CO129-396 - Public Offices - 1912 — Page 562

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and the Colony only imports sufficient raw opium for its own needs and those of the States which it supplies.

The Government of Hong Kong has not found it practicable to take the monopoly of the importation preparation and sale of opium into its own hands but since the meeting of the Shanghai Commission ros- trictions on the traffic have been made by the limita- tion of the farmer to a certain number of chests per annum (800 in 1911) by the suppression of opium divans and by forbidding the sale of prepared opium to any person other than an adult male.

The preperation and sale of opium is vested in the farmer, and raw opium can only be imported by him or by a person possessing a permit signed by a Government officer and countersigned by the farmer. By resolution of the Legislative Council which came into force on the 1st of September 1911, the importa- tion of any kind of raw Indian opium is forbidden, unless covered by export permits from the Government of India to the effect that it has been declared for shipment to or consumption in China. This resolution does not apply to opium imported by or for the use of the farmer. The exportation of prepared opium or of dross opium (i.c., a preparation of opium in which the residue of onium which has been smoked forms the main ingredient) to China, French Indo-China, the United States of America, the Phil-ippine Islands, the Netherlands Indies, Sian and Japan is forbidden under

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