5
4
who in person went round with an escort of armed police, sealing up the doors of retail shops, and also pested police at the dealers' doors to watch who went in and out. Most of the stock, some fifty chests, was brought into the settlement during the night, but a few chests were too late and 'were actually confiscated.
The Opium Suppression Office has, since the 1st, enlisted a horde of detectives, variously estimated at 1,000 and 1,500 men, who, in the guise of hawkers, infest the thoroughfares and the exits from city and settlements and search any native whom they deem suspicious. Their pay is permission to make what they can out of the drug they discover. Within the settlement they haunt the doors of the opium shops (divans are of course no longer allowed), and shadow customers in the hope that they will overpass settlement limits and so become liable to search.
These detectives also search houses, and three compradores have been fined 250 dollars each for having opium in their premises.
Meanwhile, the Imperial Maritime Customs have no instructions as to the changed position, and collect the extra duty, label opium, and issue certificates, as though the agreement of 1911 were still effective.
Jūs
On the 6th instant the Yuan Tai hong took out of Messrs. E. D. Sassoon and Co.'s godown sixty-four balls of Malwa from chest No. 99, paid duty, and had the drug packed by the Customs in sixteen parcels duly labelled, receiving also four relative transit certificates, to protect it on its way to Chinkiang. Last night the owner took the opium in a box to the Shanghai Nanking railway station, in order to carry it with him to Chinkiang, but was seized, and he was informed that it would be sold by the capturing barrier, which doubtless had been posted by some of the
detectives."
[1
The above information was given by Mr. Ezra, who added that the purchaser had demanded the price-1,500 taels or so-back from the sellers, and had assaulted Mr. Levy in his office.
Some of the insurance agents have already had orders from home not to take opium lines, and not to renew expiring policies.
It is needless to lay stress on the dangers involved in the above conditions. The municipality cannot intervene so long as the detectives confine themselves within the settlement to shadowing suspected carriers of opium, and the victims of such espionage have no redress. An excess of zeal on the part of a detective may, however, easily provoke a riot, and the storage of uninsured opium may tempt some fanatic to arson, in which case, apparently, the Chinese Government would be even less reasonable than in the Anch'ing opium-burning case.
The wholesale and retail dealers are extremely unlikely to venture to resume business after their present experience, even were the president to proclaim that the agreement must be observed.
I have, &c.
(No. 5.) Sir,
Enclosure 5 in No. 1.
Consul-General Fraser to Sir J. Jordan.
E. H. FRASER.
Shanghai, January 11, 1913.
IN continuation of my despatch No. 4 of the 8th instant, I have the honour to forward copy, with translation, of a letter addressed by the Opium Guild to the foreign importers of opium here, which gives a graphic account of the extraordinary policy of persecution inaugurated by the provincial authorities.
On the 8th instant there occurred three seizures to the knowledge of Mr. Ezra, namely
*
At the railway station, 800 dollars' worth of Malwa cuttings;
At the west gate, 300 dollars' worth of Benares cuttings;
On the Chinese bund, five balls of Patna, duly labelled by the Imperial Maritime Customs, but without transit certificates.
All the above were purchases made at shops in the settlement, detected doubtless by the spies of the bureau.
The offer to let the sixty-four cakes of Malwa, the seizure of which was reported in my previous despatch, be redeemed, has been withdrawn, and the opium taken into the city. With regard to the case of the native doctor mentioned in the guild's letter, it
appears that three men, including an ex-patient, who some months ago had seen the doctor amoking, got admitted as patients, and, without showing any authority, took him to a court presided over by one Ni, of the bureau, and, on his confessing that he had opium in the settlement, although in his house there was found only a pipe, levied the fine of 5,000 dollars, which he paid to avoid worse treatment.
I am informed that the daily sales in the settlement are from fifteen to twenty chests, of which only five to seven cleats Mulwa are obtained from foreigners, the remainder coming from the native dealers' stick of Bengal opium.
The insurance companies are uneasy over their opium risks, since, in case of fire, there would be no market for salvage.
In connection with the question of poppy cultivation, Messrs. E. D. Sassoon and Co. have handed me a Chinese letter from Amoy of which copy and translation are enclosed.
The manager of the chartered bank has shown me a note from Peking stating that the United States and probably other legations adopt the position that it is impossible to take any steps to force ou China a commodity that she does not want, and that it is not understood how her refusal can be a breach of any treaty. There is also a tendency to accept the Chinese contention that foreign interest ceases once opium passes into the possession of native purchasers.
I venture to suggest that both the above contentions apply with equal force to any business or import in which foreigners are concerned; and that the people in power would have no serious difficulty in manufacturing as much evidence of cigarettes, kerosene, matches, flour, foreign banks' notes, &c., not being wanted by China, as has been produced in the case of opium. To confound under the same description not wanted, the impossibility of selling a costly luxury in a community whose members do not desire it, and the forcible prevention of purchase by eager buyers, betrays scant lucidity of thought. But, as my telegram No. 4 of yesterday indicates, the Chinese authorities count on the moral aversion from the opium trade of the British and other peoples to ensure them from any grave reprobation for failure to keep their pledges.
I have, &c,
Enclosure 6 in No. 1.
E. H. FRASER.
Chinese Foreign Opium Guild to Messrs. David and Messrs. E. D. Sassoon and Co., and other Foreign Importers. (Translation.) Dear Sirs,
January 7, 1913. IN the course of various communications to your firms our association has brought to your notice the extremely high-handed measures adopted by Chinese officials for the suppression of the trade in Indian opium; how they have closed down all shops dealing in raw or prepared opium, and have arrested all persons purchasing Indian opium outside the settlement, and have confiscated the opium purchased.
Although a long period has elapsed, we have up to date received no answer from you to our coinmunications, and we are extremely anxious.
The Opium Prohibition Bureau have now issued an order to the effect that any person having Indian opium on his person is liable to arrest by any person. For this purpose not only are the police to take into custody any persons whom they see purchasing Indian opium, but any loafer or vagabond may search people at pleasure and so annex fat profit.
Further, the Opium Prohibition Bureau have engaged 1,000 persons to serve as a special Indian opium detective force. They have been picketed both inside and outside the settlement with the express purpose of watching auy customers purchasing Indian opium at the raw opium shops within the settlement, whom they shadow until they cross the settlement boundary, when they forcibly carry them off. This Indian opium detective force consists entirely of persons unemployed, vagabonds without any position whatever-to whom this name of Indian opium detective force is a cloak for harrying decent citizens, and for battering on a sham publie service.
To take examples, there is a certain bankrupt tailor now serving as a detective who within four days has extorted by threats over 100 dollars. Again, another detective denounced in one day four families all of compradores, respectable men of standing for being in possession of Indian opium. They were thereupon arrested by
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