CO129-344 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 356

My Lord,

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Inclosure 3 in No. 1.

Governor Sir M. Nathan to the Bishop of Victoria.

Government House, Hong Kong, August 3, 1906. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's letter dated the 1st instant, forwarding a Petition signed by representative Heads of the British Churches and Missions in this Colony, on the subject of the system on which the traffic in opium is conducted in Hong Kong, and to say that a reply to the Petition will be sent later.

I have, &c. (Signed)

M. NATHAN.

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preparing opium for smoking. The result was that the net earnings fell in the second (year to less than half the earnings in the first year, owing to the impossibility of coping with the smuggling and illicit boiling of opium. It is not necessary to point out that the more smuggling of opium there is into the Colony the cheaper the drug becomes and the wider its consumption.

5. As to the entire abolition of the use of opium in the Colony, except for medicinal purposes, a glance at the geographical position of Hong Kong and the new territories will show that, for the same reason, any attempt in that direction must fail unless and until the exportation to China of opium from India and from all other countries from which China draws her supplies of the drug, and the growth of the poppy in China itself, were both successfully stopped. These are matters which are at present engaging the attention of the Chinese Government, and it is unnecessary for me to discuss them.

6. With regard to the second request, I will take the necessary steps to provide for instruction being given to the public schools regarding the evil results of excessive opium smoking,

I have, &c.

(Signed)

M. NATHAN.

Inclosure 4 in No. 1.

Governor Sir M. Nathan to Rev. Archdeacon Banister.

Sir,

Government House, Hong Kong, February 5, 1907: WITH reference to my letter of the 3rd August last, addressed to the late Bishop of Victoria, I have to express my regret that various circumstances have unduly delayed the reply therein promised to the Petition signed by the representative Heads of British Churches and Missions in this Colony, on the subject of the system on which the traffic in opium is conducted in Hong Kong.

2. Two definite requests are made in the Petition, viz., that inquiry may be made as to the best method by which this Governoient may check and if possible entirely abolish the use of opium, except for medicinal purposes, in this Colony; and that pupils in the public schools in the Colony may be taught the evil and debasing results of the opium habit.

3. With regard to the first of these requests, I am satisfied that the existing system under which the sole privilege of preparing opium for smoking is farmed out to one person or syndicate of persons, is the surest way to confine the smoking of opium within the narrowest limits, for the reasons that under this system the monopolist is able to charge a very high price for prepared opium, and, being a Chinese, assisted by a large and interested body of his fellow countrymen, is able to prevent the illicit preparation within the Colony, and the smuggling into it, whether in the raw or prepared state, of opium which could and would be sold at a much lower figure than he charges for what he himself sells.

Thus it happens that the price of prepared opium in Hong Kong has advanced with the higher fees paid for each successive monopoly that this Government has let since 1886, as the following figures show :-

1886-1889 for 10 cents

1889-1892

23

1892-1895

5+

1895-1898

19

1898-1901

11

1901-1904

1904--now

19

Mace.

1.5

1-2

1

0.8

0-57

0.4

0.3

and that the price of prepared opium in Hong Kong to-day compares as follows with the price of the prepared drug in Canton :---

In Hong Kong direct from the opium farmer

In Hong Kong from retail dealers

Dol, c.

3 30 the tael.

% 50

1-05 to 110 taels the tael; or,

Of Indian opium in Canton

Of native opium in Canton

1 dol. 46 c. to 1 dol. 53 e, the tael

0-80 to 0-85 tael the tael; or,

1 dol. 11 e. to 1 dol. 18 c. the tael

4. The alternative systems suggested in the Petition are all open to the objection that upon this Government would be cast the extremely difficult task of the prevention of smuggling of opium into the Colony. That the Government would fail in such task has already been demonstrated by the experience gained in 1883 and 1884, when the Government itself made the experiment of taking into its own hands the monopoly of

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