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CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTION.
Methods for regulating the distribution of opium must vary with the circumstances of each locality. The drastic method of complete prohibition except for medical purposes and under medical prescription has been adopted in many British Colonies and is the ultimate goal in the remainder. In Ceylon where the consumers of opium are said to be mostly Indians and not Cingalese a system of registration of opium addicts is in force with rationing of supplies to these as well as to practitioners of native medicine. The number of consumers in the Island has been reduced from 24,000 in 1910 to 12,000 in 1920, and the allowances diminished, and as the present generation of smokers dies out, complete suppression will follow automa- tically. A similar system is in force in Weihaiwei where permits are issued only to confirmed sinokers by a Government medical officer, and no fresh permits are being granted. British responsibility for Weihaiwei will, how- ever, cease as soon as the administration is resumed by the Chinese Govern- ment in accordance with the recent agreement arising out of the Washington Conference.
Mauritius has recently passed from a system of registration to one of suppression. Zanzibar, also, where the practice of opium eating obtains among sonte of the Persian and Indian residents, is rapidly reducing its consumption under the registration system.
But in localities where there is a large Chinese population and the opium habit is widespread any policy of immediate suppression could not be enforced owing to the ease with which opium can be smuggled, for example, in the coal bunkers of incoming steamers, packed among ordinary merchandise, concealed in the hollow stems of bamboo, on the persons of travellers, in birdcages, even in the inside of stuffed animals.
In such Colonies attempts to register consumers and limit supplies to these would be to a great extent ineffective owing to the illicit supplies of opium obtainable; the registration system would also be cumbrous and difficult to enforce in localities where a large proportion of the opium consuming popula- tion is migratory, as is the case in the Malay Peninsula, British North Borneo, and Hongkong.
For these countries the policy adopted is that of direct Government control of the import, manufacture, and distribution of opium with a view to ultimate suppression when conditions permit. Thus, for example, in Hongkong the price of Government monopoly opium has been successively raised from $6 a tael in 1914 to $14.50 a tael in 1918 at which it at present stands, a price which puts excessive indulgence out of the reach of the majority of consumers; the sale of dross opium (a smoking preparation in which opium dross is an ingredient) which is more deleterious in its effects on smokers has been discontinued; all public divans for the consumption of opium have been closed, in order to reduce the incentives to smoking; sale is only permitted to adult Chinese males and possession is limited to a maximum of taels: and Government prepared opium is so packed as to render it unsuitable for transmission and therefore less liable to removal from the Colony.
Since the passing of the 1914 Opium Ordinance, Hongkong has ceased to be a market for the distribution of opium. Apart from smuggled opium, the only opium which now comes to the Colony is that required for the use of the Government factory, and supplies consigned on through bills of lading to the Japanese authorities in Japan and Formosa and the Portuguese authorities in Macao. Export of prepared opium is not allowed to any destination whatever.
In Malaya and British North Borneo, there is also strict control of import and export and the elimination of the private trader; and the measures taken for the regulation of distribution and consumption are, generally speaking, similar to those adopted in Hongkong, though the details vary with local
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conditions. Thus in Malaya the system of registered public smoking-houses open to police inspection and control has been retained although the numbers of such houses have been greatly reduced.
The price of prepared opium in Malaya has been increased from $3 a tael in 1910 to $12 in 1920. Opium dross is purchased and destroyed so as to prevent the preparation of the more harmful dross opium, a policy which has had to be modified in Hongkong owing to the large supplies of dross from illicit opium which was being mixed with the dross of Government opium and sold to Government, thereby providing a subsidy to the illicit traffic.
DIFFICULTIES OF EFFECTIVE REGULATION.
Hongkong, to which I again refer as it is the Colony of which I have most knowledge, affords a good illustration of the difficulties of effective regulation of distribution and consumption, difficulties which would appear to render complete suppression an impossibility under existing conditions.
For while the cost of monopoly opium is kept high and opium is obtain- able in the neighbouring provinces of China at less than one-third of the Hongkong price it is obvious that there is much profit in the smuggling into and sale of illicit opium in the Colony, which at present is being flooded with Chinese-grown opium in spite of the large preventive force maintained to keep down smuggling, and of the heavy penalties of fines, imprisonment and even banishment inflicted on detected dealers in contraband opium.
Any effective preventive system necessarily involves much searching of the persons and baggage of travellers. intrusion into private dwellings, and general interference with the liberty of the individual, and inevitably lends itself to abuses, so that it is anything but popular with the community generally.
Under present conditions, were a policy of complete suppression adopted, the more stringent measures required to make it effective would be a source of further resentment, and the cost would be prohibitive. Similar consider- ations apply to the case of the Straits Settlements, whose principal ports, Singapore and Penang, lie in the fairway of all sea-borne traffic between the East and the West. It would of course be another matter if the suppression of poppy cultivation, which is the official policy of the Chinese Government. became really operative in China.
FARMING SYSTEM.
It will be convenient at this point to refer briefly to the farming system which is of considerable historical interest and present importance in con- nection with the opium traffic. Under this system the exclusive privilege of dealing in opium for a given area is put up to tender and sold for a period of years to the individual or Company offering the highest price. Conditions may be attached to the contract to minimise abuses, and in order to safe- guard his own interests the farmer can be relied upon to do all in his power to ensure that others shall not encroach on his exclusive rights to deal in opium, Government on its part assisting him by legislation and otherwise. By this means it is possible to restrict the traffic to one or more concerns thereby facilitating regulation by Government.
This farming system is still in force in the Portuguese Colony of Macao; within the last 15 or 20 years it has however been abolished in favour of a system of direct Government control in Malaya, Hongkong and British North Borneo, as well as in Siam, the Dutch East Indies, and French Indo- China, on account of the serious abuses to which it proved liable; the essen- tial reason being that the farmer in his desire to get rich quick was seldom scrupulous in his methods, and was prepared to go any length to increase the market for his opium at home or abroad, legally or illegally.
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