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owing to the facilities for snuggling opium from the Indian States and elsewhere, and the deeply-rooted nature of the habit, it proved impossible to pursue this ideal, and a policy was substituted which aimed at keeping the consump tion within the strictest possible limits by continuously raising The success of that the cost of opium to the consumer. policy cannot be gainsaid. The population of British India to-day consumes annually 26 grains of opium per head, 20 grains less than the probable per capita consumption of the United States of America, and a very small fraction of the per capita consumption of other opium consuming countries in the East.
In India proper, apart from Burma, opium smoking scenes only to an extremely limitel extent. It is strongly reprobated by public opinion, and the Government of India have done everything short of absolute legal prohibition to check the practice. The manufacture of opium for smoking, except by an individual for his own use, is prohibited; opium smoking preparations cannot be bought; the aniount of opium an indi- vidual can obtain for manufacture into preparations is strictly limited; and the amount he can have in his possession is generally limited to 90 grains. Opium smoking is essentially a social vice, and the question of making illegal any assembly of three or more persons for the purpose of smoking is at present being considered by Local Governments, together with the question of the practicability of probibiting opium smoking altogether. Burma, where opium smoking was introduced from China, and affects Burmans adversely, presents a separate problem. Since 1885 there has been absolute prohibition of the use of opium except for medical purposes for all Burmans in Upper Burma. The same prohibition has been in force since 1887 in Lower Burma, except for registered consumers. No new consumers are registered, and the number has now fallen from 34,000 to 5,405. The population of Burma consists of 12,000,000 people. Non-Burmans in Upper Burma, and nou- Burmans and registered Burmane in Lower Burma can obtain opium at licensed shops, subject to limitations of amount, but, as in the rest of India, the sale of prepared opium is prohibited. Those who advocate the suppression of poppy cultivation in India do so on two grounds. First, that the inhabitants of India are being drugged against their will, and, second, that India is flooding the world, especially China, with her opium. Space need not be wasted over the first of these contentions. It has been seen that the Government have been engaged in a struggle to keep the consumption of opium in India as low as possible during the last hundred years, and the opinions expressed by the Royal Commission of 1893 were described in Chapter I. If the Government of India ceased to control the production of opium and prohibited poppy cultivation in British India, an unregulated supply would at once begin to flow from
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the Indian States, over the border from China, and from Persia and the Levant. Armies could not stop it. Further, as Provincial Governments have now been invested with control over excise, it may be expected that under the pressure of public opinion, exerted through the new Legislative Councils, the policy of restriction hitherto followed will not be abandoned. It may indeed. become more stringent.
It is not clear why the delusion should persist in some quarters that India floods the world with opium, and that Indian production is responsible for the morphia epidemic in China and the Western countries. Once the amount of opium produced in India and exported is viewed in its proper perspective, compared with production and export in other parts of the world, that delusion must immediately vanish. The legitimate markets for Indian opium, apart from export to China, took 16,000 chests of Indian opium a year in days when the China trade was in full swing, and there was no inducement. to smuggle to that country. Now those markets take only 6,000 to 11,000 chests, and will very probably take less in future. Indian opium is not exported to the United States, and Chinese opium is sold retail in China at less than the cost of production in India. Such are the facts regarding the state- iments sometimes made that India is drenching America and China with her opium. The production of opium by the Government of India in 1919-20, including a certain quantity supplied by the Native States, amounted to 936 tons, of which 643 tons were exported. In 1906 China produced 34,852 tons, and in 1908, according to an estimate by Mr. Hamilton Wright, 21,887 tons. So far as it is possible to ascertain, she produces to-day about 20 per cent. of her output in 1906, say 7,000 tons, or more than seven times the production of India. So far as Turkey is concerned, accurate information is not obtainable in respect of total production, but authorities agree that in normal times the average Turkish export amounts to 7,000 chests annually, each chest containing 150 lbs. of opium, rising in a good year to 12,000 chests. Seven thousand chests of Turkish opium represent by weight 469 tons, but when comparing Turkish with Indian opium it must be remembered that the former contains 12 per cent. of morphine, while the average morphine content of Indian opium is only 8 per cent. Seven thousand chests (469 tous) of Turkish opium are the equivalent in morphine of 662 tons of Indian opium, and Turkey has not signed the Hague Convention. Persia, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, produced 10,000 piculs of opium in 1907, nearly all of which was exported, and there is no reason to believe she exports much less to-day. Ten thousand piculs (594 tons by weight) of opium, with a morphia content of 12 per cent., are equivalent to 838 tons of Indian opium containing only 8 per cent. of morphine, and Persia signed the Hague Convention with a reservation of Article 3 (a), which deals
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