district. At Eho the poppy-fields are seen at a distance of 300 feet from the railway, but the cultivation is not confined to the sectors near the railway, as it is carried on all the surrounding hills.
Area under Poppy Cultivation-As far as it is possible to estimate, the area under poppy in North Manchuria can be put down at about 30,000 acres, but this estimate must be taken as a conservative one, and probably does not include the area under cultivation on the Sungari round Fukochin, &c.
The Cultivation of the Poppy.-Near the railway some attempts are made to conceal the growing of the poppy from the inquisitive eyes, and the fields are ringe in with hemp or maize, or the plants are interspersed in the fields of maize. On the hill-sides and in river valleys the cultivation is carried on more openly, and places protected from strong winds are selected. In the higher hills the north-western slopes are favoured or the deep valleys. The best and most fertile soil in the district is given over to poppy cultivation, and whenever possible virgin soil is selected, which is: subsequently used for the plauting of beans, &c., but the custom is to plant the poppy for some four years in succession, at the end of which period the fertility of the soil has become so diminished that the cereals which follow are of inferior sort. Occasionally rotation is practised, the general order being beans, poppy, maize and so on, but this is the exception. The ground for poppy is prepared in the spring or in the autumn. In autumn, as soon as the summer crop has been gathered, the land is ploughed, the roots and weeds are burnt, and the ashes are scattered over the ground; the sowing takes place about the middle of October. The spring sowing takes place in the middl of March or early in April, but on occasion it may be deferred until the middle of Ma The more hardy plants spring from the earlier sowings. The seeds are sown mostly by hand and are trodden into the prepared furrows. The autumn sowing shows signs of life in the early days of spring. The spring sowings make their appearance in May or June. When the plants are a few inches high the rows are thinned; each plant bears from one to four blooms, the flowering period being from the end of June to the end of July. The height attained by the plant is from 60 to 150 cm., and the capsules are from
to 6 cm, in breadth and 3 to 45 cm. in length. In North Manchuria 2-7 acres produce from 20 to 50 lb. of dry opium; in the Ussuri district the same area produces between 30 and 120 lb.
The Harvest. As soon as the petals fall and capsules have grown to full size, the extraction of the juice takes place. The operation, which usually occupies the whole of one day, consists of four to ten incisions made two-thirds round the capsule or in a spiral mauner. The juice is collected a few minutes after the incision is made, and is; gathered into small oblong tins or into pots made from cow-horn, when it is dried in the sun after being placed on special waterproof paper. The raw article is then ready for the market. The capsules, after the juice has been extracted, ripen about the beginning of August, and from the seeds is extracted an oil which is used both for cooking and a
a wedicine,
Narcotic Properties.--According to an analysis which has been made, it has been established that the opium of North Manchuria district contains 14 to 15 per cent, of morphia.
Opium Adulteration.It is a common practice in North Manchuria to adulterate the opium by mixing it with bread or oil. In such cases the percentage of morphia is reduced by one-half,
tlie
Effect of Poppy Cultivation.-Putting aside the question of the effect the drug of poppy produces on the population, there is an important point which is apt to be overlooked, and that is the detrimental effect the cultivation of the poppy has on agriculture in general. It has already been pointed out above that the fertility of the ground is seriously compromised by the planting of poppy, but there are two other serious factors: the utilisation of the best agricultural country and the withdrawal of labour which could be better employed in the production of foodstuffs. The cultivation of the poppy is increasing at an alarming extent from an agricultural point of view, and the thousands of men who make their way yearly along the eastern section of the railway come there for no legitimate purpose. Great damage also is done to the bee industry which is carried on to a very large extent in the country where the poppy now! grows thickest.
It is natural to ask why, with all existing laws, the cultivation of the poppy is still so extensively carried on. The answer is that the greater part of the plantations are under the direct protection of the military which is stationed along the whole length of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Every farmer who has a poppy-field has it registered by the
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soldiers, and in return his field is defended from depredations by robbers. For this the farmer pays a regular contribution which, in proportion to the marketable value of the drug to be obtained from his field, is not a very heavy tax. During the cutting season thousands of coolies come from the south to the poppy districts, large numbers of the workmen on the railway leave their work, and desertions from the ranks are numerous. The cutting of the peppy is a lucrative occupation, and, in a land where no opium laws appear to exist, can be carried on in safety under adequate armed protection.
During 1920 the customs officers in the North Manchurian district seized 45:00 picule of opium raw, Accepting the estimate of 30,000 acres as the actual area under cultivation, and allowing an average of 60 lb. for every 27 acres, the total production of opium during one given year can be put down at a little over 5,000 piculs. This means that a very bare 1 per cent. comes into our hands as it passes through the district, To get this infinitesimal quantity, we have officers, foreign and Chinese, whose duty it is to search trains and steamers, gools and passengers' baggage for the drug. To put a blunt question, what are they doing? They are doing nothing to safeguard the revenue, the 1 per cent. of opium they seize is not going to help to any great extent towards the suppression of the opium evil, and they are wasting a great deal of Customs time which might be better employed. Further, every man who is put on opium preventive duty undergoes a period of constant temptation.
An opium dealer will go to extreme lengths if he sees an opportunity to get his opium through without confiscation, and however much one may theorise on the point that every man is paid well for his work and that he should be above receiving bribes, it is no use shutting one's eyes to plain facts of practice that there are many men of the ordinary walks of life who, honest as can be in nature, one day, in a weak moment, will succumb to temptation. I am far from accusing our officers of dishonesty: I believe that very many come through their ordeal unscathed; but I am afraid there are se who fall. The question is, What benefit does the Customs Administration derive from the placing of these men in positions of temptation? For the sake of seizing 1 per cent. or let it be even 5 per cent.of the opium produced in the district, the moral integrity of our men is being daily deliberately jeopardised. If a man falls and is found out he is dismissed without further ado, and rightly so. But is the man entirely to blame, and is it fair to assume that because he succumbed to temptation after, very possibly, many severe trials, that he is wholly bad, and that it is he and he alone that is at fault, not the system? In all justice it must be admitted that the system is as much to blame as any man. The evils of the opium traffic are many, but this is one side of it which affects us very nearly, and a side which opium prohibitionists are very apt to be ignorant of or to ignore. That our officers should be alert and prevent the importation of foreign opium into China, yes; but that they should act us preventive officers within the country over a trattic which they see is carried on openly aud actually under military protection seems, from the point of view of an impartial observer, to be nothing more nor less than putting men on to useless work, and work which, sooner or later, tends to strain the integrity of the best. results are barely worth considering, and a fine body of men is being systematically demoralised,
The
In the 1908 edict some ten years was given for the total suppression of the opium traffic; exactly ten years after the promulgation of this edict the production of opium in North Manchuria was greater than it had ever been before-sufficiently conclusive evidence that the methods in force were not adapted for the end desired
The object is
to stamp out opium in China, and towards this end the Government has been paying out large sums yearly as rewards for opium seized, the amount paid out in 1920 in the Harbin district amounting to 11,600-00 Haekwan taels. So far the results do not justify even this outlay, and it is suggested that there is a by far more effective method of dealing with the problem which, while it lasts, will be remunerative and will at the same time have lasting result. It almost amounts to an axiom that if man is forbidden to do something there will always be a class who will go out of its way to defy that law, especially if there is money to be made out of it, but hit that canie class in the pocket, and in no gentle way, and it may be safely assumed that the game will soon begin to pall, and activities will be diverted to other objects. Taking this as a fundamental principle it may be fairly argued that to issue laws prohibiting the cultivation of poppy or the cutting down of poppy-felds is not going to prevent opium being produced. In one case the law is defied, in the other the law-enforcers are very apt themselves to become law-breakers by allowing themselves to be turned from the proper object of their business. Therefore, do not prohibit poppy cultivation and
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