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undergone retrograde developments is afforded by the fact that in 1920 the per capita consumption of opium in the British provinces was 26 grains, slightly less than the figure at which it stood 30 years ago. Moreover, if it were possible to ascertain the amount of opium used for veterinary purposes, this figure would without doubt, be smaller still. There are 150 million cattle and horses in British India.
CHAPTER II.
THE PRODUCTION OF OPIUM IN INDIA.
The chief difficulty with which the Government of India have had to cope in carrying out their policy of controlling opium production and confining the use of the drug within the narrowest possible limits, has been the fact that froin the point of view of administration India consists of two parts-British India, under the direct control of the Government of India, comprising an area of a million square miles and a population of 247 millions, and the more or less autonomous Indian States, with a total area of 675,000 square miles and a population of 71,000,000. For over a century the Govern- ment of India have been gradually acquiring control over the production. transport and sale of opium throughout this vast area. So far as British India is concerned, they have concentrated cultivation within restricted areas, and have included all the provinces in the same general system in respect of transport and sale. As regards the Indian States, the problem of production and internal consumption could only be dealt with by negotiation, and several States have agreed to prohibit poppy cultivation within their territories. The opium produced by the others can only pass through British India on behalf of the Government of India, or of some other State which has received permission from the Government of India to obtain a specified quantity for its internal consumption.
Throughout the whole of British India (apart from certain inaccessible tracts on the Burmese frontier) the cultivation of opium is regulated by Act No. XIII. of 1857 (as amended by Act No. I. of 1911), and Act No. I. of 1878. Under those Acts the cultivation of the poppy within British India is permissible only under a licence; the total area to be sown is fixed by the Government from year to year; and the licence specifies the exact area which the licensee may cultivate. With the exception of the l'unjab, where the people are allowed to plant a small area with poppy and to sell the opium direct to licensed vendors, the cultivator is bound to sell the whole of his produce to the Government at a fixed rate.
5
Advances of money are made to the cultivator in accordance with the established practice at the time the production of opium became a Government monopoly, but these amount at the present day to about 11s. a year in the case of eachı cultivator. No cultivator grows poppy unless he wishes. If he desires to raise some other crop he can obtain an advance of money to assist him to do so.
13
The crude opium is sent to the Government factory at Ghazipur, and is there made up into raw opium in two forms: opium intended for export to foreign countries, known as provision opium, owing to the fact that the proceeds of sale were originally intended to provide funds for Indian trans- actions with China, and opium intended for consumption in India, known as "excise" opium. Provision opium is made up in the form of balls or cakes, each weighing 33 lbs., and is packed in chests, each chest containing 40 cakes and weighing 140 lbs. Excise opium is made up in cubical packets, each weighing 24 lba, 60 of which are packed in a case. notification is published annually, generally before the month of October, stating the number of chests of export opium which will be auctioned at Calcutta in each month of the next calendar year, and sales are conducted month by month by the Government of Bengal.
A
Apart from the production of opium, the poppy is valuable in other ways. The seed is exported in large quantities to Belgium, France and the United Kingdom for the expression of oil, and is also used as an article of food. The crop is sown in the autumn and gathered in the spring, usually succeeding an autumn crop of Indian corn; and in addition to opinu each acre yields about 260 lbs, of seed and 80 lbs. to 100lbs. of oil. The total area to be cultivated in any one year is decided by a calculation of the amount required for internal consumption and the amount to be exported to foreign countries: Production of the opium is controlled by the opium department, which had formerly two agencies; one stationed at Patna in the province of Bihar and Orissa, and the other at Ghazipur, in the United Provinces. Consequent, how- ever, on the large reductions made in the export trade, it was found possible to combine the two agencies into one, and in 1911 the Patua agency was abolished.
The area cultivated under the Bengal monopoly system has been reduced from 642,831 acres in 1903-04 to 163,125 acres in 1919-20, and the amount of opium produced has fallen from 10,227,867 lbs. in 1902-03 to 1,876,114 lbs. in 1919-20. Since opinin may only be grown for the Government, and the operations from start to finish are rigidly supervised by Government officers, the control exercised under this monopoly system is the most restrictive, short of total prohibition, that it is possible to devise.
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