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It is, perhaps, unnecessary to point out the glaring fallacies in this specious argument, in which Yunnanese officials affect to find justification for China's criminal abandonment of the policy of opium suppression.
2. Importation.
Concurrently, with the recrudescence of unchecked cultivation, all restrictions have, of course, been removed from the traffic in opium, which has now been definitely legalised. In my despatch No. 8, Confidential, of the 21st March last, I gave some account of the establishment at Shunning in the Tengyueh circuit of a headquarters for this traffic. The Yunnan provincial authorities have now sent down a military official of high rank, to superintend the collection of revenue derived from this source. The rates charged are tremendously high, amounting to 60 dollars per 100 Chinese ounces, or over 22 per cent. on the average retail price. For opium conveyed from Yunnan into the neighbouring province of Kueichow, a further tax of 30 dollars per 100 Chinese ounces is levied.
The selection of Shunning as the headquarters for the new taxation machinery is due to two causes: (1) the desire to avoid the immediate vicinity of this consulate and the area within which the foreign-supervised customs function; (2) the facilities thus afforded for tapping the heavy import traffic from the Northern Shan States, Burma, by way of Lashio, Kunlong, and Kéngma.
This will probably continue to be the main source of supply until the results of the recent new cultivations in Yünnan come into the market.
In return for the heavy taxation quoted above, armed escorts of regular troops are provided for the opium caravans, and li-kin stations are no longer permitted to interfere with the free passage of this valuable cargo. This state of affairs gives rise to the following ludicrous anomaly.
Technically, of course, the Central Government's prohibition of all traffic in opium has never been repealed, and officers of the Maritime Customs are still under orders to confiscate all consignments of the contraband drug. But, as the Commissioner of Tengyueh Customs very naturally complains, it is impossible to expect the unarmed watchers in the employ of the customs to hold up for examination caravans protected by armed and uniformed escorts, no matter how strong their suspicions may be of the cargo passing before their eyes.
This is especially the case here at Tengyueh, where the watchers are not likely to forget that at the beginning of July 1910, one of their number was shot in broad of daylight not 3 miles from the custom-house for demanding to examine the papers an opium-caravan, and that all the local authorities, from the present Taoyin-who is also the superintendent of Tengyueh Customs-downwards, were so effectively bribed that the murderer was allowed to escape scot-free.
3. Consumption.
It is a necessary corollary of this phenomenal outbreak of opium cultivation and traffic in the drug that its cousumption is again becoming increasingly popular. Police restrictions on indulgence in this vice are no longer anything but a dead letter, while within the past few weeks implements for opium-smoking have been openly exposed for sale in the streets of Tengyueh.
A. E. EASTES.
Enclosure 3 in No. 1.
Extract from the "North China Daily News" of December 17, 1918.
The Japanese Opium Trade with China-a Scandal calling for instant and drastic
Repression.
[From a Correspondent.]
IN the North China Daily News" of the 15th September, 1915, a correspons explained in some detail the large proportions to which had attained Japan's morph trattie with China. He expressed his belief that the morphia trade was the most Jucrative of all trades conducted by Japanese in China. He pointed out that the trade
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with Dairen alone in 1913 amounted to 6 tons of morphia, and that between the price at which this morphia made in Europe was purchased in Japan, and the price ultimately paid for it by the consumer there was a margin, that is to say, there was a profit to the intermediary in the 6 tous of 8,400,000 dollars.
bv
That morphia trade still flourishes. It is a larger trade now than it was in 1913. Morphia, however, can no longer be purchased in Europe. The seat of industry has been transferred to Japan, and morphia is now manufactured by the Japanese them- selves. Although Japan is a signatory to the agreement which forbids the import into China of morphia or any appliances used in its manufacture or in its application, the traffic, inasmuch as it has the financial support of the Bank of Japan, as explained your correspondent, is carried on with the direct approval and encouragement of the Japanese Government. In no other country in the world has there ever been known such a wholesale contraband traffic. Literally tens of millions of yen are transferred annually from China to Japan for the payment of Japanese morpnia. The chief agency in the distribution of morphia in China is the Japanese post-office. Morphia is imported by parcels post. No inspection of parcela in the Japanese post-office in China is permitted to the Chinese Customs Service. The Service is only allowed to know what are the alleged contents of the postal packages as stated in the Japanese invoices, and yet morphia enters China by this channel by the ton.
Eighteen Tons of Morphia Annually.
A conservative estimate would place the amount of morphia imported by the Japanese into China in the course of the year as high as 18 tons, and there is vidence that the amount is steadily increasing. Wherever Japanese are predominant there the trade flourishes. Through Dairen morphia circulates throughout Manchuria and the province adjoining, through Tsing-tao morphia is showered over Shantung province, Auhui, and Kiangsu, while from Formosa, so favoured by geographical propinquity, morphia is carried along with opium and other contraband by motor- driven fishing boats to some point on the mainland, from which it is distributed throughout the province of Fukien and the north of Kuangtung. Everywhere it is sold by Japanese under exterritorial protection. How efficient is that protection may be gauged by the fact that no Japanese has ever yet been punished for dealing in ontraband in China. When Chinese police raid the morphis shops along the Tsinan-fu railway in Shantung, as they have a right to do, for the traffic is illegal, Japanese gendarmerie rescue the arrested and exact a fine, not from the guilty be it understood, but from those who attempted to uphold the law. In recorded instances known to American investigators the magistrate himself has been compelled to pay
the fine.
.
In South China morphia is sold also by Chinese pedlars, each of whom carries a Pasaport certifying that he is a native of the Island of Formosa, and therefore entitled to Japanese protection. Japanese drug stores throughout China carry large locks of morphia. Japanese medicine vendors look to morphia for their largest profits. Everywhere Japanese prostitution, the systematic extension of which from Yunnan city even to Urga is such an inspiring evidence of the business activities of our Asiatic allies, goes hand in hand with the sale of morphia.
Morphia, no longer purchasable in Europe, is manufactured now in well-equipped Jaboratories in Japan and in Formosa. During recent years the bulk of the Persian opium coming into the market has been purchased by Japan for conversion into phia, for Persian opium yields a larger percentage of morphia than Indian opium. Upium grown in Korea, the cultivation of which it is interesting to note followed immediately upon the closing of the opiam shops in Shanghai, Japanese officials providing the seeds, and opium grown under Japanese protection in Manchuria, is an ever-expanding source of the supply of morphia, and, it may be added, of opium
quired by the administration of Formosa.
to
More Profit in Opium.
But while the morphia traffic is a large one there is every reason to believe that the opium trade, upon which Japan is now embarking with such enthusiasm, is likely prove even more lucrative. In the Calcutta opium sales Japan has become one of the considerable purchasers of Indian opium. She purchases for Formosa, where the opium trade shows a steady growth, and where opium is required for the manufacture morphia. She purchases for import into Japan. Sold by the Government of India,
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