CO129-455 - Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1919 [7-9] — Page 425

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how to reduce and finally to eliminate the consumption of

opium in Hongkong. As long as smuggling goes on on the

present extensive scale, no further material result can be obtained by way of manipulating the price or the output of the Government monopoly, unless such manipulation is accompanied by a large increase in the personnel of the

Preventive Establishment and in the severity of their

methods. The action which is necessarily taken to check

smugling has long been a cause of complaint among the Chinese. They object most strongly to the search of person

and baggage which takes place on overy wharf of arrival and

departure in the Colony; and they declaim against the bribery

and corruption which are undoubtedly rife. It is unfortunate-

-ly the case that no detective measures have very much success unless very large rewards are offered, and these

rewards bread a most undesirable spawn of informers. The Chinese will have opium if it can be procured; and in pro- -portion as the monopoly's product ceases to be available,

while outside sources, and especially sources in China, remain open, so will smugling increase, and with it the necessity for further and more drastic preventive measures.

I submit that the final remedy is only

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to be found when the stream is dammed at its source. I my quote the following extracts from Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company's Memorial, referred to above:-

"Under the circumstances Messrs. Alfred Holt

and Comp my suggest that the evil should be attacked at the root. So long as it is possible for the principals in England to acquire large quantities of opium for export, so long will it be possible for small parcels

to be smuggled.

"So long as opium can be thus sold wholesale

in