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that the police should periodically test the various anti-opium medicines offered for sale. These orders do not appear to have had the desired effect, as certain further samples of pills submitted to the Government analyst at Hong Kong were again found to contain opium.
His Majesty's consul at Swatow has recently reported that in his district, and especially in Swatow, there has been considerable activity in the enforcement of the regulations governing the sale and smoking of opium. Licences have been issued to all shops selling either raw or prepared opium and the regulation requiring smokers to take out permits has been widely enforced. The permits state the daily amount the smoker is allowed to purchase and have to be changed at fixed intervals, usually of three months, when the allowance of opium is reduced by one-fifth in the case of smokers under 60, and by one-tenth in that of smokers over 60. An idea was mooted that the permits should be printed on large pieces of wood, to be increased in size each time the permit was renewed, and this piece of wood would readily indicate to the public the confirmed opinm-smokers; but the idea was abandoned. Prosecutions for the infringement of the anti-opium regulations have been very frequent.
While the progress in the province as a whole therefore appears to be satisfactory the reports received from His Majesty's consul at Pakhoi tell of a very different state of affairs in the western districts of Kwangtung and the Island of Hainan. Here the various regulations have remained a dead letter; the local officials have inado no serious attempt to grapple with the situation, opium can easily be procured without a licence, dens are even still open where the poorer classes can indulge in the vice, while the wealthier classes are laying in large stores for private consumption. Smoking in fact goes on just as before, and there does not appear to be any strong public feeling aroused in this part of the province against the use of the drug. It is evident that renewed and more stringent orders to the various local authorities are necessary before anything is likely to be done, and we must hope that the new Viceroy, who is showing such activity in his anti-opium campaign in other portions of the province, will see that his orders are enforced here also.
KUANGSI.
His Majesty's consul at Wuchow reported at the beginning of the year that the consumption in the province had decreased, though only to a small extent. There was, however, a widespread feeling among the Chinese against the use of the drug; men who did use it took pains to conceal the fact, and even those who smoked at home would not admit doing so, and when travelling one saw hardly any persons smoking opium.
In regard to the cultivation of opium, which has never been extensive in Kuangsi, the governor in a memorial to the Throne claimed that it had been completely suppressed throughout the province, and His Majesty's consul reports that, as far as his information goes, he hears nothing to conflict with this claim. Nevertheless the the governor, to avoid any possible revival of this increasingly remunerative industry, issued very stringent regulations forbidding the cultivation of poppy under heavy penalties. The governor also reported to the Throne that he had taken steps to encourage the growth of cotton and hemp, the planting of mulberry and other trees, and the erection of factories to take the place of the opium industry.
In the
As regards preventive measures against the use of the drug, the last report received from His Majesty's consul at Wuchow shows that the local authorities after a period of slackness are again showing more activity in the campaign. prefecture of Wuchow an official anti-opium society has been formed to undertake the suppression and cure of smokers and to organise a monopoly of the sale of opium. The monopoly was inaugurated in Wuchow and its suburbs on the 17th July, and the right of sale was confined to twenty-four houses. As practically no foreign opium smoked in Wuchow, this monopoly does not affect the interests of any British firm. As regards other parts of the province, the information received is very scanty, but at Liuchow the dens have all been closed down, and only fifteen opium shops out of an original fifty remain open. It is difficult to say how far a statement of the Governor of Kuangsi that since the middle of 1907 all opium dens have been closed can be accepted as accurate. Opium is apparently still easily obtainable, though at an enhanced price. Nevertheless one may conclude that opium smoking throughout the province is on the decrease, though unfortunately the habit of eating it in the form of pills would appear to be growing.
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SZECHUAN.
The report which Sir A. Hosie was able to give last year as to the reduction in the area of cultivation in this by far the greatest opium-producing province of the Empire, showed more satisfactory results than had been expected, and was a good augury for the future success of the movement. In view of the fact that Szechuan produces such a large proportion of the native opium consumed throughout the Empire, I shall deal at some length with the measures adopted there for the restriction of the cultivation of the poppy and the degree of success with which these measures have been attended thus far.
At the end of last year the Viceroy, his Excellency Chao Erh Ilsün, an energetic and enlightened official, presented to the Throne a memorial describing the position as it then existed. His Excellency pointed out that in view of the large number of people dependent upon the cultivation of the poppy for their livelihood and the revenue derived therefrom by the province, the measures to be adopted must not be too hasty. It was first necessary to find a crop to replace the poppy, and he was experimenting with American cereals, and was at the same time teaching the people improved methods of agriculture. He had already given instructions that in the poppy districts the area should be reduced by one-half and that no new land should be planted. From reports received from various localities in the province his Fxcellency estimated that cultivation had been entirely suppressed in forty districts, and that the acreage under poppy throughout the whole province had been reduced by one-half, and that in two or three years cultivation would have entirely ceased. A's be considered that in order to control the growth of opium it was necessary to have an official purchasing monopoly of the raw drug, he had established opium hongs in the capital and other parts of the province, to which hongs all raw opium must be brought. These hongs were to supersede the official retail shops. The opium was to be prepared for sale or exportation to other provinces by the official opium factories. Illicit cultivation or sale of opium was to be suppressed by the local officials; con- sumers could only purchase opium at the official opium shops if provided with a licence, and the amount which each applicant was permitted to purchase would be periodically reduced. His Excellency added that he was doing his best to exclude smokers from official employment; that the movement against the use of the drug had made considerable progress; and that he was anxious to take advantage of the present enthusiasm of the people to reduce the limit of time for the abolition of the poppy before that enthusiasm had time to grow cold.
The summary prohibition of cultivation throughout the province, which is, as the Viceroy observed, both the largest producer and consumer of opium, was evidently at that time condemned as impracticable. The statement as to the large reduction already effected in 1908 was fully borne out by the information given in Sir A. Hosie's report, and it is evident that some further reduction in the area of cultivation has been effected in 1909, at ail events in certain districts of the province.
A provincial opium agency was established in the early part of the year to control the cultivation of poppy and to see that the Viceroy's scheme of reducing the crop by 50 per cent. was properly carried out. The system was as follows :---
1. Local bureaux were to be established in all districts where opium was cultivated with a market for the purchase of opium in the most central place, and a warehouse for storing opium.
2. All opium grown in the district must be brought to this market.
3. The headmen of each village was to notify in November all lands under poppy to the local bureau branch, which would in return issue permits for cultivation of a fixed area binding the holder of the permit to hand over a proportionate amount of opium after the harvest. Officers were to be sent round to see that the area under cultivation did not exceed that for which permits had been issued.
4. In issuing the permits the local bureau was to provide for a 50 per cent. reduction in cultivation, and after the harvest the permit was to be surrendered aud the proper quotum of the opium grown delivered to the local bureau for sale or storage.
5. Opium imported from other provinces must also be delivered to the opium
agency.
6. Consumers were not to buy raw opium, but only officially prepared opiam. These rules were published too late to permit of the enforcement of the system of permits for cultivation last season, but, in spite of that, as I before said, there was
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