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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

PEPEC.O. 882

5

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

may

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1894" herein-after called "the principal Ordinance and all copies hereafter printed of the principal Ordinance he printed with the amendments made by this Ordinance.

2. Section nineteen of the principal Ordinance is repealed and the following section is enacted in lieu thereof:-

"19. (1) No person except the Farmer shall make or prepare chandu or shall sell or offer for sale or permit to be sold or offered for sale or shall buy or have in or receive into his possession custody or control any chandu other than such as shall have been purchased from the Farmer of the then current year or from an Opium Farm shop-keeper of the Settlement of the then current year (the onus of proof of which purchase shall rest upon such person). Provided always that no person who may have bought any chandu from the out-going Farmer or from an Opium Farm shop-keeper under the out-going Farmer shall be liable to be con- victed for having in his possession such chandu not exceeding three tshils weight at any time before noon on the third day after the commencement of the new Farmer's privileges and provided also that nothing herein contained shall make it an offence for any person to have in his possession any opium dross produced by him from lawfully purchased chandu.

"(2)-Nothing in this section contained shall apply to chaudu on board a ship arriving at a port in any Settlement as sea-stores or as part of her cargo carried for importation at some port not being a port of the Settlement."

3. Section twenty-five of the principal Ordinance is amended by the addition of the following sub-section :-

(3)-Any license granted under sub-section (1) hereof may be either for the sale by retail of chandu or for the sale by retail of opiurn dross only and if for the sale by retail of opium dross only the license granted in the form H in the second schedule hereto shall be modified accordingly.'

4. Section thirty-one of the principal Ordinance is amended by the addition of the following clauses to be numbered (k) and (i) respectively :—

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(2) knowingly permits or suffers any female not being the shop-keeper or wife or child of the shop-keeper to enter or remain in a farm-shop.

"(i) knowingly sells any chandu which is inferior in quality to the chandu approved by the Government Analyst under clause eight of the Farmer's Contract."

Passed this 2nd day of December 1895.

Enclosure 2 in No. 42.

J. R. INNES,

Acting Clerk of Councils.

Report on Ordinance No. XIII. of 1895.

An Ordinance to amend "The Opium Ordinance, 1894."

1. This Ordinance was introduced in consequence of instructions received from the Secretary of State, the principal object being to give to opium brought into the ports of the Colony in the course of transit to other places more effectual protection from seizure and sale than is afforded by section 11 of the principal Ordinance.

2. This object is accomplished by section 2, which amends section 19 of the principal Ordinance.

3. Section 3 is drawn to enable the Government to reduce the license fee payable by shops in which opium dross only is sold.

4. By section 4 a clause (h) added to section 31 of the principal Ordinance, making penal the introduction of females into opium shops, and a clause (i) making it penal to sell chandu of a quality inferior to the approved standard.

5. I am of opinion that the Ordinance is one which may properly receive the Royal Assent.

Attorney-General's Chambers, Singapore,

5th December 1895.

W. R. COLLTEH,

Attorney-General.

8389.

(No. 114).

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No. 43.

SIR C. B. H. MITCHELL to MR. CHAMBERLAIN. (Received April 18, 1896.)

Government House, Singapore,

March 24, 1896.

Sin,

REFERRING to your Despatch No. 352 of the 1st November last on the subject of the consumption of opium in these Settlements, I have the honour to state that the Government analyst has been desired to make investigation in order to determine, if possible, whether opium smoking is more harmful or less harmful than opium eating or drinking and to report the result from time to time.

2. Referring to paragraph 4 of your Despatch, the number of licensed shops is at present :~~

Singapore Malacca

Penang and Province Wellesley

1894.

1895.

478

478

91

85

134

184

and these may be assumed to be the numbers in each Settlement which best meet the convenience of the public; there would be no objection to fixing these numbers for some years to come, but any considerable diminution of these numbers would entail a serious risk of illicit selling.

3. At present each licensed shop is a check upon illicit sales, both by serving the demand in its vicinity, and also by the shopkeepers keeping a sharp look out against rivals without license.

If the number of licensed shops were diminished to, say, 50 per cent., each shop would serve the demand less effectively, as its customers would have further to go and its efficiency as a detective of illicitsales would be diminished by having a larger area and more consumers to supervise.

These causes would inevitably produce an illicit sale carried on at first in antagonism to the farmer's interests. But as soon as illicit competition began to tell the farmer would, in self defence, be forced to sell illicitly also; he would re-establish a number of unlicensed shops nearly equal to the old suppressed shops and carry on through them a trade in competition with his rivals.

Illicit sale by the farmer himself is very difficult to detect or overcome and it would need a special staff to deal with such a state of affairs.

4. The maximum retail price of opium has already been fixed for many years in the farmer's contract with Government as well as the quality of the opium to be sold, experience has shown that opium is always sold at the maximum price fixed by Government. Experience has also shown that it would be dangerous to the public peace if the opium farmer were permitted to enhance the price at his desire; the disastrous riot which took place in Taipeng in 1878 was due to an enhancement of the price of opium.

All the officers whom I have consulted have expressed an opinion against fixing the maximum amount saleable. It is the custom for large employers of Chinese labour to furnish their labourers with opium; so strongly does this custom prevail that in some grants of large tracts of land in the Native States this privilege is expressly reserved to the grantee. Any maximum fixed with due regard to this custom would be so great that it would have no effect on ordinary retail sales; while to disregard this custom would give occasion for serious discontent on the part of large employers of Chinese labour, particularly those engaged in agriculture at a distance from the town, whom it is our policy to encourage in every reasonable way.

5. The new system by which the license fees on farm shops have been increased has had no perceptible effect; the value of the farm has, of course, decreased by the amount these shops pay directly to Government, and the Government is duly kept acquainted with all changes in the management and locality of each shop, but, as regards the outside public, the change has had no influence, there has been no appreciable diminution of persons trading with the shops, and the number of shops has not been reduced.

• No. 40.

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