CO129-510-8 Policy on sale of Opium 12-1-1928 - 24-7-1928 — Page 36

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has a somewhat larger population; whereas the

total population of the whole of this Colony is

less than that of a single town in the Xuang-tung

province, I mean its capital, Canton. Moreover,

there is in normal times a daily ebb and flow of

many thousands of Chinese,

among who are probably

between Hong Kong and

hundreds of opium addicts,

Canton, while in abnormal times there is a sauve qui

peut from Canton to Hong Kong, which may add

(as recently happened) some twenty thousand souls

to the Colony's population in a couple of weeks.

Under such conditions it is quite impossible for

Hong Kong to suppress, or even to affect considerable

reduction in, the consumption of opium by its

inhabitants, while the Canton authorities encourage

both the production and the consumption of opium and

take no steps whatever to check the export of prepared

and raw opium from Kuang-tung into this colony.

All that is practicable in Hong Kong, until the

production and consumption of opium in China are

effectively controlled with a view to eventual

suppression, is to keep the price high enough to

make opium a luxury and yet not so high as further

to encourage smuggling.

6. Another important factor in the local

situation is the opium policy of the Governzent of

India. In a letter, dated the 14th June, 1726.

this Government was informed by the Finance

Department (Central Revenues), Simla, that the

Government

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