CO129-455 - Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1919 [7-9] — Page 442

436

-ment.

If a date were fixed and on that date the monopoly

closed, the result would be that the opium smokers in the

Colony would experience holly unnecessary inconvenience and

a good deal of mental end bodily suffering which they would

take immediate means to alleviate. I need not dwell on what

those means, apart from smuggling, would be. The subject has

been fully discussed both at the Hague and in voluminous

official despatches and reports. I should regard such a

situation in this Colony with grave apprehension. In order to conform outwardly with the terms of the convention we should not only lose our power to keep the opium habit within the bounds stated by the Straits Settlements Opium Commission to be practically innocuous, but we should force a portion of our population, and that a very hard working portion for the most part, to adopt practices which would destroy its power to work and drive it into criminal courses in order to satisfy its cravings. There would no doubt be much smuggling of opium and surreptitious smoking, but resort would also be had on an extensive scale to the injection of morphine, cocaine and other drugs with most deleterious results.

5.

I take the opportunity of enclosing an extr-

-act which appeared in the local press.

I have the honour to be,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient,

humble servant,

Claud Severn

Officer Administering the Government.