CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 106

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Provinces should direct the Departmental and District

Magistrates to make an accurate investigation of the

acreage in their respective jurisdictions hitherto

devoted to the growth of the poppy, and to make an of-

ficial return of the figures. It would then be for

ever forbidden to bring under poppy-cultivation any

land not hitherto used for that purpose.

Certificates

would be issued in respect of all land already used for

growing the poppy, and the proprietor be compelled to

reduce the growth each year by one ninth part, and to

substitute other crops suited to the particular soll.

It will moreover be incumbent on the Magistrates

to make personal inspection at unexpected times of such

lands. The certificates too will have to be changed

each year, till within the period of nine years the

Non-compliance with

whole cultivation is rooted out.

this rule will entail confiscation by the State of the

land in question.

Any local authority who succeeds in less time then

the statutory ten years in giving effect to the prohi-

bition in respect to the land in his jurisdiction given

up

úp to the poppy, and in completely substituting in

place thereof the cultivation of other crops, should,

after due enquiry into the facts, be recommended to

the Throne for recognition.

Article II. To issue licenses to smokers in

order to prevent others from contracting the habit,

The vice of opium smoking is of long standing,

and it may be reckoned that some 30-40 per cent of

the population are addicted thereto. The interdict

must therefore be extended with some consideration

for what is past, while being applied in all strict-

ness for the future.

All persons of the official

class and the gentry, literary graduates and licenti-

ates resident at their homes throughout the Fmpire

must be the first to be compelled to give up the

habit in order that they may serve as an example to

the common people. All smokers whether of the gentle

or lower class, together with their wives and female

servants must without exception report themselves at

the Yamen of the local authority of their native

place or place of residence. If they reside at a

distance from such Yamen or any Police Station, they

may

3.