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a threat of confiscation of land had deterred his village within the Shensi border from sowing it.
"GEORGE PARKER."
Enclosure 5 in No. 1.
Extract from the "North China Daily News" of December 7, 1912.
GOVERNMENT AND OPIUM
IN the October number of the "Hibbert Journal for the current year is an interesting opening article by L. P. Jacks, of Oxford, in which is discussed Democracy and Discipline." The considerations which are brought forward concern more especially all Governments that are striving in diverse ways to bring the will of the people to bear upon legislation for the theoretical benefit of all, question is whether under a democracy this is a realisable ideat,
The crucial importance to China at the present moment.
It is a theme of prime
Under the Empire the laws were not indeed, as many in western lands ignorantly supposed, the expression of an individual Imperial will, but they represented a com- promise between the ideas and the ideals of a great number of different persons, all much modified by the rigorous necessities of environment No Chinese knew or ever thought of inquiring whence the law emanated. The practical question for him was: "Can I safely violate, ignore, or evade it?" If not, it would, after a fashion, be obeyed.
At the present time this is radically changed. The conception of the potential might of the people has entered deeply the minds and the hearts also of a considerable number of influential Chinese, and the number and the influence of this class is steadily and rapidly increasing. Any particular law does not represent what any particular Chinese wants, but is the outcome of the composition and resolution of a great variety of obscure social forces largely invisible.
The late Manchu Government, as a measure of self-preservation, decreed six years ago the gradual abolition of the use of opium in China. Into this reform the people themselves speedily injected a moral element which has been its strength.
As an
The current year has witnessed a slackening of official pressure in the enforcement of the laws against opium smoking, and especially against poppy planting. inevitable result, great areas in many provinces of China amiled with the fatal beauty of the brilliant blossoms of the deadly plant. Vigorous and intelligent efforts are being made to enforce the law as before, for the present Government is as convinced of the necessity of its enforcement for the welfare of China as was the preceding one. Can the republic stop poppy planting? If it cannot, it cannot stop opium using.
Crude Chinese opium is now worth much more than its weight in silver. The temptation to smuggle is practically irresistible, and it goes on upon an enormous scale. Let us cite specific instances. Shansi. which was officially pronounced last year to be free from opium, is free no longer, and Shansi opium is now an important article of inter-provincial commerce. But beyond Shansi is remote Kansu, which never has been free from poppy raising. Probably the bulk of smuggled opium for the northern provinces may come from those wide and loosely governed areas.
It is well known
that the city of Chengchou, at the intersection of the Chinghan and the Pien-lo railways, is an active centre of illicit traffic in opium. So are many other cross roads of trade.
Not many moons since, at the market town of Hsiaofan, in the Hochien-fu region, situated on one of the rivers flowing to Tieu-tsin, there passed a funeral, the coffin containing a corpse from a distance to the west, with many bearers and something of a train. It occurred to the head of the police that there might be opium smuggling involved. For there was no one of the followers of the coffin who wore any white --a suspicious circumstance.
But the arrest and interviewing of a corpse in China is an embarrassing procedure, not lightly to be undertaken. This particular section of the Chihli
province abounds in the lawless bands that China has hitherto found it impossible to repress. The chief of police laid his plans, with confederates, to examine the coffin and yet to incur no risk. He divided his forces, part being left in town to await
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the outcome, the rest feigning themselves to be a band of robbers ("lao cha"). They made their raid, prised open the coffin, and found an opium man, full size and even over weight, clad in appropriate burial garments, and ready for the burial which never took place. Such an amount of opium must have netted an immense amount. the reader wish to know what became of the proceeds of what in Shanghai we style clever capture"?
CK
Does
៥៥
a
In the city of Linch'ing-chou, at the junction of the Huai River and the now disused "Grand Canal," there is a little company of men organised as an opium refuge," whose delightful duty is to help the Chinese Republic to free itself from the opium curse. The society began by representing itself as managed by experts, trained under foreign tutelage (a bare falsehood), and is reported on good authority to be given to blackmail of smokers (to enlarge the revenues of the promoters), and also (perhaps chiefly) to the sale of opium. The present local magistrate is himself an opium smoker, related to those "high up." Can the Chinese Republic free itself of opium?
A hundred li east of Linch'ing-chou is the ancient city of Kao-t'angehou. About 20 li north-west of the city on the banks of the old Chaowang River is a small village called Wangkuangchuang. Here lives a man whose name is Wang Tung-fang ("combined fragrance"). For some time he has imported opium in large amounts by the cartload, from the western provinces. There are numbers of armed men in the train, which no one safely interrupts. Arrived at his home the opium is divided into packages and distributed among his countless friends and relatives until wanted. No one not personally known can buy. His profits are fabulous.
Why is this trade not broken up? Because he is too strongly entrenched. The police are all hand and glove with this resistless member of the gentry. He is in intimate relation with the local council (I Shab Hui), all of whom are interested or strictly neutral. The former official knew all about it and (for reasons) did nothing, The case was well understood at Tsinan-fu, the provincial capital. Articles sent to the papers of that city about the case cannot be inserted. But one was actually published in the "Tungwenpao" of Shanghai calling the man of "combined fragrance" an opium king.' This brought the matter to the attention of the Governor of Shantung, yet nothing was done.
C
The present local official is one of a new type. It is said that he will not take a bribe, and it is not certain how to manage him. He arrested the man of "combined fragrance," detained him for a time, and then released him. Whoever is approached on the subject always sighs and remarks: "That case will be a difficult one to handle."
China is now a republic. Can republics put down known and strongly organised crime, or can they not? Can China put down the planting of the poppy and the trade in opium?
U
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