CO129-343 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 110

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habit, and the high Provincial Authorities should

appoint efficient and experienced medical officers

to make a careful study of these, with the view to

the selection of a number of prescriptions (suitable

to the natural conditions of each particular locali-

ty) and the manufacture therefrom of pills or medi-

cines provided that such pills or medicines shall

not contain opium-ash or morphia.

Such remedial medicines should then be bought

by the local authorities, who will distribute them

among the local charitable institutions or medicine

shops for sale at the original price, while poor

persons will be allowed to obtain them free of charge.

The gentry and tradesmen will also be allowed

to manufacture such remedies according to prescrip-

tion for free distribution with a view to spreading

this benefit more widely: and any person who can

be shown to have promoted such distribution by his

personal exertions or exhortation and to have suc-

ceeded in breaking others of the opium habit thereby,

shall be awarded honorary recognition by the local

authorities.

Article VII. To allow the establishment of

Anti-opium Societies, in order to promote this good

movement.

There have recently been several instances of

public-spirited individuals who have combined with

others of their own class in founding Anti-opium So-

cieties, and in mutually assisting in exhorting the

abandonment of the habit. Such enterprises deserve

the highest praise; and the High Provincial Authori-

ties should direct the local officials to take the

lead among the respectable men of standing in each

place, and develop the establishment of such societies;

so that with each addition to the number there will

be an additional centre of activity. But such socie-

ties must only be allowed to concern themselves with

the single question of giving up opium, and must not

discuss current politics or questions of local govern-

ment, or other subjects not related to the abandonment

of the opium habit.

Article

authorities

る。