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355,368 tabils, 3 chees and 6 hoone less than in 1919, the amount sold was no less than 1,290,289 tahils 5 chees, approximately 19 tons (see p. 5). In the same report the average consumption per male adult Chinese over 15 years of age is estimated at 47·9 chees per head. It is difficult to understand why in taking the average the age taken is that of "over 15 years of age," when the sale of chandu is forbidden to any but Chinese males over 21 years of age. No person below the age of 16 may enter the public smoking rooms, but the entry of Chinese males between the ages of 16 and 21 does not carry permission to purchase chandu. If the average were taken on the basis of Chinese over 21 years of age the amount estimated of consumption would necessarily be above that of 479 chees per head. Does the Governor of Singapore mean that all the Chinese over 21 years of age smoke opium? If so the evil is greater than had been imagined. Whether or not this be so, apparently the Government is prepared to supply opium to all adult male Chinese in the Malay States, and the amount anyone may possess of chandu, except under licence, is 74 tahils, or 10 ounces. It would therefore be possible for any adult male Chinese to possess at any time far more opium than even the most infatuated smoker would consume in one day, and thus, provided he has the money to make the purchase, any adult male Chinese can gratify his craving to whatever extent he pleases. The high price of chandu is supposed to be a means of decreasing the extension of the habit, making it rather a luxury for the rich than a possibility for all, but this seems inconsistent with the recommendation of the committee for abolishing the use of opium, since they assert (p. 13) that prohibition would have a very detrimental effect on the labour force, from which it is evident that opium is supplied at a price which makes possible its purchase by the labourer. With regard to British Malaya, then, the Government has a monopoly of the sale of opium, and apparently furnishes suflicient for the free indulgence of opium smoking of the whole Chinese adult male population, rich and poor.
Concerning Hong Kong, the report of the Superintendent of Imports and Exports at Hong Kong for the year 1919 gives the following figures -
Stock on the lat January, 1910 Imported during the year
253 chests. 1,290
Of these chests 377 were boiled by Government monopoly, 376 cheats were sent to Keelung, Formosa, and 374 chests were sent to Macao. Of the chests sent to Formosa it may be surmised that the greater portion of the opium was manufactured into morphia, and that either as morphia or opium the ultimate destination of most of it would be China. With regard to the opium sent to Macao, the letter from Mr. Claud Severn to Viscount Milner mentions a case in which 153,600 taels of opium, professedly shipped for Chile ou the steamship "Amherst," were disposed of in some surreptitious way, that is, it must have been ultimately smuggled into China, or some other place in the Far East. Thus out of 1,543 chests 750 were not used in Hong Kong, and a large proportion of them were disposed of by illicit trade.
These facts do not seem consistent with the statement that the Governments of Hong Kong and British Malaya are carrying out the aims of The Hague Convention. Viscount Milner expresses the opinion that the letters of Mr. James and Mr. Severn "will convince any impartial tribunal that the terms of The Hague Convention are being fully and conscientiously complied with by the Governments of British Malaya and Hong Kong," but with due respect to the opinion of Lord Milner the board of directors cannot but feel that the publication of these facts would lead to a different opinion in the minds of all impartial observers.
2. In addition to the legitimate trade, the letters and reports recognise a very extensive trade in smuggling. Concerning this, Mr. James writes: "I consider it is not unlikely that, if the licit trade in opium were abolished, all efforts to cope with the menace of opium smuggling and the use of deleterious drugs must prove abortive until such time as the production of opium and the manufacture of such derivatives as morphia and cocaine are so controlled in all producing countries as strictly to correspond with what the world actually requires for medical and legitimate purposes." Also in the report attached to Mr. James's letter and signed A. R. Chancellor, D. Beatty and G. Gordon Wilson, we find: "So long as the poppy is cultivated in countries from which there is easy sea communication with the Straits, such as India, Persia and China, there will always be the temptation to smuggle the product of the plant if the profit to be obtained is sufficiently lucrative."
Further, Mr. Claud Severn quotes the opinion of Messrs. Alfred Holt and Co., who say that: "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
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smuggled. So long as opium car thus be sold wholesale in this country, so long will the joint operation of laxity in the United Kingdom and severity abroad make illicit traffic easy and profitable. Messrs. Alfred Holt and Co. would therefore
urge upon His Majesty's Government the necessity of altering the law, so that the contraband trade may be stopped in its early stages.' Mr. Severn also remarks:
I have endeavoured to show that the initiative should lie elsewhere, and that with sufficient assistance from outside the problem of opium suppression in Hong Kong is at once and finally solved.'
JI
The board of directors would express their entire agreement with these opinions, but they submit that the correct deduction from them is not to support a licit trade, since that does not prevent smuggling, but to limit the production of all narcotics to the amounts sufficient for medical uses, and this can be done only through international agreements.
3. In reply to the argument that if the traffic in opium is abolished there will be great clangers arising from the use of alcoholic drinks and other deleterious drugs such as morphia and cocaine.
The board fails to see the relevancy of this argument. It is as if one were to watch complacently an infatuated person poison himself slowly with arsenic, because if prevented he might poison himself a little more expeditiously with hydrocyanic acid. The Indian Government permits a considerable traffic in arrick and toddy, and gives as a reason that if prevented the people will indulge in narcotics. Now we are told that people should be permitted to indulge in narcotics for fear that if prevented they will take to alcoholic drinks. When it is recalled that the sale of alcoholic drinks and of opium both swell the revenues in British possessions in Asia, it is difficult to believe that the question is not in some degree affected by the amounts raised for revenue.
That a traffic in opium should be legalised because if it is not there will be a dangerous use of morphía seenis all the more astonishing, for the Government of India produces the largest amounts of opium, and out of this are manufactured the enormous supplies of morphia, which are being introduced and sold illicitly in China, the amount of opium produced being far in excess of what is required for legitimate medical uses. The reasons that have led to severe legal enactinents controlling the manufacture and sale of morphia and preparations should lead to similar enactments controlling the sale of all deleterious drugs; and the same arguments can be applied to the necessity for legally controlling the manufacture and sale of inferior and detrimental alcoholic drinks, such as would be used by the general public to replace the indulgence in narcotics.
The argument used in the recommendations of committee for abolishing the use of opium, that "it deprived of opium it is only human nature that some substitute will be adopted" and that "the Chinese will have opium if it can be procured," set forth in Mr. Severn's letter, can hardly be taken seriously. It is not true concerning the Chinese, for although many Chinese are prone to indulge in the use of opium, it is not more than a century and a half since this habit took hold of the Chinese. Nor is it probable that at any time more than 1 per cent. of the Chinese people indulged in the opium habit, although in some districts the percentage was enormously high. If the narcotics cannot be procured, the Chinese not only can do very well without them, but they are in every way better, socially, morally and physically.
I have, &c.
1
General Secretary.
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