T
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
OPIUM.
CONFIDENTIAL
(13298]
No. 1.
Co 13345 [April 10.]
BEC
088
82
SECTION 125 PR II
(No. 1)
Sir,
Consul-General Sir A. Hosie to Sir Edward Grey-(Received April 10.)
Chéngtu, Szechuan, March 4, 1911. I HAVE the honour to transmit to you herewith, in duplicate, my report on the cultivation of the poppy and the production of opium in the province of Szechuan.
I have, &c.
ALEX. HOSIE.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Report by Sir A. Hosie on the Cultivation of the Poppy and the Production of Opium in the Province of Szechuan.
SZECHUAN was for many years the greatest opium-producing province in China, and the province whence the bulk of native opium consumed in the east and south of the Empire was derived. Poppy cultivation was general throughout the province to the east of the Min River, which enters the Yang-tsze at the city of Hsu-chou Fu (locally called Sui Fu), in latitude 28° 43′ north, and longitude 104° 32′ east; but the chief opium centres were the department of Hu Chou (latitude 29° 50′ north, and longitude 107° 25′ east), to the east of the port of Chungking, and the district of To the west of the K'ai Hsien in latitude 31° 9′ north, and longitute 108° 25' east. Min River the production of opium was never of much importance.
No exact figures for the total annual production of opium in Szechuan have ever been obtainable, because China has no machinery for compiling accurate statistics; but in 1904, when I held the post of consul-general for the province, I endeavoured to arrive at an estimate of that production, and I came to the conclusion that it exceeded 200,000 piculs, of which over 180,000 piculs were consumed in the province itself, and the balance of over 20,000 piculs exported to other provinces, mainly by the Yang-tsze route. According to this estimate, therefore, the production of opium in Szechuan was about four times the annual importation of Indian opium into China. In the memorandum presented by the Chinese delegation to the International Opium Commission at Shanghai in February 1909, the production of opium in Szechuan in 1906 was estimated at 238,000 piculs, and 159,000 piculs in 1908; but it was admitted that the latter figures were arrived at by simply cutting down the 1906 figures by one third, because the production of opium in the neighbouring province of Yunnan, which is quite independent of Szechuan, was alleged to have been reduced by one-half. The only reliable figures regarding opium in these western provinces (Szechuan, Yunnan, Kueichow) are the quantities exported down the Yang-tsze past the port of Ichang, in the province of Hupei, and across the Yunnan frontier to Toug-king. The exports down the Yang-tsze were 51,827 piculs in 1908, 51,817 piculs in 1909, and 28,350 piculs in 1910. It is estimated that about one-third of these quantities was Yunnan opium, and a very much smaller proportion the product of Kueichow; but it may be doubted if Yunnan opium ever reached that percentage, for on arrival in Szechuan, it was frequently adulterated with Szechuan opium, and the mixture passed off as the product of Yünnau, which is of superior quality and has always brought a a higher price than the Szechuan drug.
Generally speaking, the cultivation of the poppy in Szechuan occupies the ground from the end of October till the middle or end of April; but in the highlands in the north of the province the harvest is frequently not gathered till summer, as in the case of the provinces of Kansu and Shensi. When the Imperial decree of the 20th September, 1906, commanding the suppression of opium cultivation and consumption within a formulated period of ten years, and the regulations for carrying out that suppression,
in November, were issued, it was too late in the year to affect the poppy season of 1906-7 in Szechuan; but orders were given that there should be a reduction inf cultivation of 50 per cent. for the season of 1907-8, the reduction of the remaining
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