CO129-363 - Public Offices & Others - 1909 — Page 228

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SHANSI.

What has happened in the past year in Shansi goes far to prove how entirely the final suppression of opium depends on the earnestness and activity of the Viceroys, governors, and other high provincial officials. For years past this province has been known as one of those most cursed by the opium evil. In Tai-Yuan Fu, the capital, it was said that half the adult population, feniale as well as male, smoked, and in many of the country districts the proportion was placed even higher. In spite of the great local consumption, opium was grown for export to Chihli and other neighbouring provinces, in fact practically every well-watered district throughout the province was No effective steps had been ablaze with poppy-blossoms during the early summer. taken in Shansi before this year with a view to restricting cultivation, and Sir A. Hosie stated that the slight reductions reported from a few districts were outweighed by increased cultivation with others He also mentioned that the governor of Shansi had memorialised the Throne, proposing the entire and immediate prohibition of the growth of opium throughout the province, but expressed some doubt as to his Excellency having sufficient energy to enforce such a stringent measure. Gradually, however, reports began to reach His Majesty's Legation of stringent proclamations issued by the local authorities throughout Shansi prohibiting the cultivation of poppy after 1908, under a penalty of very heavy fines and confiscation of the land, and of the One missionary wrote effective steps taken to carry these proclamations into effect. in March, There is now no opium sown over vast areas that last year were devoted to the plant, and thousands of acres of the best irrigable land are set free for the cultivation of other crops. The price of opium is rising rapidly, and will soon be double what it was a year ago. Needless to say that the retail opium is adultered more than ever, so that the poorer smokers are breaking off perforec." In April His Majesty's Minister in Peking received through a missionary at Tai-Yuan Fu a message from the provincial treasurer, Ting Pao-chuan, to the effect that the growth of the poppy and the cultivation of opium had been entirely suppressed in the province of Shansi. It being a matter of some interest to ascertain how far the Shansi authorities had been successful in suppressing the cultivation of the poppy in so short a space of time, His Majesty's Minister instructed Mr. Brenan, of His Majesty's consular service in China, to undertake an extensive tour in the province, and furnish him with a first- hand account of what had actually been done. Mr. Brenan started in the end of May, and made a journey of 460 miles through a section of the province which was His clear and concise state- practically all devoted to poppy cultivation a year ago. ment of what he saw and heard is too long to be embodied in this report, but I consider it of such interest and of such good augury as furnishing a notable illustra- tion of what can be effected in a short space of time by an active and well-intentioned Chinese administrator, that I have reproduced Mr. Brenan's accourt of his journey as an annexe to my report. Mr. Brenan was unable to travel over the whole of Shansi, but his conclusions in regard to the southern half of the province are fully corro- borated in regard to the remaining districts by reports received from missionaries. It may safely be said that not a stalk of poppy was to be seen this spring over large areas which in former years were covered with the plant; the price of the drug has gone up enormously; and were Shansi a self-contained State, instead of being a unit in a large Empire, opium smoking would soon be a thing of the past. It is indeed a great pity that the Central Government do not enforce greater uniformity of procedure in this matter, as otherwise it seems clear that success in suppression of cultivation in one province is only too likely to stimulate the production in the neighbouring provinces, in the present case in the provinces of Shensi and Hovan.

Mr. Brenan's conclusions have been corroborated in a letter which I have received from Lieutenant Pudsey, R.A., who travelled over a large area of central Shansi in June and July. He writes that during his journey he made frequent enquiries from inn-keepers, farmers, missionaries, &c., all of whom said that no opium was now being grown in the province, and this was borne out by his own observations, for he did not see a single poppy. The officer dispatched by the Board of Finance to enquire into the progress of the suppression movement in certain provinces was able to report that in the south of Shansi opium cultivation had ceased altogether, while in the north only an insignificant amount had been found to have been grown in a few out- of-the-way places.

The Viceroy, in a memorial dated the 14th April, proposed that if the increased tax on salt were not sufficient to make up the deficiency of revenue caused by decrease in the opium taxation the taxes on tobacco, sugar, and wine might be raised. In a

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more recent memorial, published on the 15th September, the governor claims that the cultivation of opium in Shansi has entirely ceased and that the use of the drug will soon be entirely eradicated; and he has been ordered by Imperial rescript to submit a list of officials deserving of special recognition for their successful efforts to stamp out the cultivation of the poppy.

SHENSI.

Mr. Brenan, who crossed over the Yellow River from Shansi to Shensi, reported that once across the river there was no lack of poppy cultivation, the fields extending nearly to the water's edge; and he also reported that the increase in the marketable value of opium in Shansi had had the effect of widening the area under cultivation in the adjoining province of Shensi, while a missionary writing to him from Meihsien, on the Wei River in Shensi, said that the poppy was grown to such an extent in the Wei valley that the farmers had actually to import wheat for their own consumption.

Shensi has always been one of the greatest opium-producing provinces. Before the famine of 1873 Shensi is said to have supplied 30 per cent, of the native opium in China, and the Customs reports estimate the annual production up to 1906 at 50,000 piculs, and that for 1908 at 33,000 piculs. Unfortunately, neither the state- ment of Mr. Brenan nor the reports received at the consulate-general at Hankow from missionaries in various districts of Shensi during the past year confirm the decrease in the area of cultivation as given in the Customs reports. One missionary, writing from Feng Hsiang-fu, says that, judging from his own observations and from what the natives told him, more opium would appear to have been sown in 1908 in some districts, the chief reason given being that notwithstanding the increased tax on opium-growing land it paid better to grow opium than grain. His Majesty's consul- general at Hankow, writing on the 19th April, said that he had received eleven reports from inissionaries resident in Shensi, covering the whole of the south of the province, and not one noted any real progress in the anti-opium movement. Proclamations had been issued but not enforced; there had been no restriction in the area under cultiva- tion, while in one instance a notable increase had been reported. Other reform measures, except the publication of a few disregarded proclamations, were totally neglected. In some cases medicines were no longer sold, inaction and indifference were rife among officials and gentry, shops were openly doing a brisk trade in opium, and deus were still open. In the face of this information it is difficult to attach much importance to the statements contained in a memorial of the Governor of Shensi dated the 31st May. He claimed that the usual steps had been taken, both in the capital and in other parts of the province, for enforcing the prohibition of smoking amongst the officials and the people; that opium saloons had been closed and a system of licences instituted; that 200 officials and 1,600 other persons in the capital and 155,000 persons in other parts of the province had been cured of the habit. He stated that cultivation had been gradually decreasing, and that the area of land under opium had diminished from 531,990 mou in 1906 to 350,300 mou in 1908. These statements The are quite at variance with the information I have received from other sources. memorial, however, stated that the governor had decided to follow the example of other provinces and reduce the time limit for the total prohibition of opium, and had issued proclamations ordering that no more opium was to be grown, and that when the time for sowing the poppy came in the autumn the local officials would be required to see that the prohibition was properly enforced. Here again it will be easier to estimate next year the progress that has been made. The Viceroy suggested cotton- planting and silk culture to take the place of the cultivation of opium, and said that the increase of the salt tax and the fees on the opium licences would in some degree supply the deficiency in revenue from the opium tax.

KANSU.

Here also there is little progress to report, though the optimistic Customs reports presented to the Shanghae Commission estimated a reduction in the total production from 34,000 piculs in 1906 to 23,000 in 1908. The reports received from the provinces are, as Sir Alexander Hosie remarked in his report last year, few in number, His Majesty's consul-general at Hankow having only received two during the last quarter of 1908 and the first quarter of 1909, the probable explanation being that the missionaries, to whom we are so greatly indebted for their invaluable

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