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neither expedient would diminish consumption, as illicit opium would take the place of Government opium.

The Committee understands that in 1920 the Government of the Straits Settlements attempted to reduce consumption by limitation of supplies and that after a few months it found it necessary to abandon this policy. The Government of the Punjab's *experience in this connection is set out in paragraph 31 of the Report on the Excise Administration of the Punjab during the year 1921-22. It is there stated that measures such as the restriction of supply of excise opium lead to smuggling and simply aggravate the situation. The Financial Commissioner has accordingly decided recently to change the policy in this respect with the object of ensuring that there shall in each district be a sufficient supply of opium so that the needs of the people may be satisfied without their having recourse to smuggling.

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that the 9. The Advisory Committee, in its fourth resolution, recommends possibilities of the system of registration and licensing, which has already been intro- duced in some of the Far Eastern territories, should be thoroughly explored."

In a Chinese community of the size of that in Hong Kong it would not be possible to keep a check upon licences, if they were issued in any considerable number. Licences would be bought and sold, impersonation would be rife, and licensees would corner stocks and profiteer. It has been suggested that licences should be contined to persons permanently resident in the Colony. Some ten to twelve thousand Chinese pass daily between Hong Kong and China: a large part of the population. having permanent homes in China, is in the Colony for a longer or shorter period according to the prospects of remunerative work: and there are periodical in-rushes of refugees who escape from disorder in China and dribble back at varying intervals as quiet is restored to their individual village or district. This large unstable population would bring in the opium to which it, is accustomed in China, and its more wealthy members would purchase the much superior Hong Kong brand from the licensed permanent residents; which permanent residents would probably be men of the coolie class put forward as figure-heads by profiteering syndicates.

It has been put before the Committee that smokers are already registered and licensed in the Netherlands East Indies. The Netherlands East Indies are at a con- siderable distance from China, reached only after a long sea voyage. The Chinese are there an alien and not an indigenous race, and they form a very small fraction of the total population. Hong Kong is geographically and racially an integral part of China, and, with the exception of a mere handful, the whole of its population is Chinese. The task proposed to Hong Kong may be compared to the task of preventing the use in Manchester of an article which is in common use throughout the rest of England. The task before the Netherlands East Indies may be compared to the task of, for example, the Argentine Authorities in preventing the use by Englishmen within their territory of an article to which these Englishmen are habitually accustomed in England.

The argument formerly advanced in support of registration and licensing was based upon the desirability of gradually weaning from the habit smokers who have long been accustomed to the drug. There would be no necessity to license in Hong Kong on this score, as, if Government opium was not available, smokers would use illicit opium.

10. The Advisory Committee proposes, in its fifth resolution, that the retail price of prepared opium and the penalties for the infraction of the law in regard to its import, export, sale, and use, should be made uniform in the various territories concerned.

It would hardly serve any useful purpose to discuss this question while present conditions obtain in China. As far as Hong Kong is concerned, it would be unwise to reduce the present retail price of opium or to relax the existing penaltics for infringe- ment of the law. It is most improbable that certain territories could be persuaded to adopt a standard of severity equal to that established in Hong Kong. In a recent case in Shanghai the Press commented on a sentence of four months' imprisonment and a fine of $500 in respect of a seizure of 645 pounds of opium, as being one of the severest sentences on record in Shanghai. In a similar case in Hong Kong the Magis trate would probably impose a sentence of twelve months' hard labour without the option of a fine and the offender would probably be banished on coming out of gaol. The severest sentence on recor din Hong Kong is a fine of $50,000, and a fine of

10.000 is not unusual.

11. The Committee has considered the despatch of the 13th December, 1923, from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in which it is argued that the official figures of opium consumption in the Colony hear no relation to the actual rate of con- sumption, and that, in view of recent revelations as to smuggling, there is no really effective control of the consumption of opium in the Colony.

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The official figures show that during the years 1919-1922 the consumption per head of the population averaged tael .53. Figures in this connection are of doubtful value, but, as this particular figure has been queried; it will be as well to examine the point in detail.

The consumption of tael .53 refers to Government opium. In paragraph 5 of this report it is suggested that the consumption of illicit opium equals the consumption of Government opium, and on this basis the total consumption is taels 1.06 per head. These figures are based upon an estimated average population of 650,000. It is notorious that the Hong Kong 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 figures of 680,000 persons, and allowed for taels 3 in weight of nightsoil per head per day, or a total of some 1.275 piculs. He reduced this ligure to 1,100 piculs because of wastage through water closets and boat popula- tion, and he tendered accordingly. The amount of nightsoil now being collected approximates to 2.500 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 sinuggled counter- part. But it does not follow that there is no effective control over the consumption of such article. It is the opinion of the Committee that the control exercised in Hong Kong 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 Hong Kong, 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 opium. 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 onium 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 Govern- ment 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 indul- gence 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 indica- tion 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 Hong Kong.

In Canton the Government has for some time past been selling opium 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 Com-

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mittee does not apparently take exception to the swallowing of opium and the hemp drugs, ganja, charas, and bhang, by Indians in India, and accordingly, if smoking is prohibited in Hong Kong, the 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 4 and 5 of his despatch of the 13th December the Secretary 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 Hong Kong Government 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 confining of opium to a few smokers, or total prohibition which would be preferable, would result in a flood of smuggling which it would be impossible to stem.

The difficulties of detection of smuggling are in present circumstances insuperable. Hong Kong, 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 and 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 frequently 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 Hong Kong 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 Giovernment status, they are more or less immune from search. One such launch was recently sunk in Hong Kong waters, and 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 usually worth the smuggler's while to out-bid the Government. The Revenue Officer 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 detec tion of the capitalists who finance the smugglers. The Hong Kong Government has for years past being 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 Hong Kong from England where there was no control of export, and, except for occasional seizures, the Hong Kong Government was powerless to deal with the matter. In 1916 Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company presented a memorial to the Imperial Government regarding the constant smuggling in their ships, pointing out that "the evil should be attacked at the root.

So long as opium can be thus sold whole-

sale in this country 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 profitable. 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 His Majesty's Govern- ment 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 Hong Kong from England. Similarly opium from Persia and China is being poured into Hong Kong. In 1923 the Senior Revenue Officer alone captured 716 illicit divan keepers, 3,359 illicit opium smokers, 386 traffickers in illicit opium, and 60 boilers of illicit opium. With opium altogether prohibited the Hong Kong Government would lose the control which it now has, smuggling would become universal, and consumption would be greatly increased. Hong Kong would then be in the position of China, with opium smoking theoretically prohibited and practically un- controlled, because uncontrollable.

17. Reform must come from within. The League of Nations has prevented opium from India reaching China and it may possibly find means to prevent Persian

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und Turkish opium from reaching China. China can and will grow all the opium that she requires as long as the opium habit is to the public taste and no really strong body of public opinion is opposed to it. It is the firm conviction of the Committee that under present circumstances no reasonable measure can be devised to reduce further the consumption of opium in Hong Kong. The Committee is however in entire accord with the principle of opium suppression, and it is its sincere hope that it will be possible to devise some practical means for the total abolition of the practices of opium smoking and opium eating both in China and throughout all parts of the world.

18501/24.

SIR,

CLAUD SEVERN, Chairman.

P. H. HOLYOAK

CHOW SHOU-SON.

R. H. KOTEWALL.

THOMAS W. PEARCE.

M. FLETCHER.

N. L. SMITH.

No. 19.

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS AND MALAY STATES,

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

(Confidential.)

(Received 17th April, 1924.)

[Answered by No. 28.]

Government House, Singapore, 18th March, 1924.

In connexion with the Duke of Devonshire's Confidential despatch of the 24th September, 1923,* I have the honour to forward six copies of the Report of the Committee appointed by me in accordance with paragraph 7 of that despatch.

2. I think I am justified in saying that the constitution of the Committee is such as to carry authority throughout British Malaya. The Committee has set out in the introductory chapter of the Report a brief record of the careers of the members.

3. Mr. Pountney, the Chairman, and Sir David Galloway were both prominently connected with the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Opium Commission of 1907/1908, and may, I think, be fairly described as having a thorough knowledge of the opium question."

4. Mr. Pountney sailed for England on leave on the 28th February, 1924, and will be, therefore, available for discussion of the Report either with your officers or with Sir Malcolm Delevingne. He is due to re-assume duty here at the end of August, and as Financial Adviser to the Governments of the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States it is desirable that he should be in Malaya at the time when the Estimates for 1925 are being considered by both Councils.

5. In view of your telegram of 10th March‡ informing me that the Conference referred to in paragraph 2 of the Duke of Devonshire's despatch cited above will not take place until November, the question of Mr. Pountney being nominated to represent British Malaya on the British Delegation becomes somewhat complicated.

6. He would be acceptable to me, and I believe, to all the Governments of British Malaya as the representative, but it would perhaps be better to leave the ques-

open until

your officers have discussed it with him.

tion

7 I now offer my observations on the Committee's Report.

8. The Report treats the whole subject in a thorough and reasoned manner: and I feel that special weight attaches to its recommendations owing to the fact that the Report is unanimous in spite of the different outlook of Government officers of long experience and of Straits-born Chinese of decided anti-opium sentiments.

9. In Malaya it is difficult to find China-born Chinese with sufficient knowledge of English to justify their selection as members of a Committee of this nature, and in the present state of feeling as regards opium it is on the whole better that the Chinese members should have been chosen from the Straits-born section of the Chinese com- munity, who take a far stronger line on the opium question than the China-born. The

* No. 9.

Not reprinted here.

↑ No. 16.