CO129-457 - Public Offices - 1919 — Page 483

the most devoted adherents of the military governor, was sending out a force of his troops to destroy poppy-crops in the neighbourhood of Peng-hsien, 30 miles north- north-west of Chengtu.

Chengtu, May 5, 1919.

Enclosure 3 in No. 1.

A. E. EASTES.

473

HONG KONG

48875

48876

23 UG 19:

Sir,

Sir J. Jordan to Wai-chiao Pu.

May 29, 1919.

IT has recently been my duty on more than one occasion to address communications to your Excellency on the subject of the recrudescence in various provinces of cultivation of the opium poppy, in violation of the agreements reached between Great Britain and China. Of these communications the last was my letter of the 6th May, which dealt with the provinces of Kirin and Heilungkiang.

I am now in receipt of information on this subject from two of His Majesty's consular officers who have recently traversed a small portion of the province of Szechuan.

Mr. Eastes, who has reached Chengtu from Tengyueh, travelling overland, states that sixteen stages of that part of the journey, which lay through the province of Szechuan, were through country in which opium fields were common, while ten consecutive stages lay through country of which from 30 to 50 per cent. of the fields, according to the character of the soil, were under opium. These stages lay north and south of the city of Chien-ch'ang, the seat of a Taoyin. Furthermore, opium-growing exists in the hills immediately bordering on the Chengtu Plain.

From Mr. Teichman, who has recently traversed the road from Chengtu to Tachienlu, I learn that throughout the entire length of the T'ung River valley, through which the road runs for two days' march within the district of Luting, countless fields of opium poppy are to be seen, in many places as much as 25 per cent. of the cultivated land being under that A special tax there levied of 28 rupees (the coinage locally current) on every mow of opium-producing land.

crop.

I am aware that a portion of the areas above indicated is no longer within the jurisdiction of the Central Government, but 1 regret to note that hitherto the steps which are essential to the suppression of opium production in parts of China still under the control of your Excellency's Government, and which were mentioned in my note of the 29th April, have not been taken.

I have, &c.

C

J. N. JORDAN.

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