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while
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every year improvements in engines reduce the consump- tion of motor spirit. Most of the duty is paid by three large companies who own extensive storage facilities, comparatively little is imported by outsiders.
IV.-OPIUM.
11. The total amount of prepared opium sold amounted to only 59,208 taels, by far the lowest figure since the Monopoly was instituted in 1914. The net amount derived from sales was $1,152,851. If from this sum all expenses are deducted the actual profit on the opium which accrued to Revenue was about $680,000. Two causes contributed chiefly to the shrinkage of the figure to a half of that for 1932.
12. At the end of January sales of Hong Kong Opiuni ceased, and after this all opium of the ordinary grade wasi ob- tained from the Singapore Monopoly in accordance with a re- solution passed at the Bangkok Opium Conference in 1931. Only two sizes were sold in extruded tubes containing .02, and .2 of a tael respectively. Sales which had already fallen from 7,500 in 1923 to 1,500 taels per week, within two weeks of the introduction of the Singapore type had fallen to 800 taels, and after the close of the special campaign against opium divans at the end of October further decreased to about 500 taels or under. Many complaints were received as to the effect the new opium had on the smokers and the Monopoly Analyst was in- structed to investigate the matter on his way through Singapore. He failed to find anything which could account for the extreme unpopularity of this opium, except that it contained a higher proportion of Persian opium than the smokers had been accus- tomed to. It was expected that smokers would overcome their objections when they grew more accustomed to the strange blend, but this has not proved to be the case.
In fact if any. thing the unpopularity has increased. The strange thing is that such complaints have ever been heard in Malaya, where there is also a large Cantonese population. It was of course known previously that the Chiuchow and Amoy Chinese had a liking for Persian opium, while Cantonese always preferred Indian opium, but as the Cantonese in Malaya had not displayed any marked distaste for the Government opium as sold there, and moreover Macau which only used Persian opium showed no decrease in the revenue from opium during the past few years after the cessation of open tendering for the Opium Farm, it could never have been anticipated that Hong Kong Cantonese should have manifested such a marked dislike for the new opium.
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13. Another cause for the large decrease in sales of Govern- ment opium was the extraordinary cheapness of Chinese raw opium. Probably the economic factor was the stronger, since
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trade and unemployment were markedly bad throughout the year. If the decrease in sales of Government opium had meant that the population were at last turning against opium it would have been a matter for congratulation, but in fact the reverse was actually the case, and never before has opium smoking been so widespread.
Chinese Raw Opium,
14. In 1931 seizures of Chinese raw opium amounted to 22,994 taels in 338 seizures, while in the past year 52,749 taels were seized in 573 seizures. It was reported that the opium trade in the Kwangsi province, through which most of the opium from Yunnan and Kweichow must pass on its way to this Colony, was in a state of suspense for the last six months of the year, owing to a dispute concerning the amount and method of taxation, and there were reported to be no less than six million taels held up at or near the port of exit from that province. The 1982 crop in Yunan had been a bumper one, estimated at 75 to 100 million taels, but the prices realised proved ex- tremely disappointing to the farmers as well as embarrassing to the province as a whole, with the result that the Yunnan dollar already badly depreciated fell still more, and I was informed that at one time the price of a tael of opium there was equivalent to only five cents in Hong Kong currency. Very little new raw opium of the 1933 crop has yet been met with in seizures here, and there appears every likelihood of Yunnan opium becoming still cheaper before the 1934, crop comes on the market.
15. The retail prices of raw Chinese opium, at the end of the year in Hong Kong varied from $1.80 to $2.00 per tael for opium coming from Canton, and from $1.70 to $1.90 per tael coming direct from Wuchow the port of exit for the Kwangsi province. The actual difference in cost price at these two cities naturally would be slightly greater, as all Canton opium would be taxed first at Wuchow, while that coming direct would have only been taxed in Kwangsi, the opium being of the same quality, all coming from Yunnan or Kweichow. According to accounts of dealing in raw opium examined during the course of the year, it was at times possible to buy raw opium here in small quantities as low as $1.80 to $1.50 per tael.
16. The abundance of Yunnan opium as shown by the fall in price was fully confirmed by photographs which reached the Colony of huge opium convoys, and by accounts in the Press, for example, that on December 9th a huge convoy of 1,600,000 taels arrived at Poseh in Kwangsi from Yunnan, as the result of the settlement of the dispute over taxation.
17. Not only was opium cheap in Yunnan but in one of the Northern provinces the price in the country as paid to the cultivator was only 8 cents per tael. The year 1933 must therefore go down to history as the year of cheap opium throughout China.
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