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magistrate, however, took no steps to uproot it, though he had plenty of troops at his disposal. The incorrectness of this report in due course reached the ears of the Amoy Commissioner, at whose request the Governor sent 200 more soldiers from It was doubtless Foochow, but the magistrate had not attempted to employ them. misgivings of the magistrate's zeal that suggested to Mr. Ding the advisability of having a final look at the district before the inspection commission passed through. Mr. Ding arrived at Hui An eight days before me, and, after obtaining information from the local missionaries and the opium inspector, left with the latter and a force of soldiers for the localities under poppy-
It was known by the Hui An authorities that Mr. Ding was in the neighbourhood conducting a vigorous campaign, but they were ignorant as to what parts had actually been cleared and what remained to be cleared by him. In these circumstances, when I informed Mr. Chan Pai Kong in the evening that it would be necessary for me to go to Lam Po via Goa Chhu on the following day, there was considerable anxiety on the part of the Chinese delegates lest we might meet with poppy in that district. Many difficulties were raised, but Mr. Chan promised to do his best to overcome them.
On the following morning I was surprised to find that orders had been issued to proceed to Lam Po via Ko Koai and Tho Nia instead of as originally arranged. I protested strongly against this change of route, but Mr. Chan assured me positively that the latter route was impracticable owing to a high range of hills which could not be crossed. There was some suspicion in my mind that the Chinese authorities were uncertain of the country between Iap Chliu and Lam Po or that they were endeavouring to gain time, and this suspicion was strengthened later in the day, when, after leaving Tho Nia, a body of sixty soldiers returning to Hui An were passed. Mr. Chan's secretary admitted to me that these troops had been sent off late the previous evening to Lam Po to make sure that there was no poppy still there. The fact, however, that they were returning to Hui An viâ Tho Nia seems to bear out Mr. Chan's statement that the other ronte was impracticable. It is true that a high range of hills lay between Tap Chhu and Goa Chhu and that there seemed to be no roads in this part of the country, the morning journey from Ku Jim through Ko Koai to Tho Nia being mostly over paddy fields. No poppy was seen, but near Ko Kosi A missionary at Hui An traces were visible of the uprooting in the foregoing week. informed me that it was pulled up at this village seven days before my arrival, he himself having seen it in the fields on the previous day. It was noteworthy that the streets of the villages in this neighbourhood were deserted, the inhabitants, fearing retribution, having locked themselves behind their doors.
The Chinese delegates were naturally highly indignant at the conduct of the Hui An magistrate, who appeared to me, however, rather mentally deficient and incompetent than actually corrupt. I was told that in 1912, when, on an opium uprooting expedition at Soan lo, the villagers had opened fire on his soldiers, he had forbidden the latter to reply, on the ground that he could not bear to inflict suffering on his subjects, whilst in another village be had been publicly thrashed by the lissatisfied parties of a lawsuit. But there appeared to be no evidence that his supineness was due to improper motives. The Hui An district is very difficult to control, the gentry intractable, and the people much given to clan fighting, on account of the water supply, which is too poor to allow of much rice being grown. The district is therefore poor, and there has always been great difficulty in getting a good man to accept the magistracy.
Mr. Shih Wei Ch'ung would, I was informed, be sent for trial to Foochow
may
I mention that at lui An a foreigner in the employ of Messrs. Burroughs and Wellcome called on me, and informed me that he had been travelling in the south of the province for six weeks and had not seen a single plant. The places visited by this gentleman are marked on the attached map.
*
Time was too short to admit of going to Sien Yu, but the magistrate of that district met us at Hong Tan, which is under his jurisdiction. He informed me that he had invited the co-operation of the missionaries in eradicating the poppy from his district, and had in his possession certificates given by them attesting that his jurisdic- tion was quite free. He was so confident that no more now remained that he was offering a reward of 500 dollars for information of any poppy still growing.
At Hsing Hua I found Mr. Ding Neng Guang, who had finished his work in the Hui Au district. He told me that he had had a busy week clearing out poppy, and believed that the district was now practically free. He had left subordinates behind to
Not reproduced.
9
complete the task more thoroughly, however, as he himself had to go on to other districts.
The head of the Church Missionary Society at Hsing Hua assured me that no opium was now left in that neighbourhood, nor, as far as he knew, in the whole of the country between Hsing Hua and Foochow, where formerly large areas had been under cultivation. As far as Hsing Hua was concerned, the proclamations of the magistrate and the warnings of the gentry had generally sufficed to prevent a heavy sowing, or, where the seed had actually been sown, to persuade the people to abandon cultivation. At Sien Yu in the previous spring some trouble had been caused by the Foochow Government's repudiation of the local authorities' permission for the crop to be gathered in on condition that it should be the last, and the city had been ultimately captured by banditti, who championed the people for the consideration of 1 dollar per acre; but he believed that there was now no poppy remaining of which the officials had cognisance.
After an eventless journey of two days Foochow was reached on the morning of the 20th March.
The net results of the inspection, therefore, are that during a journey of over 500 miles through the principal producing centres of South Fukien no opium was discovered, whilst only on one or two occasions was there any evidence to warrant the belief that a few heads might still remain.
It must, I think, be admitted that the southern half of the province is now free from the plant to all intents and purposes. Doubtless in remote and inaccessible regions a few small patches are still being grown, but it would be difficult to suggest measures which would eliminate this qualification.
There can equally be little doubt that the campaign has on the whole been conducted honestly, if at times a trifle vigorously, by the officers in charge of it. The exceptions to this generalisation have been mentioned above, but the vast majority of those connected with the administration of the opium laws have been singularly free from those charges of extortion and oppression which so often attach to native officials placed in positions where such abuses can be so readily practised.
As regards the future, students of the opium question are all agreed that unless strong precautions are taken the work that has so far been accomplished will be undone so soon as the next sowing season comes round. The incentive to grow a crop that
pays ten times as well as any other local product is strong, and it is common knowledge that the seed of last year's crop is being carefully put by for future use.
There is good reason to suppose that the Provincial Government has these dangers well in mind, for Mr. Chan informe me that regulations are at present being drafted to provide against them, whilst the Civil Governor's recent speech at a meeting of the People's Anti- Opium Society at Foochow, in which he announced amidst great applause that there would be plenty of executions in the future for breaches of the auti-opum laws, suggests that the Government is determined upon a strong attitude.
With respect to opium-smoking, there is a tendency at present to deal with offences more leniently; the present scarcity of the drug has so inflated the price that it is now almost beyond the reach of all save the wealthy classes, and the authorities have doubtless realised that the cessation of smoking follows automatically the cessation of cultivation, and are devoting all their attention to the latter object.
In the larger towns and other places where there are reform or other societies interesting themselves in the anti-opium movement it is very difficult to obtain the drug, but in out-of-the-way places it is said to be still easy to procure.
In no district visited lid I hear of opium being imported from other provinces. I was much indebted throughout the whole journey to the Chinese local officials and to the official delegates, Messrs. Chan Pai Kong and Sou Gee Chuang, for their uniform courtesy and hospitality.
W. P. W. TURNER.
Enclosure 4 in No. I.
Sir J. Jordan to Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Peking, April 18, 1914. I HAVE the honour to refer to your Excellency's note of the 25th March requesting me to consent to the prohibition of import of Indian opium into Fukien
Sir,
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