CO129-353 - Public Offices - 1908 — Page 751

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Opium in India and China.

Exclusion of opium

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Pacific Coast of the United States, places for opium smoking ("opium joints") have been established. Their existence has led to serious evils, and has directed the attention of the authorities to the necessity of limiting the evil by more effective measures of control.

3. In the East the abuse of opium dates back several centuries. In India, where opium is usually swallowed in the form of pills ("opium eating"), this vicious habit largely conduced to the inferiority of the native troops, and contributed materially to the British victories of the eighteenth century, In China the vicious use of the drug appears to have begun when the habit of smoking opium was introduced from the Island of Formosa at the beginning of the same century. The Chinese Government, so early as 1729, issued an Edict prohibiting the sale of opium and ordering the closing of opium dens. This prohibition was repeatedly renewed under more and more strict penalties. Nevertheless, the use of opium continued to spread in China. In 1840 the measures taken by the Chinese Government to put an end to the import of the drug at Canton led to a war between China and Great Britain. After a second war, in which Great Britain and France were allied against China, the Chinese Government at last consented, by a supplement to the Treaty of Tien-tsin (1858), to legalize the import of opium. Being thenceforth unable to prevent the introduction of foreign opium, the Chinese authorities allowed their former laws prohibiting the cultivation of the poppy to fall into desuctude. The production of native opium increased year by year, so that in a Report recently prepared by the British Legation at Peking (China No. 1 (1908)," p. 33) the production in China is estimated at about six times the amount of the import.

A century ago the yearly import of opium into China was under 300 tons; there is no reliable evidence that at that time any opium was produced in China. The total annual consumption in China prior to the reforms of the past two years was estimated at over 22,000 tons, of which 3,180 tons came from India.

4. When Japan opened her ports to the commerce of the world she was careful to from Japan stipulate, by an Article of her Treaty with Great Britain made in 1858, that the trade in opium should be entirely prohibited, excepting for medical requirements. Japan has always maintained this prohibition under very severe penalties, which are rigorously enforced. The Committee of Investigation appointed by the American Government of the Philippine Islands in 1903 says on this subject in its Report:-

Self-

British Colonies.

"There has been no moment in the nation's history when the people have wavered in their uncompromising attitude toward the drug and its use, so that an instinctive hatred of it possesses them. China's curse has been Japan's warning, and a warning heeded. No surcr testimony to the reality of the evil effects of opium can be found than the horror with which China's next-door neighbour views it."

5. All the self-governing British Colonies which contain any considerable Chinese governing population have adopted prohibitive laws against the sale and use of opium, apart from medical requirements. New Zealand in 1901 and Australia in 1901 adopted strict measures against the import and sale of the drug. This prohibitive legislation is due, in both Colonies, to the initiative of the Chinese themselves. Canada has just adopted (July 1908) a similar law, in order to put an end to the opium traffic carried on by Chinese in her ports on the Pacific Coast.

Formosa.

Philippine

Islands.

6. After the annexation of Formosa, where the opium vice prevailed widely amongst the natives, the Japanese Government enacted a law constituting the opium trade a State monopoly. Under this law consumers have to register themselves, and can only obtain the daily dose of opium stated in their certificate of registration. After a certain date, no fresh registrations were to be allowed, so that on the disappearance of the present generation of consumers, the non-medical use of the drug should come to an end. There were, in 1900, 169,064 registered consumers; this mumber had fallen in 1907 to 113,937.

7. After the annexation of the Philippine Islands by the United States, the American Government was faced by the question of the use of opium. A Committee of Inquiry was appointed, consisting of three members: the Chairman, Major Carter, was the Commissioner of Public Health for the islands; the second member was the Right Rev. C. IL. Brent, Anglican Bishop in the islands; the third, Dr. José Albert, a distinguished Filipino physician. The Committee visited Japan, Formosa, Shanghae, Hong Kong, Saigon, Singapore, Penang, Burmab, and Java. The recommendations contained in the Report which it presented to the Government are reproduced in Appendix (A).

In pursuance of these recommendations the American Congress enacted, in March 1905, immediate prohibition of the sale and use of opium to Filipinos, except

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for medical requirements. The Chinese population of about 70,000 was allowed a period of three years, at the end of which prohibition was to be applicable to it also, A law adopted by the Legislature of the Philippines on the 10th October, 1907, directed that the Chinese consumers should be registered, that only their accustomed daily dose of opium should be furnished to them, and that this dose should be reduced each month by 15 per cent, until it was entirely cut off. On the 1st March, 1908, the day on which probibition became universal in the Philippine Islands, there remained only some 200 opium smokers in a hospital at Manila and a few more in provincial hospitals. These were soon entirely cured. In those islands prohibition appears to be, as in Japan, complete and effective; only druggista and medical men can obtain opium for medical requirements.

8. In the course of the debate in the House of Commons in May 1906, on the Chinese Resolution mentioned in paragraph 1, the Secretary of State for India, Mr. John Imperial Decrees, Morley (now Lord Morley), intervened to state the position of the Government on this 1906. question. He stated that both the British Government and the Government of India would agree to any proposal which the Chinese Government might make in good faith for the restriction of the consumption of opium. This offer was communicated to the Chinese Government by the British Minister at the Court of Peking, Sir John Jordan. On the 20th September, 1906, the Imperial Decree appeared, of which a translation follows:-

"Imperial Decree.

"Since the restrictions against the use of opium were removed, the poison of this drug has practically permeated the whole of China. The opium smoker wastes time and neglects his work, ruins bis health, and impoverishes his family, and the poverty and weakness which for the past few decades have been daily increasing amongst us are undoubtedly attributable to this cause. To speak of this arouses our indignation, and, at a moment when we are striving to strengthen the Empire, it behoves us to admonish the people that all may realize the necessity of freeing themselves from these coils, and thus pass from sickness into health.

"It is hereby commanded that within a period of ten years the evils arising from foreign and native opium be equally and completely eradicated. Let the Government Council (Cheug Wu Chu) frame such measures as may be suitable and necessary for strictly forbidding the consumption of the drug and the cultivation of the poppy, and let them submit their proposals for our approval.”

Two months later, at the end of November, were published the detailed Regulations for giving effect to the Edict of September, of which a translation is contained in Appendix (B).* It will be sufficient here to give a brief summary. The Regulations begin (Article 1) by directing the suppression of opium eultivation in China within ten years. Governors are to ascertain the acreage hitherto devoted to poppy cultivation in their respective provinces, and to diminish it gradually by one-ninth each year. The local authorities who succeed in completely extinguishing the cultivation before the end of the ten years are to be encouraged and rewarded. Smokers are to be registered (Article 2); those only who bave obtained licences will be allowed to purchase the prescribed quantity of opium. Under Article 3 this quantity is to be annually reduced by 20 or 30 per cent., except as regards persons over 60 years of age. Opium-smoking dens are to be closed after six months (Article 4), and existing opium shops are to be closely inspected (Article 5). The preparation and distribution of medicines for the cure of smokers are to be encouraged, provided these medicines do not contain opium or morphia (Article 6). Anti-Opium Societies are to be encouraged (Article 7); the local authorities and gentry are exhorted to take the lead in the anti-opium move- ment (Article 8). It is strictly forbidden to officials of every degree to smoke opium (Article 9); they ought to give the people an example of abstinence from this vice. Those who are already over 60, and cannot, therefore, give up the habit, will be dispensed with; the rest will be allowed a period of six months to cure themselves. The Board of Foreign Affairs is to enter into negotiations (Article 10) with foreign Powers with a view to ending the import of opium from abroad.

* This refers to the French translation appended to the original Memorial. An English translation, made at the British Embassy in Peking will be found on pp. 4-8 of the White Paper Chima No. 1 (1908); Correspondence respecting the Opium Question in China." It has been reprinted separately by the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, 181, Queen Victoria Street, London, EC.

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