113
!
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These figures are based upon an estimated average population of 650,000. It is noto- rious that the Hongkong census figures are much below the actual figures of population, for reasons which it is unnecessary to examine here. The Committee has information regarding the actual population to the following effect :-
The bulk of the Colony's nightsoil is carried away by a Contractor for purposes of manure for mulberry growing. The successful bidder for the present contract, dating from 1921, worked upon the census figure of 680,000 persons, and allowed for taels 3 in weight of nightsoil per head per day, or a total of some 1275 piculs. He reduced this figure to 1100 piculs because of wastage through water closets and boat population, and he tendered accordingly. The amount of nightsoil now being collected approximates to 2500 piculs or nearly four million taels, which, at taels 3 per head, gives a population of over 1,300,000, without allowing for wastage. The figure arrived at through this somewhat unusual method of census taking is probably very much nearer the mark than the official figure and upon this basis the total consumption of opium comes out again at about half a tael a head.
12. The Secretary of State for the Colonies justly points out in his despatch of the 13th December that the only persons who need purchase Government opium are those who want a high-grade product and those who prefer to pay a high price rather than risk the penalty for the use of smuggled opium: and this argument holds good in respect of the consumption of any duty paid article in lieu of its smuggled counterpart. But it does not follow that there is no effective control over the consumpɔ- tion of such article. It is the opinion of the Committee that the control exercised in Hongkong is as effective as is possible in the extraordinarily difficult circumstances. As long as unlimited supplies of opium are available, opium cannot be kept out of the Colony. The Government of Hongkong, realising this fact, has devised a compromise. It sells a good grade of opium at a very high price and it visits with severe penalties all those who are found to be trafficking in or using other opiun. There can be no doubt that shortness of purse on the one hand and fear of the consequences on the other do keep consumption very far below the rate which would obtain if Government opium were cheapened or prohibited or penalties were relaxed.
13. The various proposals for a gradual diminution in the amount of opium legitimately available have been discussed in the preceding paragraphs. It remains to examine the question whether consumption of opium could be reduced, if no further legitimate supplies were available. It has been pointed out in paragraph 9 that the habitual smoker need not be considered, and, if such a step should result in decreased consumption, the Government should go out of business at once.
The Committee has expressed the opinion that a gradual reduction of legitimate supplies will be counterbalanced by an increase in the use of illicit opium. If the use of opium were to be prohibited, it is probable that the situation would get entirely out of hand. A comparison which suggests itself is the placing of a small foreign Government in Marseilles and the prohibition by it of the drinking of wine by the French within the town: except that opium is much more easily smuggled than wine. Neither the Hong- kong Government nor the Council of the League of Nations can prevent indulgence in a practice habitual in a nation of four hundred million people unless that nation desires to give up that indulgence, and unfortunately there is no present indication that the opium habit will be abandoned by the Chinese people in the near future. It may
be mentioned in this connection that the Committee has read with considerable surprise the statements by Mr. Chao Hsin-chu regarding Shanghai, which appear at pages 61 and 65 of the Minutes of the Fifth Session of the Advisory Committee. The information before the Committee is to the effect that enormous quantities of opium go to Shanghai, and the consumption there is very large. The supervision in Shanghai is notoriously far less strict than it is in Hongkong.
In Canton the Government has for some time past been selling opin for revenue purposes, and a Monopoly has now been formally established.
14. The Committee understands that the practice of swallowing opium is spreading amongst the Chinese, a practice which, according to medical evidence, is at least not less harmful than smoking opium. The League of Nations Advisory Committee does not apparently take exception to the swallowing of opium and the hemp drugs, ganja, cheras, and bhang, by Indians in India, and accordingly, if smoking is prohibited in Hongkong, the
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Government must be prepared to face a demand that swallowing should be permitted according to the practice in India. It is difficult to see how a discrimination in favour of India could be justified.
15. In paragraphs and 5 of his despatch of the 13th December the Secre- tary of State suggests that, if confirmed opium smokers are registered and the use of opium is otherwise prohibited, the British Government will have done everything possible to discharge its obligations under the Opium Convention. The Committee cannot agree with this suggestion. No Government placed as the Hongkong Govern- ment is can put a stop to a national habit of an alien race so long as it has not the full support of public opinion, and the continuing of opium to a few smokers, or total prohibition which would be preferable, would result in a hood of smuggling which it would be impossible to stem.
The difficulties of detection of smuggling are in present circumstances insuperable. Hongkong, with a total area of 376 square miles, has a coast and frontier line of 400 miles over any part of which Chinese may come aud go at will. Opium in bulk comes by ocean going steamer, of which the crew frequently, and sometimes the officers, are in league with the smuggler, and it comes also by launch and by junk. The opium is fre- quently put overboard outside the harbour limits, having attached to it a float which remains submerged for a given period and then rises to the surface. The Hongkong Government is about to incur heavy expense in, providing a new sea-going revenue vessel to operate outside harbour limits. Many Revenue and Police launches operated by the Chinese Government carry on an active trade in contraband and, having a Government status, they are more or less immune from search. One such launch was recently sunk in Hongkong waters, aud on examination of the wreck opium and arms were found in it. Opium is carried in receptacles bolted outside the bottom of a junk, in a hollowed out spar, in a compartment inside a tin of petrol or a jar of wine, in the leg of a bedstead, in a bag of flour, in a woman's hair, in fact in every possible place in which the ingenuity of the Chinese can devise means to hide an article the bulk of which is as small as its value is large. The Chinese, who will slice the top from a silver dollar, will hollow out the interior, refill with base metal and replace the top, would not stumble into such. traps as the European might be able to set for him, except by the merest chance. The Government's only efficacious weapon is money, and it is The Revenue Officer usually worth the smuggler's while to out-bid the Government, and the informer, working on strict business lines, concern themselves merely with the amount of the inducement, and are indifferent as to its source.
16. In paragraph 8 of the despatch of the 13th December it is proposed that the ordinary preventive measures should be supplemented by concentration on the detection of the capitalists who finance the smugglers. The Hongkong Government has for years past been doing its utmost in this direction, with results comparable to the baling of water with a sieve. For many years large quantities of opium were smuggled into Hongkong from England where there was no control of export, and, except for occasional In 1916 seizures, the Hongkong Government was powerless to deal with the matter. Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company presented a memorial to the Imperial Government regarding the constant snuggling in their ships, pointing out that the evil should be So long as opium can be thus sold wholesale in this country
attacked at the root.
as freely as the most harmless and necessary foods, so long will the joint operation of laxity in the United Kingdom and severity abroad make illicit traffic easy and pro- fitable. When the opium is once divided into small parcels and distributed among numerous carriers, the difficulty of suppression is enormously increased. Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company would therefore urge upon Ilis Majesty's Government the necessity of altering the law, so that the contraband trade may be stopped in the early stages The Imperial Government subsequently controlled the traffic, and no more opium came to Hongkong from England. Similarly opium from Persia and China is being poured into Hongkong. In 1993 the Senior Revenue Officer alone captured 716 illicit divan keepers, 3,350 illicit opium smokers, 386 traffickers in illicit opium, and 60 boilers of illicit opium. With opium altogether prohibited the Hongkong Government would lose the con- trol which it now has, smuggling would become universal, and consumption would be greatly increased. Hongkong would then be in the position of China, with opium smok- ing theoretically prohibited and practically uncontrolled, because uncontrollable,