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which has already been faced, and so unworthy o consideration in relation to the national stigma involved, that the continuance of this trade is unthinkable.
I would at the same time invite attention to the desirability of immediate action in suppressing the trans-frontier trade from the Shan States of Burma into
Yünnan.
The undertaking of the Government of Burma to institute effective measures of control, referred to in the enclosed despatch from Tengyueh, dated the 17th July, is worthy of consideration without delay. Highly-coloured accounts of the Burma- Yunnan opium traffic are appearing in the China press, and go far to neutralise in the minds of the public the genuine efforts which we have made to abolish a trade which is now generally recognised as a weapon for the debauching of the manhood of this country.
The adherence of all parts of the British Empire to The Hague Convention of 1912 would appear to be the most practical measure for the final extinction of all British interest in a trade which will loom largely on the political and social horizon of China in the immediate future.
Should there be a large revival of opium cultivation in China, and a relapse into the conditions which obtained before the opium problem was taken up in 1906, it is important that we should have no share in the responsibility for such a calamity. At present the Chinese are inclined to argue that so long as Hong Kong, Singapore, Macao, and Tsing-tao derive large revenues from the sale of opium to their people, they can hardly be blamed for doing the same. At my recent interview with the President, when I offered to have the surplus stock at Shanghai reshipped to India, and to give the Chinese Government 3,000 rupees a chest for it, his Excellency pointedly asked me what the Government of India would do with it. He knew, of course, perfectly well that there was still a considerable export from India to places other than China for the consumption of Chinese residents, and I interpreted the question as an indication that he personally thought it better to have the stuff destroyed than conveyed elsc- where for the use of his countrymen residing out of China.
I have, &c.
J N. JORDAN.
3
prevailing for months past in the province of Sanch'uan, there has been an enormous increase of poppy cultivation in that province, and the opium obtained from last winter's crops has now begun to come on to the market, and consequently to lower by com- petition the sale-price of the Yunnan and Burma products.
Frequent seizures of smuggled opium are made by the Tengyueh customs. but the customs officials would, I am sure, be the first to admit that the amount seized by them represents but a very small fraction of the drug smuggled through this district.
3. Consumption.
As has been previously explained, it is practically impossible to obtain any statistics of opium consumption, but it cannot, I think, be seriously contended that the vice is less prevalent now than it was two or three years ago. If this is not the case, it is difficult, now that Sstich'uan appears to be once again self-supporting and that there has been, according to the press, considerable recrudescence of cultivation in Kueichow, to explain the sustained demand for the drug in this province, though the enhanced price may possibly have reducet consumption amongst the very poor.
At the conclusion of the Tengyueh Opium Report for the December quarter, 1917, I noted the official request of the Tengyueh Taoyin that I should procure the issue of instructions to the frontier officers of Burma "strictly to prevent the cultivation of opium and conveyance into China."
From enquiries which I instituted I gathered the impression that the Taoyin was unlikely to press for an answer to his despatch, and I wrote accordingly to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Burma.
His Government, however, preferred to return a reply, and I therefore passed on the answer, couched in the following terms :-
"This Government is fully aware of the importance of the matter, and has under consideration a scheme, which will be put into force at the earliest possible moment, for the control of poppy cultivation in the frontier regions of Burma and the prevention of the export of opium from those regions into China."
A. E. EASTES,
253
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
Tengyueh Opium Report for the Quarter ended June 30, 1918
1. Cultivation.
THE energy displayed last winter, whilst apprehensions were entertained of the possibility of the repetition of a joint opium inspection tour, has long since cooled off, and reports have reached me from several sources that practically nothing has been done during the past quarter to check the cultivation and harvesting of opium. throughout this district.
Beyond a couple of small expeditions of provincial troops, sent out from Tengyueh and from Paoshan, into the Chinese Shan States of thanta and Kongma, I have heard of no special efforts in connection with this matter, The Chinese civil authorities have, of course, the excuse that almost all available military forces have been drafted away to swell the ranks of fighters against Ssuch'uan, but opium cultivation is so ingrained amongst the natives of Yunnan, both Chinese and hilltribesmen, that any relaxation of vigorous suppression measures is inevitably attended by a fresh outbreak of cultivation.
2. Importation.
Traffic in opium imported from Burma shows no signs of decreasing, and the reports of officers in the northern and southern Shan States are constantly chronicling the large and heavily-armed caravans which come across the frontier at various points and return with big consignments of the nominally contraband drug.
In my last report I quoted the sum of 91. 6s. 8d. for 40 Chinese ounces as a price without precedent. Yet so keen has been the competition to obtain supplies from the Shan States that during the past quarter the price commanded in Lashio has risen to nearly double that figure (250 rupees for the same quantity). Latterly, however, the price has begun to fall, and the reason given to me for this is that, owing to the chaos
Enclosure 2 in No. 1.
Tengyueh Opium Report for the Quarter ended September 30, 1918.
1. Cultivation.
THE province of Yunnan has not been slow to follow the lead of the majority of the opium-growing provinces of China by throwing off all restraint in the matter of poppy cultivation and adopting instead a policy of open encouragement of planting, as a means of replenishing the exhausted provincial exchequer. All precautions of secrecy have been abandoned in this district, and merchants have for weeks past been busily engaged in pooling their capital for the renting of large areas in suitable localities, and for the hiring of large bands of coolies, at the unprecedented wage of a rupee per diem, to convert these areas as rapidly as possible into flourishing poppy- plantations.
The most popular localities in the Têng-Ch'ung district are said to be the Chinese Shan States of Chanhsi, Chanta-especially in the neighbourhood of Simapa— and Lungchuan; of the other districts in the Tongyueh circuit displaying the same feverish activity, Shunning, and Likiang have been specially brought to my notice, Considerable sums have been advanced to would-be cultivators by the Tengyuel representative of the Yunnan Government (Fu-Tien) Bank, and the new policy is, undoubtedly, fostered by officialdom in every possible way..
The Yunnan authorities are said to have hit on the following ingenious excuse for their flagrant backsliding in this matter. They adduce the reply of the Government of Burma, quoted in the final paragraph of the Tengvueh Opium Report for the June quarter 1918, as indicating that the Government of India have not completely carried out their obligations under the Opium Agreement of 1911, "to continue the annual diminution of the export of opium from India until the completion of the full period
in 1917."