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privacy. I have the honour to enclose herewith copy of the despatch from Mr. Giles on this subject.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Consul Giles to Sir J. Jordan,
I have, &c.
J. N. JORDAN,
(No. 4.) Sir,
THE past quarter has witnessed the inauguration of the severeat repressive
Changsha, February 6, 1013. measures yet recorded against the opium trade. They followed upon the communication to the Hunan Government of my report for last June quarter, to which exception has been taken, and were doubtless to a certain extent bastened thereby, though I think they would have been adopted in any case. As stated in my telegram No. 1, Mr. Warren, the chairman of the Wesleyan Mission in Hunan, with whom I frequently discuss the subject, and who himself has been conducting minute enquiries, is substan- tially at one with me as to the state of affairs prevailing last spring, although very different conditions obtained during the quarter under review. He told me some time ago that a leading official in Changsha had admitted to him in a private conversation that a large poppy crop had been grown in the west of the province, though they had been unable to trace what became of it. I may also mention here that Mr. Langebach, of the Chinese Telegraph Administration, informed me that in June last he saw a poppy field not far from Yochow-by no means a notorious poppy-growing centre. that he himself would never have been aware that it was poppy had not his Chinese He added staff pointed it out to him as such, At the same time the foreign commissioner was roundly asserting to me that poppy cultivation had been completely eradicated in Hunan. In my opium report for the September quarter of 1912 I stated that a proclamation had been issued by the governor decreeing that all persons convicted of dealing in or of consuming opium were to be shot. Subsequently a notification was published by the General Opium Suppression Bureau indicating the following classes of offenders as liable to capital punishment:
1. Those caught in the act of smoking.
2. Those who, in addition to being proved smokers, also engage in the sale of the drug.
3. Those who, when found to have sown the poppy, resist its destruction by armed force.
4. Those who to the number of three or upwards, when found to be smuggling opium, resist its seizure by armed force.
It seems to have been generally sssumed that the death penalty would not be enforced, although the General Opium Suppression Bureau distributed a number of leaflets warning people of the consequences if they failed to comply with the regulations. Eventually an opium-smoker was shot in Chiên-chou towards the end of October; the second execution, also for smoking, took place in Changsha on the 1st November. Since then a number of executions have been reported, including several women, as under :-
Ch'ên-chou: Two men for poppy sowing.
Changsha Five smokers, including a woman 50
years old.
Hung-chiang: Two men for smoking and retailing the drug.
Siangyin: Two men for smoking and offering armed resistance to arrest.
I-chang: Three men for smoking and retailing,
Kuei-yang-chou: One poppy sower.
Hau-p'u: Two smokers and two poppy growers.
Shih-men: One woman for smoking.
Yochow: Two smokers, one of whom offered armed resistance.
Changte: One smoker,
Yung-ning: Three smokers.
Liu-yang: Two smokers.
Ning-yuan: Two smokers who offered armed resistance.
Kuei-yang-hsieu: Four divan keepers.
Kuei-yang-chou: Three smokers who also retailed opium. Ping-chiang: One woman for smoking.
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Huang-chou Three smokers, including two women. Tao-yuan: Two smokers.
Li-ling: One smoker.
Feng-huang-t'ing: One smoker.
A total of forty-two men and five women.
It is possible that the reports of executions in some of the remoter districts may not be correct, but there is no doubt about the greater number of the cases named above, including at least two, if not three, of the women (those in Changsha, Shih-men, and P'ing-chiang). At the same time the native press complains loudly that, while the poor are shot, the rich are not molested; and this is confirmed by the consulate writer and by others with whom I have spoken.
Besides the death penalty, other punishments are inflicted for minor offences against the opium regulations, including the confiscation of land on which poppy has been discovered, imprisonment, and fines. The following classes of offenders are to be reported for punishment in addition to those liable to the death penalty:
1. Smokers, including those indulging in opium admixtures.
2. Poppy growers.
3. Those who prepare opium, including admixtures.
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4. Those who convey, or deal in, or secretly retail opium, including admixtures, morphia needles, and pills into the composition of which morpha enters.
5. Those who keep hoards of opium, including smoking paraphernalia, opium ash and admixtures, morphia needles and pills into the composition of which morphia enters.
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The most stringent provisions have been made for the enforcement of opium suppression; reliable notables are dispatched every month to hold a thorough investigation in each district; all executive, judicial, and other officials, besides village headmen, local Government officers and notables are held responsible for the enforcement of these rules; and reports have to be furnished three times a month to the opium suppression bureau. The troops, too, are to be called out to render assistance whenever it may be deemed necessary.
It has also been provided that all opium and opium-smoking implements seized shall be destroyed in public; in pursuance of this rule à large quantity of native opium was publicly burnt at Changsha on the 27th October. The amount was said to be 91,551 taels, of which, however, 33,740 taels consisted of admixtures used for adulterating the drug; the actual opium destroyed only amounted to 57,811 taels, and this included the balance of the stocks taken over from the opium dealers when the provincial Government monopolised the sale and as yet largely unpaid for. Quantities of opium pipes and other implements were also publicly burnt on the 28th December in Changsha, and in Yochow and Changtê about the same time; but I have not heard of any more opium being destroyed, either in Changsha or elsewhere.
The enforcement of these severe repressive measures, while showing the earnestness of the authorities in their anti-opium campaign, has also incidentally helped to disclose the extent to which the production, sale, and consumption of the drug still prevail in Hunan. This fact is acknowledged by the authorities themselves, who had originally intended to bring about complete prohibition by the end of the 8th moon (9th October), after which date all opium suppression bureaus were to be abolished. The term has now been extended for six months until the end of the 2nd moon this year (6th April), owing to the fact stated by the General Opium Suppression Bureau and reproduced in the native press that the secret sale and consumption of the drug went on in every district, while in the remoter parts of the province it was notorious that poppy growing continued as of old. I have also before me a leaflet in simple language, issued by the General Opium Suppression Association and dated the 12th December, lamenting the fact that opium suppression has so far covered only six or seven-tenths of the ground, and deploring the impossibility of asserting that Huaan is absolutely rid of the poison. A writer in the "Changsha Jih Pao" of the 30th October went so far as to maintain that opium-smoking was more prevalent than before. That is certainly not the case at the present time; but the extent to which it still prevails is indicated by the number of anti-opium societies which are springing up in every district to second and to supplement the activity of the officials.
The quarter under review is not one in which any traces of poppy can as a general rule be observed, although it is usually sown in November; nevertheless, isolated instances of poppy cultivation are on record. A correspondent of the "Central China. reported some poppy in Kuei-yang-chou. Mr. Champness, a Wesleyan [2850 r-1]
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