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Appendix A.

ROYAL COMMISSION ON OPIUM.

Questions regarding opium consumption and opium revenue in the Colonies and

Dependencies of Singapore, Penang and Hongkong.

(1) Is opium commonly consumed by people of Chinese, Malay, or other Asiatic race in your

Colony ?

(2) What proportion should you conjecture of the adult males of each race are consumers? Do

women consume opium to any extent? Do children ?

(3) What have you observed to be the effects of opium moral, physical and social, on its consumers? Is the effect the same on consumers of each race, or can you draw distinctions between the effects on consumers of different races ?

(4) Do consumers chiefly smoke, or do they eat opium? or do they drink a decoction of opium? If

opium is taken in two or all of these forms, can you distinguish between the effects of each ? (5) Do the great majority of opium consumers become slaves to the drug and eventually become "opium sots," or do you find the majority, or a considerable proportion, of consumers to be moderate consumers ?

(6) Is it correct to say that there cannot be such a thing as moderation in the consumption of opium? Do you know any or many cases of consumers who have taken their opium for years without harm to themselves? If so, please give description of one or two of such cases in detail.

(7) Do a majority of the labourers, or of the merchants, or of the artizans, belonging to any Asiatic race with which you are conversant, consume opium? If so, what is generally the effect of the opium habit on their efficiency in their calling?

If possible give details and examples in reply to this question.

(8) How does the use or abuse of opium among any Asiatic races with which you are conversant compare with the use or abuse of alcohol among such races, in regard to the effect on consumers? (9) Is the habit of consuming opium condemned as degrading, or injurious, by the general opinion of the Chinese, Malay, or other Asiatic race? How would such races regard the opium habit as compared with the alcohol habit?

(10) Can and do opium consumers break themselves of the opium habit ?

(11) If the supply of Indian opium were to be cut off, what would be the effect on opium consumers, and on the Asiatic population of your neighbourhood? Would they supply themselves with opium from elsewhere? or would they take to alcohol or to some narcotic other than opium? or would they abstain altogether?

(12) What proportion of your Colony's revenue accrues from opium? If the opium revenue were extinguished, could your Colony raise the needful revenue otherwise? What would the people say to the loss of the opium revenue and the obligation to make up the deficit ?

(13) Do people of European race contract the opium habit in any numbers? If not, why not? And

what inakes Asiatics more liable to contract the habit ?

(14) How are opium consumers led to use the drug? Do they usually or often take it in the first instance to allay physical pain? Is opium, within your knowledge, a prophylactic against fever, or rheumatism, or malaria? Or is it so regarded commonly by any Asiatic race with which you are conversant ?

(15) Do opium consumers themselves usually desire to get free of the opium habit ?

(16) Is there among any Asiatic race in your Colony a feeling of hostility against England for allowing

opium to be exported from India? If so, how does that feeling display itself.

(17) Have you any other remark to make in regard to opium consumption among the people around

you ?

N.B.-It is desired that gentlemen who kindly undertake to deal with these questions should answer

as many as they can.

October, 1893.

By Order of

THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON OPIUM.

Answers regarding opium consumption and opium revenue in Hongkong.

QUESTION NO. 1.-Opium is not consumed by Chinese except through the pipe. I have heard of only two or three cases, but have not seen a Chinese opium-eater. The habit must be very rare amongst them. Opium-eaters are known amongst the sea-faring Indian population here. Khalasses and other resident Indians-the Indian Police and the Indian soldiers and Malays-I know nothing about.