CO129-384 - Public Offices - 1911 — Page 243

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OPIUM.

RECO Reas 29 JUL IT

[July 1.]

(CONFIDENTIAL.

SECTION 2.

in size with the fields of poppy seen by me in Shensi and Kansu last year. ninety-eight plots were distributed as follows: seventy in the Lang-tai Ting sub-prefecture, eleven in the district of Shui-ch'êng Hsien, and seventeen in the prefec- ture of Ta-ting-fu. All along this road the people were deeply aggrieved at the action of the authorities, who had taken no active steps to stop cultivation until the present season, and then only when the crop was nigh into harvest.

From the city of Ta-ting-fu I proceeded south-east to Kuei-yang-fu, the capital of the province, a six days' journey, passing through the remainder of the prefecture of Ta-ting-fu, the department of Chien-hsi Chou, and the districts of Ching-chên Hsien and Kuei-chu Hsien, the latter district containing the capital. In all these I found the same evidences of destruction as well as seventy-seven plots, mostly mixed with other growing erops, from which a harvest would be reaped unless previously raided. Of these, three were in Ta-ting-fu, twenty in Chien-hsi Chou, forty-five in Ching-chên Hsien, and nine in Kuei-chu Hsien. The last three of these plots were concealed in barley and within 6 miles of the capital.

At Kuei-yang-fu I exchanged visits with his Excellency Pang Hung-shu, who has been Governor of Kueichow for four years, and in the course of conversation I asked him what reduction of poppy cultivation had, in his opinion, been effected throughout the province. After stating in some detail the measures of suppression that had recently been taken, his Excellency said that he considered that there had been a reduction of 70 to 80 per cent., and he asked me at what conclusion I had arrived. I replied that, although I had seen the poppy growing all along the roads I had travelled, the cultivation to-day was very much less than in 1882 when I travelled in Kueichow, but that it was impossible for me to express any decided opinion until I had visited the eastern part of the province. His Excellency gave me the assurance that no poppy would be sown in Kueichow during the coming autumn.

Considerable stocks of opium are held in Kuei-yang-fu and other prefectures, and repeated applications for permission to export them have up to the present been persistently refused. The present value of raw opium is quoted at from 960 taels to 1,200 tuels per picul according to quality. These are five times the prices for which the drug could be purchased before the suppression agitation began.

I left the city of Kuei-yang-fu on the 19th May and proceeded east through the districts and departments of Lung-li Hsien, Kuei-ting Hsien, Ping-yüeh Chou, Ch'ing- ping Hsien, Huang-p'ing Chou, Shih-p'ing Hsien, and Chên-yüan Hsien, to the city of Chen-yüan-fu, the head of navigation of the Yuan River which flows through the province of Hunan into the Tung-t'ing lake. During these eight days I saw only four patches of poppy, one concealed in peas in the district of Lung-li Hsien, one in rape in the department of Ping-yüeh Chou, and the other two in barley and rape respectively in the department of Huang-p'ing Chou.

It will be observed from the above that during twenty-nine days' overland travel by high-roads and by-roads in the province of Kueichow I saw only 211 plots of poppy, that opium is no longer produced or is cultivated only in small quantities in districts which were covered with poppy in 1882, and that many of the plots were not entirely poppy, but a mixture of poppy and barley, rape, peas, beans, or other crops. During my journey I was frequently told by farmers that, although they had harvested their crop of 1909-10, increasing stringency had compelled them to take no further risks. Those who took these risks during the season of 1910-11 are now bewailing their temerity.

The impression that I have gathered regarding Kueichow, both from personal investigation and information derived from other parts of the province which I have necessarily been unable to examine, is that there had been a very great reduction in the cultivation of opium during the season of 1910-11, that this reduction has been effected not without the employment of force in practically one season, and that it may fairly be fixed at 70 per cent.

I left Chên-yüan-fu by boat on the 28th May and entered the province of Hunan next morning.

ALEX. HOSIE.

On the Yuan River, Province of Hunan,

May 31, 1911.

[25602]

Sir,

No. 1.

India Office to Foreign Office.-(Received July 1.)

India Office, June 30, 1911. WITH reference to previous correspondence on the subject of the opium arrangement with China, am directed by the Secretary of State for India in Council to forward a copy of a telegram from the Government of India, and to suggest that Sir John Jordan may be instructed to bring the difficulty to the notice of the Chinese Government, and to ask them to accept concurrent numbering of Bengal and Malwa chests for the current year.

Enclosure in No. 1.

I am, &c.

EDWIN S. MONTAGU.

Government of India to the Earl of Crewce.

(Telegraphic.)

June 29, 1911. PLEASE refer to clause 1 of article 8 of opium agreement, which requires chests exported to China to hear consecutive numbers from 1911. It is now impossible to number in one series both Bengal and Malwa opium chests of 1911 consignments, seeing that greater part of exports had left from India before we received intimation of above provision. We are taking necessary steps to regulate numbering for 1912 and thereafter.

Addressed to Secretary of State for India and repeated to British Minister at Peking.

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