CO129-395 - Public Offices - 1912 — Page 559

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no sellers, the opium merchants, like Oliver Twist, always holding up for It is unlucky for them that the market would not work as they wished, and when the slump came in last July they complained of losses, even though the Government of India was only putting up at auctions 195 chests per mouth certified for China. Just prior to the revolution there was a slight revival, and prices touched the unconscionable level of 4,000 taels. The advent of the revolution stopped this trade as it did every other trade in the country.

The accumulation of the stocks is thus more or less the result of the operations of the merchants themselves. In June 1910 the total of the stocks in Hong Kong and Shanghai amounted to about 17,000 chests, besides over 6,000 chests in India. To-day there are 18,122 chests in Shanghai, about 6,500 chests in Hong Kong, and about 1,500 chests in India. The treaty of the 8th May, 1911, and the new regulations of the Government of India, by which the stocks were not allowed to accumulate in India, is responsible for the transference of the stocks to Shanghai and, to a slightly less extent, to Hong Kong.

The trade has suffered a check more on account of the exorbitant prices charged by the dealers than by any amount of restrictions imposed by the Chinese authorities. The average price of opium per chest before June, and even for a short while later, was less than 1,600 to 1,700 taels. But now the average is about 2,600 taels, and even this price is considered too low by the merchants. It is, on the other hand, pointed out that the price received by the Government of India was in a few cases so high as 6,000 rupees per chest. The explanation is that the competition among these merchants so rushed up the price that the estimated deficit of the Indian Government in the opium revenue for 1910 was converted into a surplus. Again, the high prices paid were only for small quantities, and they dropped as soon as the quantity of certified opium was increased from 195 chests per month to 670. About 70 per cent. of the stocks were bought by the merchants at an average of less than 2,500 rupees per chest. Consequently not much sympathy can be extended to them when they fail to sell the drug at 2,600 taels and over per chest. We have to add one correction of a statement made in these columns the other day. The total value of the opium in Shanghai, even at the exorbitant price of 2,600 taels per chest, is 6,000,000l., and not 10,000,000l., and the value of the total stock for the China market held in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and India will amount in value to 8,500,000%.

Enclosure 4 in No. 1.

Extract from the "North China Daily News" of May 17.

THE OPIUM TRADE.

To the Editor of the "North China Daily News":

Sir,

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Shanghai, May 15, 1912. NOW that you have into the opium question more or less statistically, it is important that I should direct your attention to certain facts and figures hearing on the subject, which, no doubt, you have overlooked.

In the first place, however, you will permit me to express something of the astonishment with which I read your article this morning, stultifying as it did the other valuable contribution with which you were good enough to favour readers on Saturday. But I shall not dwell on the point. It is your own concern entirely as to whether you set any store or not upon a reputation for consistency; and having said so much I shall now proceed to discuss certain of the arguments which you have been inspired to adduce in support of your latest attitude.

Taking your points in the order in which they occur, you say :—

"But it is only fair to state that the measures taken by the authorities at Chokiang are aimed at the complete suppression of opium, but not merely to embarrass the trade in Indian opium."

How can you reasonably credit the Chekiang authorities with such fair intentions in view of the notorious fact that for the past year they have been permitting, if not

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directly encouraging, the cultivation of the poppy on a hitherto unprecedented scale throughout the province? Can you give

me a fair answer to that question? fidently submit that the present flourishing condition of poppy-farming in the province effectually disposes of all pretentions to good faith on the part of the Chekiang authorities. It convicts them of dishonesty of the most brazen kind, and deprives them of every shadow of title to the sympathy of all but hypocrites. Meanwhile, Indian opium has been absolutely shut out, and all shops, wholesale and retail, forcibly closed for the last four or five months.

You next say that the inflation of the price of opium was produced by the reduction in quantity of certified opium put up in the Calcutta auctions, and by the competition

of the merchants themselves.

The first allegation may be suffered to pass without comment; the second requires the serious consideration of business men if they are to read any meaning into it at all. The prices of opium cannot be made or maintained by the opium merchants, who, with all their wealth and influence, can no more interfere with the ordinary effects of the law of supply and demand, in the case of opium, than in that of any other commodity what- You might as well argue that they could so arrange matters as to make the price of silver 20d. per ounce instead of 28d., which is the figure at which I believe the metal stands to-day.

ever.

Again, you go on to say that the merchants complain of losses even though the Government of India were selling only 195 chests per month of certified opium last year.

But do you not know that during the year 1911 the export of certified Bengal opiun from India to China amounted to 15,440 chests, and that during the first half of the year nearly all this opium was shipped from Calcutta, leaving the Indian Government no option but to reduce its sales in the latter half of the year to 195 chests per month in order to keep within the limits of the 15,440 chests declared for the whole of the year? That is the sole reason why the reduction was made, and had you explained the fact your article would have been given a very different significance. I should like to know why you did not give the information, for without it your article is statistically wrong, misleading, and unjust to the merchants.

So far, I have only been dealing with Bengal opium. Over and above the quantity named in the preceding paragraph, you may be interested to know that the merchants were compelled to export to China 15,200 chests of Malwa opium in 1911, so that altogether, in that year, during which you would have your readers believe that the Indian Government reduced its sales to 195 chests per mensem, the merchants had no option but to purchase from the Government of India the enormous quantity of 30,640 chests of opium, Malwa and Bengal.

In face of this information, which you may easily verify, can you still maintain your injurious statement that the heavy stocks now held by us are the result of the merchants' own operations? I don't think you can, for to my mind no statement could be more inconsistent with the facts.

You are equally mistaken with regard to the sympathy for which you say the merchants are asking. The merchants are asking for no sympathy. They are asking for simple justice and the enforcement of the right of open market in Chekiang plainly guaranteed to them by treaty-a right, I may say by way of conclusion, which no amount of shuffling on the part of the Chekiang officials can deprive them of When everything is said and done the fact remains that Chêkiang is, on the statement of your own correspondents, verified by consular observation, covered all over with poppy fields in an advanced and thriving state of cultivation, and that, in defiance of the provisions of the agreement it remains hermetically closed to Indian opium. I need say no more.

I am, &c.

JUSTICE.

We may assure our correspondent that it is far from our wish that the opium merchants should not have justice; moreover, we wish they also should be just to others. We hold no brief for the Chekiang authorities, or seek to justify their actions. At the same time it is only right that plain facts and not conclusions should be given. There is no evidence, except the statement of the opium merchants, who are "have been permitting, if not more or less interested, that the Chekiang authorities directly encouraging, the cultivation of poppy on a hitherto unprecedented scale throughout the province." All that is known is that the Chêkiang authorities punish every one dealing in, or smoking, opium, whether it is Indian or uative-grown; and it

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