Lately a Japanese carpet was seized at Shanghai, into which opium had been cunningly woven. Morphia is despatched held in solution on porous paper, or in bottles of cider. Cocaine can be concealed in flour or sugar. The universal testimony from the East is that this contraband trade eludes the utmost vigilance. The appeal to the West is, "Cut off these This plan is so plain that we wonder deadly drugs at their source." that our Government and that of the United States have never adopted it, without waiting for the Hague Convention which Would that we who export the poison makes it obligatory. realised the evil as those in China do who see its effects. The first meeting of the United British Chambers of Commerce in China at Shanghai last November unanimously resolved on this "cut at the root" policy.
They urged it for the sake of our commerce prestige. The Times Peking correspondent, telegraphing on 23rd He wired; "Indian opium March, advocated the same drastic action.
Sir Francis continues to pour into China by hundreds of tons... Aglen, Tuspector-General of Customs, stated recently that during 1919 21 tons of opium and 4 cwt. of morphia and heroin had been seized
au infinitesimal fraction of what figures which represented only coming into the country. No regulations will keep these drugs out o It is a dirty trade China so long as they exist elsewhere in the world.
ail through, and for our own prestige, if not for conscience sake, we ought, without further circumlocution, to strangle it at the root by When Dr. Morrison's successor stopping production in India."
Britain is still the larges telegraphs in this way, it demands attention.
24,000 chests are poppy grower and opium exporter in the world. annually made in India, and the public sales in Calcutta go on. If we do not cease cultivation altogether, let us, at the very least, reduce the What was left would far more than supply output by 75 per cent medical requirements.
The two Anti-Opium Societies in London and Edinburgh are pressing this matter on the Government as urgent. They are in co- operation with two strong similar Associations in North China. It is to be hoped that their efforts will be backed up by an enlightened and insistent public opinion. Electors should write to their M.P.'s on the subject. Below is given a specimen of the kind of resolution appro priate at present for Churches, Temperance Societies, and why not Chambers of Commerce, who, if they were wise, would do all in their power to put away a trade which dishonours and injures legitimate business. The Government Departments concerned who should be communicated with are the Foreign, Home, Colonial, Indian, and the Board of Trade. The Premier also, and local M.P.'s, should not be forgotten.
Moreover, prayer without ceasing should be made to God the All Father that our brothers, the poor morphomaniacs of China and the East, may be brought out of their awful prison house. We are exhorted to "break every yoke."
Resolution.-"Seeing that British Opium and Morphia are stil being smuggled into China, resulting in widespread havoc, and that the stoppage of this illicit traffic is declared impossible, the Government is hereby urged to take over at once the control of the three Brish Morphia lactories, and to give orders for the reduction of the poppi acreage in India, so that the production of these drugs may be stricty confined to medicinal proportions."
April, 1920.
Larimar & Chalmers, Pristers, Esburg,
DRAFT.
15. Ruin RA.
MO 398/20
Hong Kong
Tom Sac. Edinb- Anti. Opium biten.
MINUTE.
LB77 27/5/20.
Follins 27
Mr.
Mr.
Mr.
Mr. Grindle, 2
226
Bir H. Lambert.
Nir H. Read.
Sir G. Fiddes.
Col. Amery.
Lord Milner.
fine the b
qnt te
Sü
Anso 85643
A
I
حياة
lette
29
523
Rajao
to ack the recesin!
May. of the 15th
your the subject of
in
Opinn the Erupore.
of the
f
varias Colonies of
}
obsewe that
thank
14
reply.
تا سدا
sulatement
the above of the pr
16je- 16k abueva
for the sake
encouraged for.
in the S.Setts. T Hong Kong
is incorrect
i
and that, on
the contrary, additions restrition
on the sale and
List
of Opium
continually being made
в