E 9
(b) A remarkable seizure in March of 66,000 taels of Yunnan raw opium on a launch which had gone ashore on the south side of Lamma Island deserves special mention since it threw a good deal of light on the opium situation in the province of Kwang Tung.
A large launch, owned in Hong Kong but which had by some means come under the control of the official opium transport company, was commissioned at Canton, loaded with opium and placed under the charge of an agent of the transport company and another agent of the opium monopolist. Elaborate printed official passes in respect of the opium were given to the agents in charge, duly stamped with numerous Kwang Tung revenue stamps. These passes were issued by the Opium Suppression Bureau to three private opium merchants in Canton, and covered the removal of the opium to Swatow, where it was to be delivered to a branch opium monopolist who apparently would release the opium on payment of the prescribed fees payable on opium entering the region of his monopoly. It is not quite certain that the launch herself could have got to Swatow, for her boiler was leaking and she could make only five miles per hour; in fact she took 18 hours from Canton to Lamma, and would have required nearly 48 hours more at that speed to have reached Swatow against the North East monsoon.
Each cake of opium bore a purple label depicting the Five-storied Pagoda at Canton, and stamped across the face was the hexagonal chop in blue ink of the Tung Wan Company. This name had been noted on many opium labels before, but the exact position held by the company in the taxation of opium was hitherto unknown. The Company's representative made the position quite clear. His Company held the absolute monopoly for the whole province of Kwang Tung of the transport of raw opium, for which their fee was ten cents a tael payable by the owner of the opium. At their depot in Canton, where opium merchants had office accommodation, they attended to the proper labelling of all opium on behalf of the Opium Suppression Bureau, guaranteeing that no opium would leave their control until properly labelled. The Company also procured from the Opium Suppression Bureau the necessary removal permits on behalf of the opium merchants desiring to remove opium from one section of the province to another.
The representative of the Opium Suppression Bureau persisted in calling the opium, "Raw Material for the Manufacture of Medicine for the Cure of Opium Smoking", and this designation was used in all the official correspondence, which ended in the opium being handed back to the Canton Opium Suppression Bureau with the consent of the Central Government in Nanking. A careful analysis, however, proved that the material was Yunnan Opium of excellent quality, containing a percentage of morphine relatively high for ordinary Yunnan Opium, which is often extensively adulterated.