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8.
9.
the contraband trade would go on as before, but all steps
hitherto taken to suppress it have proved quite in vain. In fact some steps taken with a view to decreasing the
consumption have only resulted in encouraging the contraband trade, i.e., the suppression of licensed Opium divans, in which Monopoly Opium only was smoked has led to the creation
of innumerable unlawful divans in which only illicit
Opium is smoked. The great increase in the amount of Opium sold since cheap brands of inferior quality were placed on sale has proved that the amount of Opium saleable
at 14.50 is very small, and that in proportion to the actual demand the contraband trade was capable of looking
after more than three-quarters of that demand.
The only effect of abolition would be that the
contraband trade would flourish a little more, but
such trade need not become prominent, for if the system
of paying large rewards was abolished practically no
evidence of its existence would ever come to light. The
vice of opium addiction does not obtrude itself like that
of drink. The Government would then be in a far stronger
position at Geneva, and, if necessary, to protest about
the Opium position in China.
> All the efforts expended since 1909 have not
decreased the real consumption at all and now that'
(1) a statement has been published that reasons
of finance will not stand in the way
(2) arguments based on humanity are of doubtful
validity,
(3) that supplies from India are gradually decreasing;
there appears to me every reason for arrangements to be
made to close the Lonopoly down once and for all at the end of 1933. To maintain the sale of opium any longer would only be for the benefit of the rich, the labouring classes have long reased to be able to purchase Government
5
prepared
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