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months. His predecessor, Governor-General Ting, had caused Regulations to be drawn up under which it became incumbent on all officials to report, within one month from the date of receiving those Regulations, their addiction to the vice if such existed, and to break off the habit within the cnsning half-year. Four months have since passed, and Hsi Chih-tai observes that not a single opium-smoking official has registered his name, nor have the Council submitted a list of the delinquents. The order has been treated as a dead letter, either because the higher officials are themselves given to the vice (this may be a hit at the present Acting Judicial Commissioner, Tseng-hou, an inveterate smoker) or to show favour and indulgence. The close of the 6th moon (8th August) in the case of Yunnan-fu officials, and that of the 7th moon (7th September) for all other districts, remain the dates before which the opium habit must be abandoned. Those who have never acquired the habit or who have quitted it must, together with their supervising deputy, enter into bonds. Returns must be made, for civilians, by the Financial Commissioner; for students, by the Commissioner for Education; for officers in the Guards, the New Levics, or the old Green Standard, by their respective Commandants. Any attempt at fraud or concealment will be visited by dismissal from
the service.
As regards putting a limit to cultivation, a necessary preliminary is a faithful return of the acreage under poppy. On his way to Yunan-fu from Szechuan the Governor- General noticed that the fields bearing the opium poppy far exceeded those planted with beans or wheat. The best lands were given up to this scourge; yet no one, official or private person, saw anything wrong in it. Returns must now, without fail, be furnished of the amount of land which in the present year has been devoted to the poppy, of the number of the cultivators, and of how it is proposed to deal with each case. Such returns are to be got ready within one month; any delay or carelessness will meet with severe punishment.
So far the Governor-General. The Financial Commissioner declares that, in conjunction with the Judicial Commissioner and with the approval of the late Governor- General Ting, he had long since issued circular instructions to the officials of Yunnan Province to register within a month, and to abandon opium-smoking within six months. He had further directed them to furnish complete returns of all lands under opium, specifying acreage, ownership, and quality. "Much time has since elapsed," the Commissioner continues, “and the body of civil officials has not come to this yamên to report. Those who have presented themselves have affirmed either that they did not smoke or had abandoned the habit, while very few indeed confessed to the vice. There must, it is much to be feared, have been prevarication, for superior officers cannot but be aware of the proclivities of their juniors. As regards the country districts, no reports from the Intendants, Prefects, or local Magistrates have reached the Governor-General or the Financial Commissioner." Strict orders are now given for returns to be sent in to the Commissioner's yamên, for Yünnan-fu officials, by the end of the 6th moon (8th August), and for all others in the province, by the end of the 7th moon (7th September).
Meanwhile on the 19th July was founded at Yünnan-fu an Anti-Opium Bureau ("Yunnan tung-sheng chin-yen tsung-chu"), the objects and powers of which were set forth in a Notification appearing in the "Gazette" for the 5th July.
The Notification begins by citing instructions issued by Governor-General Hisi. These commence with the usual denunciations of the drug, whose evils are especially conspicuous in Yunnan Province. The Governor-General established for his last government of Szechuan, in 1906, an Anti-Opium Bureau at Ch'engtu, under the direction of his Council, and now gives orders for a similar establishment at Yunnan-fu. Employment in the Bureau is to be honorary, so as to save expense. The Bureau is to serve as a model for others to be from time to time set up in the Prefectures, Depart- ments, and districts.
The Governor-General's exordium is followed by the Regulations, or rather by some of them. Regulations 1-4, which apparently deal with the constitution of the Bureau and its personnel, are not published. The rest may be summarized thus-
Regulation 5.-(1.) Local officials and police are to ascertain how many men and women, and of what ages, in Yunnan-fu and its suburbs smoke opium. A return must be made within one month. Smokers will either apply to the Bureau for a remedy or will buy elsewhere one approved by the Bureau. The more able-bodied must abandon smoking within six months; the old and feeble within one year.
(2.) Similar returns for the country districts will be made by the trainband captains ("tuan-chang"), who will be responsible in case of fraud.
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(3.) Each shop purveying prepared opium in the city must be noted by the police. and the proprietor must within half a month procure from the Bureau a licence, good a for one year, after which the business must cease. Selling without a licence will be
treated as a crime.
(4.) Remedies cannot be sold until they have been tested by the Bureau and a certificate of efficiency issued.
(5.) The Bureau will publish quarterly returns of the number of those who have been cured of the craving.
Regulation 6.--(1.) Smokers without families can stay at the Bureau for their cure, in a class of twenty and for a period of twenty days. The class complete, no more will be admitted; the period passed, all must go. Food will be provided by the Bureau at a cost of 5 candarins (say, 2d.) a-day.
(2.) Those crowded out will have their names entered on a list, and will receive remedies daily. At the close of the time allowed for cure-six months or one year, as the case may be (see Regulation 5)--the patients will be medically examined.
Regulation 7.--(1.) Officials. Civilians will be supervised by the Financial Com- missioner; the military, by the Ying-wu Chu (Military Secretariat). Each smoker's record of service will be sent to the Bureau. The time limit fixed by the Notification of the 1st moon (February), viz., the Sth August, will be extended to the end of the 8th moon (6th October), by which time all officials must have abandoned the habit, under pain of dismissal if less than 60 years of age or of forced retirement if over 60, Meanwhile lists must be drawn up and sent in within ten days (that is, apparently, by the 29th July).
(2.) The scholastic and mercantile classes will be supervised by the Commissioner for Education and the Guilds respectively. Lists are to be submitted within one month; the habit must be abandoned within six months. Failure will entail ineligibility for appointment to a school or for freedom to set up in business.
(3.) Petty traders will be dealt with after the suppression of the opium dens. Within six months from the latter date any trader who smokes will be compelled to close his shop.
Regulation 8.-(1.) Farmers around Yunnan-fu. The Home Magistrate will order the militia and gentry to make returns similar to those for the land-tax, setting out how A has this year sown with poppy a mou, which should produce y oz. of opium. The Magistrate will issue a notification exhorting people to sow less each year. After three years none is to be sown.
Similar action to be taken in other districts,
(2.) The first year will be one for exhortation; the second, for zealous prohibition; the third, for recourse to force.
(3.) The manufacture of opium utensils, whether at Yünuan-fu or elsewhere, is forbidden and must stop within six months. By the 8th August manufacturers must close their establishments; after which all these things will become contraband and be liable to seizure and destruction.
Regulation 9.—(1.) If, in the country districts, any one succeeds in starting an Association and, within six months, in eradicating the opium vice, the Bureau will recommend him to the Governor-General for a reward.
(2.) Any one contravening the Regulations of the Bureau will be liable to punishment.
It will be noticed that instead of allowing ten years for the suppression of planting, as the ten proposals (Article 1) had suggested, Hsi Chih-t-'ai announces that cultivation must cease within three years. It may be useful to draw up, from the above Regulations, a calendar of prohibitions:-
July 25, 1907.---Opium shops to take out licence,
July 29.-Return of smokers (officials).
August 8.-Manufacture and sale of opium utensils to cease.
August 8.-Opium dens to be closed.
August 18.-Return of smokers (non-officials). October 6.--Smoking to cease (officials). October 16.—Quarterly return of cures.
October 16.-Return of acreage under poppy.
January 13, 1908.-Smoking to cease (non-officials, able-bodied) April 6-Smoking to cease (petty traders).
July 13.-Smoking to cease (non-officials, weaklings).
July 19-Sale of opium forbidden,
July 1910.-Cultivation of poppy stopped.
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