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production, sale, and use of opium, and there is not likely to be anything further of importance to report until next season towards the end of the year.
However, on receipt of the circular under acknowledgement I addressed enquiries to the missionaries in the interior, and now append
a summary of their replies:-
Yung Ch'un, Te Hua and Ta Tien Districts.-Dr. Maxwell states that he knows of no opium actually gathered. One patch was destroyed and the owner fined 200 dollars. He thinks there has been real progress in suppressing the use of the drug. There have been many seizures of opium, morphia, pipes, &c., and fines have been imposed. One offender was sentenced to two and a-half years imprisonment and a
fine of 300 dollars.
These remarks apparently do not apply to the Ta T'ien district which Dr. Maxwell states has been in a state bordering on anarchy since the revolution.
Changpu.-There was practically no official interference with the gathering of the
crop.
easy
There was more land under poppy cultivation last season than ever before. The regulations against smoking are strict, but evasion is
and common. Chuan Chow, Anhai, and Coast Districts.-The crop was gathered without inter- ference on the understanding that no poppy should be planted next season.
The sale and smoking of opium are forbidden, and some offenders are punished. Many cases of seizure of opium and punishment of smokers continue to be reported in the native papers, but there are also frequent references to corrupt practices in the enforcement of the regulations.
I have, &c.
(No. 39.) Sir,
Enclosure 3 in No. 1.
Consul Werner to Mr. Alston.
II. A. LITTLE.
Foochow, July 29, 1913. With reference to your despatch No. 5, of the 11th ultimo regarding the suppression of the cultivation and import of native opium, I have the honour to report that 1 have made enquiries from missionaries in the interior as to whether any poppy is being cultivated in their districts, and whether the harvested opium was destroyed or sold. Unfortunately, nearly all the inland missionaries are now at Kuliang or some other health resort so that the reports I have received so far are not many and the infor- mation is incomplete. As far as it goes it is as follows:-
Kien Ning. In one or two instances limited areas of poppy were planted in this district last season.
The crops were destroyed by official orders. It is alleged that no poppy is now to be found, but there never has been any large quantity in this district.
There is considerable opium-smoking in various parts. Some is obtained from Kiangsi, some from Chekiang, and some from Foochow.
Kutien County, East District.—Said to have been no poppy cultivation this year. Kutien and Ping Nun.-Mr. Carpenter writes:-
As far as I know no opium was grown in Kutien or Ping Nan except a rather large lot in the east road. This was all pulled up by soldiers sent out by this magistrate before it came into flower."
Hsing Hua.-Mr. Nightingale writes :–
CL
No poppy growing now.
am able to learn it was sold locally."
Some was harvested, not a great deal, and as far as 1
Fu An and Ning Teh.-Mr. Stanley writes:-
"1. Opium was planted
parts of Fu An County and also of Ning Teh County.
did not hear whether there was any in any of the other counties of the prefecture but
I have seen large tracts of poppy in blossom in parts of Fu An, aud I hear there was a great deal more in other parts of the county through which I did not happen to be travelling at the scason.
3
"2. The crop in the district where I saw it was supposed to have been rooted up by the authorities, but I saw it after the visit of the county magistrate and the destruc- tion seems to have consisted in lopping off a few heads here and there leaving 90 per cent. still standing. I have every reason to believe that this remainder was duly harvested.
*Curtis saw quantities of it in Fu An one time he paid me a flying visit at Fu An County town-that is, in the parts from Fuhning to Fu An."
In some
The director of the Anti-opium Bureau has recently interviewed me several times on this matter and has left me some albums of photographs and a large number of reports from all the districts in the province. The photographs show, as a rule, a posse of soldiers either cutting down a few stalks of the poppy plant or holding some poppy flowers in their hands in the presence of a magistrate or other official, though the cutting down has actually taken place, and sheaves of poppy stalks appear in the forefront of the picture. These photographs are of course valueless as evidence. Accepting their bona fides, one does not learn from them more than that a few square yards of poppy plant have been cut down in each poppy-growing district. There is nothing to show that the whole crop was cut down; that, if cut down it was destroyed or harvested; and if harvested, whether it was sold locally or exported to other provinces. Judging from verbal reports and from the usual action of natives away from direct control it seems not improbable that the account given by Mr. Stanley concerning Fu An would be applicable to most of the poppy-growing districts.
I do not question the sincerity of Mr. Chên Nêug-kuang (known locally as Ding), the head of the Anti-Opium Office in Fukien, but I cannot but think that the enthusiasm which leads him to adopt the unjust, drastic, and anti-treaty measures he has recently put in force against the trade in foreign and native opium (on which I am reporting separately) blinds him to the possibility that all the reports he receives may not be absolutely correct, and their general similarity and unanimity would point to the unlikelihood of them all being strictly true. Speaking generally, and in the absence of complete and satisfactory evidence, it can hardly be said that it has been proved beyond question that all the poppy grown in Fukien province has been uprooted and destroyed, though it may be admitted as certain that large areas formerly used for poppy-growing are now no longer under cultivation. The real test would be to see if any poppy plants appear next season, but the difficulty lies in the agreement having made no provision by which the absence of cultivation can be proved both now and in future years after the import from India has ceased. During the last poppy-growing season Sir John Jordan instructed me to send the consulate assistant to Hsing Hua to enquire of the missionaries there as to what area was still under cultivation. In my reply I pointed out that there was only one missionary at Hsing Hua, and that I had forwarded all the information he had been able to obtain, but suggested that the consular assistant should visit the opium- growing districts in the province and make a report. This suggestion was not, however, approved, and, now that the opportunity has gone by, there is no means of obtaining an independent view until next season.
I have the honour to enclose copies and translations of a letter from the Anti-Opium Society, one from the Special Officer for Foreign Affairs, and my reply. The gist of these letters is that the poppy having been eradicated throughout the province, the import of Indian opium should now be stopped. In my reply I have pointed out that the case as stated is not proved, thut the continued breaches of the agreement through. out last year do not warrant me in accepting an unsubstantiated ex parte statement, and that further investigations are necessary. The proclamation referred to will be included in the following despatch.
I have, &c.
Sir,
E. T. C. WERNER.
Enclosure 4 in No. 1.
General Anti-Opium Society of Fukien to Consul Werner.
(Translation.)
June 14, 1913. AFTER a century's subjection to the evils of opium, China has of late, as it were, suddenly awaked from sleep and resolutely determined to suppress the vice. She obtained of the British Government the settlement of an additional agreement
B 2 [1884 f-1]
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