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15. It has been suggested that, if confirmed opium smokers are registered and the use of opium is otherwise prohibited, the British Government will have done everything possible to discharge its obligations under the Opium Convention. The Committee cannot agree with this suggestion. No Government placed as the Hongkong Government is can put a stop to a national habit of an alien race so long as it has not the full support of public opinion, and the confining of opium to a few smokers, or total prohibition which would be preferable, would result in a flood of smuggling which it would be impossible to stem.

The difficulties of detection of smuggling are in present circumstances insuperable. Hongkong, with a total area of 376 square miles, has a coast and frontier line of 400 miles over any part of which Chinese may come and go at will. Opium in bulk comes by ocean going steamer, of which the crew, frequently, and sometimes the officers, are in league with the smuggler, and it comes also by launch and by junk. The opium is fre- quently put overboard outside the harbour limits, having attached to it a float which remains submerged for a given period and then rises to the surface. The Hongkong Government is about to incur heavy expense in providing a new sea-going revenue vessel to operate outside harbour limits. Many Revenue and Police launches operated by the Chinese Government carry on an active trade in contraband and, having a Government status, they are more or less immune from search. One such launch was recently sunk in Hongkong waters, and on examination of the wreck opium and arms were found in it. Opium is carried in receptacles bolted outside the bottom of a junk, in a hollowed out spar, in a compartment inside a tin of petrol or a jar of wine, in the leg of a bedstead, in a bag of flour, in a woman's hair, in fact in every possible place in which the ingenuity of the Chinese can devise means to hide an article the bulk of which is as small as its value is large. The Chinese, who will slice the top from a silver dollar, will hollow out the interior, refill with base metal and replace the top, would not stumble into such traps as the European might be able to set for him except by the merest chance. The Government's only efficacious weapon is money, and it is usually worth the smuggler's while to out-bid the Government. An unscrupulous Revenue Officer and an informer, working on strict business lines, concern themselves merely with the amount of the inducement, and are indifferent as to its source.

16. The Hongkong Government has been urged to supplement ordinary preventive measures by concentration on the detection of the capitalists who finance the smugglers. This Government has for years past been doing its utmost in this direction, with results comparable to the baling of water with a sieve. For many years large quantities of opium were smuggled into Hongkong from England where there was no control of export, and, except for occasional seizures, the Hongkong Government was powerless to deal with the matter. In 1916 Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company presented a memorial to the Imperial Government regarding the constant smuggling in their ships, pointing out that "the evil should be attacked at the root.

So long as opium can be thus sold wholesale in this country as freely as the most harmless and necessary foods, so long will the joint operation of laxity in the United Kingdom and severity abroad make illicit traffic easy and pro- fitable. When the opium is once divided into small parcels and distributed among numerous carriers, the difficulty of suppression is enormously increased. Messrs. Alfred Holt and Company would therefore urge upon His Majesty's Government the necessity of altering the law, so that the contraband trade may be stopped in the early stages.' The Imperial Government subsequently controlled the traffic, and no more opium came to Hongkong from England. Similarly opium from Persia and China is being poured into Hongkong. In 1923 the Senior Revenue Officer alone captured 716 illicit divan keepers, 3,359 illicit opium smokers, 386 traffickers in illicit opium, and 60 boilers of illicit opium. With opium altogether prohibited the Hongkong Government would lose the con- trol which it now has, smuggling would become universal, and consumption would be greatly increased. Hongkong would then be in the position of China, with opium smok- ing theoretically prohibited and practically uncontrolled, because uncontrollable.

17. Reform must come from within. The League of Nations has prevented opium from India reaching China and it may possibly find means to prevent Persian and Turkish opium from reaching China. China can and will grow all the opium that she requires as long as the opium habit is to the public taste and no really strong body of public opinion is opposed to it. It is the firm conviction of the Committee that under present circumstances no reasonable measure can be devised to reduce further the con- sumption of opium in Hongkong. The Committee is however in entire accord with the