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CONFIDENTIAL.) ·
REPORT OF THE OPIUM COMMITTEE
TED FOR
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HONGKONG, 1st March, 1924.
The Committee has been appointed "to consider the suggestions made by the Advisory Committee of the League of Nations with a view to determining what further measures can be taken in Hongkong to give a more effective application to Chapter II of the Opium Convention, and to examine the existing position, and to explore the pos- sibilities of further effective action ".
By Article 6 in Chapter II of the Convention it is provided that "the contracting Powers shall take measures for the gradual and effective suppression of the manufacture of, internal trade in, and use of prepared opium, with due regard to the varying circum- stances of each country concerned
2. In Hongkong the measures now taken to give effect to Article 6 comprise a Gov- ernment monopoly, sale of Government opium at an artificially high price, heavy penalties in respect of trafficking in or use of opium other than Government opium, and the maintenance of a considerable force of Revenue Officers for the purpose of prevent- ing such trafficking or use. There is no check upon the consumption of opium apart from the high price charged for Government opium and the penalties imposed in respect of illicit opium, and it is obvious that the continuance of the present policy cannot lead to the suppression of the use of opium in the Colony. The most that that policy can effect under existing conditions is to keep the opium habit within bounds.
The problem to be solved is whether, under existing conditions, it is possible to suppress, either immediately or gradually, the consumption of opium in Hong Kong.
The Committee, in considering this matter, has ignored the financial aspect of the opium question, and it is agreed that, as far as it is concerned, the fact that the Colony derives a considerable revenue from the sale of opium is entirely irrelevant.
3. The Committee is of the opinion that some twenty to twenty five per cent of the adult Chinese population, including some one to two per cent of the adult female popula- tion, either smoke or swallow opium. It is stated by the persons employed in selling Government opium that the percentage has slightly increased during the past six or seven years. Chinese of the better class are inclined to regard the opium habit as dis- creditable, much as they would regard betting as discreditable, but they are certainly not prepared to practise what they might possibly preach. Public opinion might not countenance too open a parade of either gambling or opium smoking, but at least it has no great fault to find with the not too ostentatious practice of the latter habit. Opium smoking in China has perhaps the same popular support as betting has in England, and the one practice is probably as difficult to eradicate as the other.
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This statement will no doubt be traversed by the argument that the cultivation of poppy in China was practically put an end to abcut the year 1917, and that the final suppression of opium smoking was then all but attained. In the opinion of the Committee this argument is not supported by facts. The Chinese Government had consistently resented and opposed the export of Chinese silver to pay for Indian opium, and, when the British Government agreed to put an end to the import of Indian opium upon con- ditions, the conditions were at once accepted. Those conditions included the suppression of poppy cultivation in China, and under constant Consular supervision and protest much was lone in this direction, although it is probable that the reports of foreign observers expressed an optimism unwarranted by the facts. Very large stocks of opium, both raw and prepared, were carried, and not long after the final exclusion of Indian opium the internal restrictions became a dead letter throughout the greater part of the country. Since the earliest days of the opium question in China the principal concern of the Provincial Governments has been to eradicate, not the opium habit, but the Indian opium habit, and the failure to attain this end, until India cooperated, may be attributed to the fact that public taste vastly prefers the Indian to the home-grown drug.
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