CO129-440 - Others & Individuals - 1916 — Page 313

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The suppression of the trade in opium, which has been undertaken by the Chinese Government, and the more stringent rules for limiting it which have been put into force in the United States, Canada, and Australia, have led, during recent years, to the growth of a large contraband traffic. A great number of Chinese seamen and firemen are employed on ships plying between Great Britain and these countries, and many of these men habitually carry the drug from this country to foreign ports where there are large Chinese settlements. In ships sailing to Australia and North America, amuggling is also carried on by Europeans. In spite of the precautions taken by English shipowners and the extensive seizures which are constantly being made by Customs Officers, it is clear that smuggling has long been and still is continuous and successful. Among other firms, Messrs. Alfred Holt & Company have been involved in difficulties through the illegal action of their Chinese employees, and all the efforts of their European personnel have been unable to prevent opium from being carried on board their ships or to discover it while on board, and this both before and after the Royal Proclamation prohibiting the export. The firm have in consequence been frequently compelled to pay fines or dues imposed by the Customs authorities or by the Courts in China and elsewhere, and have suffered the discredit of being concerned, against their will, in a traffic which they know to be illegal and believe also to bo immoral. Recently there has come into their possession a mass of correspondence which throws a flood of light upon the whole subject. This correspondence is set out in Appendix A attached to this Memorial. The following description of the trade has been compiled by them for the benefit of His Majesty's Government, and it is earnestly hoped that the suggestions which they make for new legislation may be carried out. It appears to them that a trade which is so profitable and so widespread can be suppressed more easily by an attack upon the wholesale distribution of the drug, than by the prosecution of the numerous individuals who dispose of small packages.

Reference is here made to the letters and documents set out in Appendices A, B, C, and D, to this Memorial. The originals of the letters in Appendix A were seized by the Liverpool police while in search of other information, and were written in the Chinese character. They were found in the possession of a Chinese merchant named Yuehn King Chiu, or C. G. Meing, who carried on business as "San Toy and Company" at 56, Park Lane, Liverpool. The shop is small and situated in a poor district, but the proprietor is a person of substance, and lives in a good neighbourhood. The letters in Appendix B are from the correspondence of Messrs. Alfred Holt & Company with Messrs. Butterfield & Swire, their agents in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and Messrs. W. Mansfield & Company, their agents in Singapore. The letters in Appendix C were received by Messrs. Holt from their masters abroad, and with those in Appendix B show the difficulties which have been encountered in foreign countries through the activity of the opium smugglers. Appendix D is composed of copies of reports prosented to the Head Constable of Liverpool by his officers. These are important, as showing that Meing, or Yuehn King Chiu, is only one of many Chinese who are engaged in the traffic in Liverpool. No correspondence has been seized which discloses the details of the business carried on by these other traders. But it seems a legitimate inference that theirs is of the same nature, and may bo of the same extent, as that of Meing.

The illicit trade in opium, so far as it has come to the notice of Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company, has four main branches. The first and most extensive is the China trade. The others aro the Australian, the Canadian, and the United States trades. In all four countries the methods employed are generally the same, though it appears from the references to "foreigners" in the letters from Canada and Australia, that Europeans are concerned in the carriage of contraband to those two countries, as well as Chinese. The usual procedure is for the principals abroad

to recommend to Yuchu King Chiu in Liverpool certain firemen or other Chinese on board one of Messrs. Alfred Holt & Company's ships. The carrier is generally a fireman, and No. 1 fireman is nearly always the ringleader, while small parcels are sometimes taken by his subordinates.

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