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officer who has had special opportunities of studying
the opium problem in Hong Kong.
3.
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A point of great practical importance is
the fact that memoranda written on leave of absence
must necessarily be prepared without access to the
official records of the Colony and without cognisance
of events which may have occurred since the writer's
departure.
4. I have already expressed my views at some
length in my Secret Despatch of 12th January,
and do not, therefore, propose to discuss in detail
Mr. Lloyd's memorandum marked "A". Two observations
may however conveniently be made here.
5.
Mr. Lloyd gives considerable prominence to
a theory, recently enunciated by the Assistant Deputy
Minister of Health for Canada, that the cure of opium
addiction is not a slow process and that to deprive
addicts suddenly and absolutely of opium is not
inhuman. He suggests that such a view, if accepted,
may cut away from under our feet our only remaining
ground for retaining an official monopoly in Hong
Kong. But this Government has never stressed this
point in the past; and in any event it would be
profoundly misleading to stress it today. The illicit
opium trade is fully capable of saving the local addict
from all possible inconvenience except that arising
from excessive indulgence. The official factory could,
therefore, be closed tomorrow without risk of a
charge of inhumanity.
6. However, it is difficult to see how this
Government could abandon its official opium monopoly
without a frank denunciation of the Opium Convention.
With what face could Hong Kong abandon control at
(2.
the very moment when its neighbour Macao has assumed
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control,
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