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in this country, so long wili the joint operation of
laxity in the United Kingdom and severity broad make
illicit traffic easy and profitable. When the opium is
once divided into small parcels and distributed among
numerous carriers, the difficulty of suppression is enormously increased. Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company
would therefore urge upon His Majesty's Government the
necessity of altering the law, so that the contraband
trado may be stopped in its early stages".
13.
It must be remembered that the geographi-
-cal position of Hongkong renders it most difficult to
prevent the smuggling of opium from China into the Colony. Thousands of passengers pass to and fro every day by boat,
junk, steamer and train; and, if opium is to be effectively suppressed in Hongkong, it is of the first importance that
production in China should be adequately controlled.
14.
The Colony of Hongkong is ready and
willing to co-operate in this matter, and I am sure that it
will have no hesitation in accepting any finmcial sacrifice that may be entailed in making suppression effective. The community is a wealthy one, and it will no doubt be found possible to draw from other sources the revenue which is now derived from opium. But the present system of control, so far as it goes, is satisfactory; the consumption per head of the population is very small; and I submit that the Colony should not be asked to substitute for that system a control based upon an inquisitorial preventive service, enormously expensive and generally detrimental to the prosperity of the Port. I havo endeavoured to show that the
initiative should lie elsewhere; mad that with sufficient
assistance from outside the problem of opium suppression
in
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