CO129-510-8 Policy on sale of Opium 12-1-1928 - 24-7-1928 — Page 40

39

30226/27

no22

24.K

Hong Kong is still much the same as it was thirty

years ago. In this connection I refer you also to

#

enclosure No.1 in my Sucret despatch of the 6th October,

1927.

9. I inquired into the price at which the Government Opium Lonopoly was selling its opium and I found, to my dismay, that we were attempting to sell a mixture of Indian opium, heavily alloyed

with non-Indian opium, at the price fixed for a

pure Indian brand in 1918. This price, 714.50

tael, was fixed by Gazette Notice No.246 of the

29th June, 1918, and my predecessor reported to you in his Confidential despatch of the 10th August,

+:

1918, that this high price had been fixed "with a

view to restricting the consumption". The price which

Indian opium will fetch in China is, of course, very

much higher than the price commanded by Persian

opium, which may be roughly compared to Yunnan opium

of the best quality; and I found that the Government

Monopoly had accumulated a substantial stock of

confiscated material both Persian and whinese and

that a stream of fresh seizures of very considerable

volume was constantly flowing in. This confiscated

opium was used as an alloy for the Indian opium and

a mixture roughly equivalent to half-und-half was

being sold at /14.50 a tael. It was, of course,

obvious that under present-day conditions such a

brand could only obtain an increasingly restricted

consumption and that the demand of addicts would

be mainly supplied by smugelers.

In other words the

high

·227 + No.

7.

25

# No. 6. 30236/27 [rro.23

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