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of the Interior, and the Opium Commissioners, have been zealously enforced. A central office has been established in Tien-tsin, the prohibition has in the first place been enforced upon officials, and local authorities have been ordered to carry out careful inquiries into the amount of land under opium cultivation and the number of opium shops and smokers. With the assistance of the Public Health Bureau, the hospitals and guilds, dispensaries have been set up for the purpose of treating those suffering from the craving of opium, and local officials have been enjoined to take similar steps in their respective jurisdictions. Opium divans and shops for the sale of smoking utensils have been closed, and negotiations are being carried on vigorously with the Foreign Councils at Tien-tsin with regard to the issue of licences, the dispatch of inquiry officers by the Opium Bureau, &c., and a satisfactory understanding is gradually being arrived at. In the Imperial Prefecture of Shun Tien Fu, the Regulations are also being enforced.
Whilst, however, the restriction of the sale and consumption of opium are of great importance, the question of the cultivation of the poppy must first be considered. The first proposal was that the cultivation of opium should be decreased annually by one-tenth. This was subsequently altered to one-eighth, and the Board of the Interior have now decided that the diminution to be effected shall vary in accordance with the conditions existing in different provinces. Kiangsu, Anhui, Honan, Yunnan, Fukien, and Heilung-chiang, have already totally forbidden the cultivation of opium, and the Viceroy has now decided to adopt a similar course in Chih-li. From the beginning of the present Chinese year the cultivation of opium is entirely prohibited, and should any he discovered it will be rooted up and confiscated. Officials will be rewarded or punished in accordance with the manner in which they carry out these instructions.
On the 17th January, a Decree was issued directing the proper department to
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have the exclusive right of preparing the opium for use. The consumer can only purchase opium if provided with a licence, and the amount which he is permitted to purchase is periodically reduced, so the new arrangement constitutes an efficient check on opium smoking.
Since his arrival in Szechuan, the Viceroy has done his best to exclude all opium- smokers from all official employment of every kind, and the movement against the use of the drug has made considerable progress; the amount of anti-opium medicines sold has been doubled, and the efforts of the people amongst themselves to suppress the evil have even gone beyond the official prohibitions, so the prospects of eradicating the pernicious habit are most hopeful. The Viceroy states that it is owing to his desire to take advantage of the present enthusiasm amongst the people that he proposes to reduce the limit of time for the abolition of opium, as he fears that with lapse of time this enthusiasm may disappear, and the efforts to abolish the use of the drug be correspondingly difficult.
On the 17th January a Decree was issued referring this Memorial to the Department concerned.
(Translation.)
Inclosure 2 in No. 1.
of January 21, 1909.
Extract from the " Official Gazette "
MEMORIAL by the Viceroy of Szechuan reporting on the shortening of the time-limit for the prohibition of opium and the establishment of official hongs for the sale of the raw drug. Szechuan is both the largest producer and consumer of opium, and in view of the large number of people dependent upon its cultivation for a liveli- hood and the revenue derived therefrom by the province, the measures for its suppression must not be too hasty. It is necessary, in the first place, to find some other crop to take the place of opium, and the Viceroy is procuring samples of American cereals with a view to conducting experiments in Szechuan on the same lines as those already carried out in Fengtien. Proclamations are also being issued, and the country people are being taught to improve their methods of agriculture and to substitute other crops for opium.
During 1908 there were floods and droughts in various parts of the province, and the Viceroy gave orders that in districts where the opium crop had been a failure its cultivation should be totally forbidden in the future, whilst in districts where good crops had been obtained the area under cultivation should be reduced by one-half. From reports received from various localities in the province it appears that cultivation has been entirely suppressed in forty districts, and the Viceroy calculates that during the past year the acreage under poppy throughout the whole province has been reduced by one-half, and that in two or three years cultivation will have entirely ceased.
In order to control effectively the growth of opium, it is necessary that the trade in the raw drug should be an official monopoly. Regulations have been prepared and capital has been raised from official and private sources for the purpose of establishing opium hongs in the capital and other parts of the province. All the raw opium will be bought up by these hongs and will be prepared or exported to other provinces by the official opium-boiling shops (" Kuan Kão Tien "). Local officials will be required to take measures against illicit cultivation or dealing in opium. The official opium boiling shops and retail shops ("Fen Hsiao Tien ") were established by the last two Viceroys with the object of restricting the sale of opium. The latter are now superseded by the new official hongs, and are therefore done away with. The official hongs have monopoly of the trade in raw opium, and the "Kuan Kao Tien
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