19
10
I saw no trace of poppy, and it is my opinion that no crop has been successfully
this year in of these districts.
grown
any
Opium Smoking.
The campaign against opium smoking has been carried out with great vigour. the villages and market Since the summer of 1912 the local government councils towns, and the district officials in the district cities, have made house-to-house investigations, have destroyed any stocks of opium or smoking implements found, and have dealt with the offending parties. The search is allowed on all sides to have been a thorough one; rewards have been offered to informers and boxes for anonymous denunciations have been placed before all public buildings; people with opium faces have been the mark of special attention.
Smokers in the villages have, in the first instance, heen placed under observation; those who have undergone this period of surveillance to the satisfaction of the local government council have been passed as reformed characters; the others have been sent into the district cities and there handed over to the magistrate.
In all opium cases the magistrate acts under the superintendence of the local (This bureau went out of representative of the General Opium Suppression Bureau, existence during the course of the enquiry under report; since then the local officials deal with opium matters in the ordinary course of official routine.)
Offenders found in the cities or sent in from the villages were placed in reforma- tories, fined, imprisoned, or shot, according as the magistrate and the opium bureau It has official decides. Any stocks or implements found were destroyed in public. been said that while the poor have been proceeded against with all severity, the rich have been left unmolested. There appears to me to be no foundation for this statement, beyond the fact that men of substance have probably received less summary, though In the districts visited by no less determined, treatment than the poorer offenders. me, twelve capital sentences have been carried out, as follows:-Three at Ch'ang-ning Hsien, one at Kwei-yang Chou, one at Ch'en Chou, one at Li Tien Chen, four at Kwei- yang Hsien, one at Ling Hsien, one at P'ing-chiang Hsien.
I am of opinion that offenders, apart from those who offered forcible resistance, were not shot out of hand. They seem to have been given a chance to reform. Poor culprits were, in the first instance, placed in reformatories and the well-to-do fined; a relapse meant imprisonment or a heavier fine; and, finally, the incorrigible
were shot.
These measures have to all appearance resulted in the practical eradication of the opium habit in the districts through which I have passed. Opium is no longer procurable, and not a few cases are reported of former habitual smokers having died in consequence of their being thus deprived of the drug.
There no longer exists any import or export of opium. Smuggling would appear to have been successfully put down. All trade in the commodity is paralysed.
LOUIS KING. Changsha. May 14, 1913.
Enclosure 4 in No. 1.
Memorandum on Mr. J. L. Smith's Journey of Opium Investigation in the Province of Shantung.
MR. SMITH, accompanied by delegates of the Central and Provincial Governments, has completed a journey of twenty-eight days in Shantung, where he has covered about 580 miles in the districts south of the Yellow River, including two areas in the south-west of the province where poppy was reported to have been sown in considerable quantities during the present season.
He estimates that, prior to the anti-opium campaign, 50 per cent. of the land under cultivation in the prefecture of Tsao-chou was devoted to poppy. There has been a marked decrease in production during the last few years, but a certain amount was sown during the autumn of 1912, and evidence of its recent destruction was received from the villagers and from independent witnesses both native and foreign. During February and March forty-eight special deputies were sent through the district by the Governor, and they uprooted all crops which were growing in the open fields whilst a
11
certain quantity had failed to come up at all in consequence of the spring droughts. The last crops which remained were within the walled enclosures of the big farm-houses, and there was doubtless a hope of retaining these plots for the purpose of obtaining seed for next year. The majority even of these carefully screened crops, however, were destroyed on the approach of the investigating party, As a result no poppy was seen > in the south-western area.
In the districts around Tai-an-fu similar conditions were found. Here the poppy had been sown, though in smaller quantities than in the south-west. In several instances there was evidence that seed-beds in the walled gardens had been retained until the very last moment, and in one instance Mr. Smith actually watched the uprooting of a garden plot of which information had reached him. It was impossible to conduct a searching enquiry into every case of secret cultivation in a country which is dotted with fortified farms, but it was clear that officials and farmers alike were anxious that no crops should be discovered by the party in the area for which they were responsible. It would appear indeed that for all practical purposes the country is now cleared of cultivation.
Movements of Native Opium.
The transport of opium in the province is prohibited, and smuggling can only be conducted with great risk. It is probable that stocks still remain in the hands of dealers, but all trade in the drug is conducted with great secrecy and under severe penalties, and no direct evidence of opium traffic was anywhere available.
The import of the native drug is attended with similar difficulties. Police supervision is strict, especially on the railway, and every effort has been made to suppress smuggling. The isolated villages on the borders of the province are so largely removed from official control that it is impossible to obtain definite or reliable information as to conditions there. In the opinion of the Chinese with whom Mr. Smith was able to get into touch, however, the opium which changes hands even in these districts is now inconsiderable in amount.
Smoking.
The consumption of opium in the districts visited shows a marked decline. The missionaries all estimate that the decrease has been well above 50 per cent., whilst in Tsao-hsien one of them placed it as high as 90 per cent. There are no public opium dens and few secret ones, present prices are beyond the means of the people, and rich smokers have their own stocks, which are consuined in secret and of which no authentic information is available. Smoking was reported to have been openly practised in the magistrate's yamên at Tsao-hsien during the present spring, but it is now stopped, and neither Mr. Smith nor his servants saw any evidence of smoking, or were able to purchase opium, though it is clear that a certain amount is still consumed. The officials themselves admit the existence of a few smokers, mainly among the old and the sick. Prices range from 3 to 6 dollars an ounce, and the fact that quotations were procurable at almost every centre appears to indicate that it can still be purchased by those who are known to the dealers. There are few if any cases in which opium eating has replaced the smoking of the drug.
The party travelled by cart, wheelbarrow, or chair, according to the nature of the country. Mr. Smith usually rode, detaching himself from the escort and the Chinese deputies, and following small tracks whenever possible, in order to keep in closer touch with the people. The routes followed by the investigating party are shown on the enclosed map, as are two recent journeys by British missionaries. One of these gentlemen had seen poppy crops growing in the open fields during his outward journey, but they had all vanished on his return a few weeks later; the other had seen no opium at all. Both British aud foreign missionaries corroborated the native evidence that crops had been planted in many districts this season, but that they had been destroyed, often after the party had already started on the tour of inspection and in many cases only a few days before their arrival. The officials have been energetic in carrying out the work of destruction, and their work has been made lighter by the drought. The yamên underlings, who have constantly accepted bribes from the opium farmers and who connived at the retention of the seed plants until the last moment, insisted on the uprooting of every plant when once the party was known to have started.
• Not reproduced.