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how to reduce and finally to eliminate the consumption of
opium in Hongkong. As long as smuggling goes on on the
present extensive scale, no further material result can be obtained by way of manipulating the price or the output of the Government monopoly, unless such manipulation is accompanied by a large increase in the personnel of the
Preventive Establishment and in the severity of their
methods. The action which is necessarily taken to check
smugling has long been a cause of complaint among the Chinese. They object most strongly to the search of person
and baggage which takes place on overy wharf of arrival and
departure in the Colony; and they declaim against the bribery
and corruption which are undoubtedly rife. It is unfortunate-
-ly the case that no detective measures have very much success unless very large rewards are offered, and these
rewards bread a most undesirable spawn of informers. The Chinese will have opium if it can be procured; and in pro- -portion as the monopoly's product ceases to be available,
while outside sources, and especially sources in China, remain open, so will smugling increase, and with it the necessity for further and more drastic preventive measures.
I submit that the final remedy is only
12.
to be found when the stream is dammed at its source. I my quote the following extracts from Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company's Memorial, referred to above:-
"Under the circumstances Messrs. Alfred Holt
and Comp my suggest that the evil should be attacked at the root. So long as it is possible for the principals in England to acquire large quantities of opium for export, so long will it be possible for small parcels
to be smuggled.
"So long as opium can be thus sold wholesale
in