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(No. 12. Confidential.) Sir.
Enclosure I in No. 1.
Acting Consul Bastes to Mr. Alston.
Tengyuch, June 26, 1917. WITH reference to my telegram No. 10 of the 11th instant, I have the honour to submit herewith a report on my recent opium-inspection tour in the southern and western circuits of this province.
I am forwarding copies of this report to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Burma, and to His Majesty's consul-general at Yüunau-fu.
Enclosure 2 in No. 1.
I have, &c.
A. E. EASTES.
Report on a Tour of Inspection for Opium in West and South Yunnan.
(Confidential.)
THE instructions of His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Peking, communicating the arrangements made with the Wai-chiao Pu for the joint inspection of the province of Yünnan for opium, in accordance with the terms of the 1911 Agreement, reached me on the 7th March.
Mr. Alston informed me of the desire of the Government of India that the inspection should be as thorough as possible in the time available, The Governor of the province was to appoint the Chinese inspection delegates and arrange details with His Majesty's consul-general at Yünnan-fu.
Mr. Goffe, through whom the above instructions were communicated to me, added that he had suggested that I should travel to Szemao-the treaty port in the southern or Puerh circuit and thence to Tali and on to Likiang, and he enquired when I could start. I replied the following day that I could start in ten days' time.
Two days later I receive a telegram from the Governor of Yunnan announcing that he had appointed Yu Jên-lung, the Taoyin of the Tengyueh circuit, to be the Chinese delegate. This was bad news indeed, for of the whole body of Chinese officialdom there was obviously no one with so material an interest in placing obstacles in the way of my discovering any opium crops in the Tengyuel circuit; while on personal grounds the appointment was singularly unfortunate, for of all the native officials with whom I have been brought into touch during a residence in China extending over sixteen years I can recall but two whom I should have been less likely, had the choice rested with me, to select as travelling companions.
Mr. Goffe, to whom I telegraphed for confirmation of the unwelcome tidlings, made it clear that the appointment had been made entirely independently of himself, but gave small hope of his being able to procure its alteration.
From the first, the Tengyueh Taovin made it clear that he intended to put obstacles in the way both of an early start and of the exercise by me of unfettered discretion regarding the route to be followed. Having failed to induce me to agree to defer inspection of all places not yet officially declared free from opium, he attempted to discourage visits to a large number of localities alleged-in many instances, I believe, without the slightest foundation to be fraught with danger to such a mission as ours. Simultaneously with these tactics, he bombarded me with demands, each more insistent than its predecessor. to communicate the route I proposed to take, so that adequate arrangements might be made in advance for my protection." My original refusal, based on the precedents afforded by joint inspection of other provinces in previous years, was subsequently, with the approval of His Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires, modified by com- municating a bak outline of the projected tour.
Ki
The result was what I had expected. The first district mentioned on my meagre list was Lungling, already reported entirely free from opium; not twenty-four hours later, two more Chinese deputies were despatched to tour the Lungling district, to make assurance doubly sure.
Un the 18th March a letter from the Tuogin acquainted me with the news that the inspection of the Province of Kueichow and of the eastern circuit of Yunnan was to bẻ carried out by Mr. B. C. Tours, C.M:G., His Majesty's consul at Ichang. On the 24th March Mr. Yu Jeu-lung sent me an official despatch notifying the receipt of a telegram from the provincial capital announcing that the Hjuern Taoyin was to be
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Chinese delegate for the joint inspection of the places which I had announced my intention of traversing in that circuit Next day came a tactless letter to say that, by the orders of the Provincial Governor, my entertainment was to be a charge on Chinese hospitality; fortunately I contrived to evade both this most unwelcome attention and also those of an escort of Chinese troops which it was designed to detail for my safety on the road throughout the tour.
On the 27th March, the eve of the date finally fixed for the start, the Taoyin called to learn the route suggested for the first day's trip Although Lungling, south-east of Tengyuch, had been mentioned first on the rough outline of my projected tour, I had particular reasons for not wishing to travel thither by the normal direct route. Firstly, not two months had elapsed since I had passed over the road. in the reverse direction, on my return from the January Frontier Meeting, without seeing any trace of opium poppy. Moreover, I was auxious to see the present condition of the fields alongside the mountainous track between Nantien and Lungling, which as mentioned in my Opium Report for the December quarter, 1916,) Mr. R. U. Grierson, Assistant, Tengyueb Customs, had described as an almost unbroken succession of opium cultivations. I therefore announced to the Taoyin that I proposed to stop the first night at Nantien. In spite of the frankest betrayal of colossal ignorance of the geography in the immediate vicinity of his own post-he enquired blandly if the main road to Lungling (three days' journey south-east of Tengyueh) did not pass through Kuyung, two days to the north. west, and only a day's journey from the frontier of the Myitkyina district!-Mr. Yu nevertheless seemed to have some idea that the neighbourhood of Nantien was an undesirable one-from his point of view-for a search for opium crops; and I had to insist, gently but firmly, that my knowledge of the localities in the Tengch'ung district, where troops were being employed in connection with poppy eradication, was by no means inferior to his own. I was also able to counter his sec in line of argument, that we could not reach Nantien in one day's journey, and be yielded finally a reluctant acquiescence in may arrangements. His last bolt was not, however, shot, and late at night he sent a lengthy missive advancing the contention that the route between Nantien and Lungling would take us through the zone of military operations against the muredeemed Kachin opium cultivators. To show weakness now would have been hopelessly impolitic, but it was past midnight before I signed and despatched the letter demolishing all his arguments and holding him to his word given to me some hours previously.
No reply was vouchsafed, and I therefore despatched my caravan betimes the next morning, the 28th March, and proceeded to the rendezvous with the Taoyin. He had apparently accepted the inevitable; a verbal message was brought to me that, as he was late in starting, he did not propose to descend from his chair; would I, therefore, kindly proceed?
Nantien witnessed the last despairing effort of the Tengyueh Taoyin to combat my daily tour programme. I had already retired to bed when a letter of ominous length arrived; Mr. Yu professed information that the route suggested by me for the motrow had been wantonly obstructed by a formidable barrier of timber. Í roused myself and the uncomplaining writer to reply that my information did not tally, and that I frankly disbelieved the report I promised. however, that if on the morrow or at any other time during our travels we encountered obstructions, I would turn aside and avoid them. Some time after 2 A.M. I was roused once more to blink at the awan-song of the Taoyin's objections. In view of my undertaking, solemnly repeated in extenso, he resigned himself to following my rash lead.
X
Needless to say, we encountered no trace of the alleged timber-barrier obstructing the path; but after some two hours' journey the consulate writer and I found a field of opin-poppy, measuring roughly some 70 feet by 35 feet, round a bend a few hundred yards off the road. When we arrived, the owner, a woman of A-Chaug race, in a paroxysm of weeping, was plucking up the full-blown plants-presumably in obedience to orders from advance emissaries of the Taoyin's party. The Taoyin contented himself with lespatching one of his numerous attendant underlings to inspect the field, and on the strength of his report sent me the same evening a letter minimising the incident.
On the 31st March our route joined the main Lungling road at Manlo, just above the wire rope suspension bridge over the Shweli; for the past three or four weeks this bridge had been closed for the retimbering of the roadway, and the honour of reopening it to the traffic was reserved for our cavalcade. At the head of the stiff ascent on the left bank of the Shweli we were met by the Langling magistrate, Hsiu Mingch naa, formerly senior frontier deputy at Tengyueh, and an old acquaintance; be assured me with cheerful confidence that no matter what part of his district I might visit, I should
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