; that we have for many years been endeavouring to reduce consumption to what may be styled the legitimate needs of the people as set forth in the despatch from which have quoted; and that, as I shall presently show, we are increasing our efforts in this direction.
I have found it imagined in some quarters that the opium habit in India is a product of British rule. That is absolutely untrue: opium production and opium consumption were in full swing when the British arrived on the scene, and our efforts have all been in the direction of reducing and concentrating the areas of poppy cultiva- tion, placing internal traffic under rigid control, and discouraging consumption by heavy
taxation.
Valuable information about our present system will be found in the exhaustive memorandum printed on p. 172 el seq. of vol. ii of the Proceedings of the Shanghai Commission; but as this is of necessity a lengthy document, I should like to summarise as briefly as I can the main steps we have taken to restrict consumption, and to dwell on the further steps in contemplation since the Government of India, following the recommendation in resolution 3 of the Shanghai Commission, lately re-examined their system to discover whether there were points as to which it might be strengthened.
3. The cultivation of the poppy is, subject to some trifling exceptions justified by special circumstances, as in the bill States of the Punjab, confined to---
(a.) Certain districts in Bengal and the United Provinces, hitherto known as the Bengal opium agencies, where it is carried on under licence and strict Government control, and the product is taken over by the Indian Government.
(.) A number of native States in Central India and Rajputana, to which cate- gory must be added Baroda on the Bombay side, where what is termed Malwa opium is produced. Over the production of this "Malwa opium the Government of India can
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275 exercise no direct control; but they deal with it by fiscal and other checks when it passes into their territories, as it must when destined for consumption in British India or for export to foreign countries.
I would remind the conference, however, that the great bulk of the opium produced in these tracts has been for export, mainly to China. Thus, taking the figures for 1907-8, the exports to China amounted to about 48,000 chests of 140 lb. each, and those to other countries to about 16,000 chests, while the total recorded consumption in British India proper with its 230 million people (we have not got reliable statistics for the native States) was less than 8,000 cliests, about 1/50th, so far as we can estimate, of the former consumption in China. And on the latest consumption figures available this total would be reduced still lower---to less than 7,000 chests. As the conference is aware, our treaty arrangements with China provide for the progressive diminution and gradual extinction of our opium exports to that country, and this will cause a vast reduction in the area under poppy cultivation in India, a reduction which is already strongly marked. Thus, while in 1907-8, the year before our arrangements with China began to take effect, the poppy area in the Bengal agencies was about 490,000 acres, it had shrunk to 349,000 in 1909-10; while, so far as we can estimate the production areas in Central India and Rajputana, the decrease there in the same years has been from 192,000 to 109,000 acres, This decline will, under our arrangements with China, continue with accelerated velocity, and in the course of a few years we look forward to having a far smaller area under the poppy. We have already, I may observe, telescoped the two Bengal agencies into one, and are making large reductions in the staff employed on production.
I may note also that, save in respect of some trifling quantities which are allowed in, under heavy duty, from States on our land frontier, such as Afghanistan and Nepal, opium may not be imported into India save under licence for medical purposes.
2. The transit of opium between British provinces and native States, and vice versa, and between one British province and another, is only permitted, generally speaking, on behalf of the British Government, or of some native State which has got permission to obtain a specific quantity for its internal consumption. And the transit of opiwn within a province, and power to deal in it or possess it there, are all subject to strict licence and control. In carrying out this policy we have been materially assisted by the form of our Opium Act (I of 1878).
Under an ordinary law whatsoever is not specifically forbidden may be held permitted, but this Act goes in the converse direction. It lays down (section 4) that no one may cultivate the poppy, manufacture opium, or import, export, transport, or possess the same except as permitted by the Act (or by any other enactment relating to opium), or by rules framed thereunder. Consequently these matters have been dealt with by sets of rules having the force of law, frained by the executive Government for each province, which take into account its particular circumstances, and are being constantly revised in the direction of greater stringency,
Among the more important matters in regard to which this control is exercised I may mention that--
(a.) Opium may only be sold in specially sanctioned shops, where the vendors have to keep accounts of their transactions and are under the constant iuspection of the Excise staff.
(b.) These shops must, generally speaking, save in the Bombay Presidency, sell Bengal opium, supplied through. Government channels. In Bombay, owing to its proximity to the Malwa producing areas, the import of that opium is allowed under Government control.
(c.) The number of shops is fixed so as not to exceed what is necessary to satisfy the moderate needs of legitimate consumers, and is being constantly reduced as improvement in communications or other changes in local circumstances render centrali- sation of supply more easy. In the fifteen years ending with 1907-8 there was a decrease of about 1,400 shops in all, namely, from 9,531 to 8,126-the figure may still seem large, but remember that we are dealing with a sub-continent--and the process reduction still continues. Thus in the past five years more than 300 shops have been closed in a single province (the Central Provinces).
of
(d) No consumption is allowed on shop premises. The purchaser can only obtain bis opium there.
(e.) There are strict limits of individual possession-ie., a person not license I to deal in opium may not possess at one time more than a very limited quantity of the