386
members of this Council by leaving the official members absolutely free to vote as they like that will be a very fair solution of that difficulty. Again I say it is very unsatisfactory that the case should be before us without a commission having gone into it and the whole matter being threshed out. I oppose the second reading.
agree
very
Hon. GERSHOM STEWART Your Excellency, I had no intention of addressing the Council on such a technical matter as opium until Mr. in Pollock made his concluding remarks which he left it to be inferred that the unofficial members were entirely with him in opposing this Bill. I have had one or two conversations about it and I must say I support the Govern- ment, and think their contention is quite a fair one in protecting the opium farmer in his monopoly. Opium is a subject of a technical nature and one is naturally averse to giving an opinion about the inner workings of it. At the
time same
I think there are certain principles on which I fail to
with Dr. Ho Kai and Mr. Pollock. It has been up to the present Into that moment entirely a lawyer's battle. battle I only enter with diffidence. At the same time it seems to me there are other aspects beside the strictly legal ones. I do not agree with Dr. Ho Kai and Mr. Pollock that the words of the Prepared Opium Ordinance settle the question altogether. The Ordinance lays down that prepared opium is that which has been subjected to artificial heat. You go a little further. What is artificial heat? It seems to me it is a reasonable contention to say that you cannot make opium into a pill without subjecting it to some heat, and it seems to me that it is heat other than that generated by the opium itself that must be used; I do not think these pills can come into being in the natural way. The legal aspect of it I will leave the lawyers to fight out. There is one point that seems odd and that is to find that there are 83 places which deal in opium. I thought there was only one. In that case we may have a thousand apparently. It is an unfair thing for these petitions to come here and say that these people who buy the pills are those who seek relief from the opium habit. Dr. Ho Kai has informed us that the opium farmer cannot deal in raw opium. Is it then bought at auctions here or is it brought into Hong. kong ? The Attorney-General's terms may appear harsh. but still this opium must be brought in clandestinely,
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL.-It is brought in illicitly, secretly.
His EXCELLENCY-If it is raw opium no one can have it in his possession in quantities of less than one chest.
Hon. Mr. STEWART-The opium does not grow here so it must be brought, in and if so
that privilege of the farmer is being infringed. With regard to these small shops where the
carried on, opium traffic is
I think if they were allowed to multiply they would do the Colony a great deal of harm. The biggest mistake the Government could commit would be not to keep as much control as possible over that objectionable habit. The opium farmer in this case was, I think, acting quite within his rights in seeking protection from these small dealers. I understand the Government took steps to counteract the morphine habit. This Bill to-day is merely an application of the same principle. On moral grounds and on the general principle of fairness I think we should protect the opium farmer.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL Your Excellency. I have nothing to withdraw of what I said. What I have said is that owing to the illicit introduction of opium into this Colony and the preparation thereof in the Colony and owing to the difficulty of prevention from the faulty language in the definition. the opium farmer requires that protection which an Ordinance alone can give him; that is the short and long of it. I have not come here with it prejudged. nor has the Government pre- judged it. What the hon. member meant was that the Government had well considered the matter. We were forced to take this action because it was brought to the notice of
this Council that in the matter of the introduc tion of opium into Hongkong the spirit of the Ordinance could be infringed if not the letter. The intention was to give the opium farmer in
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
|
return for large sum of money paid | into the revenue an exclusive monopoly. Once you admit the principle of a monopoly you are bound to admit the principle of the absolute and full protection of it. I will not take up the Council any more because I have fully explained the position of the Government. This is no new law. Hon. Mr. Pollock took the narrow view of it. Possibly he has an unconscious bias after he has been considering it pro- | fessionally to those who object to this matter. and it may be that it will not be safe for us to follow blind-led where we should otherwise be prepared to go, if they were sure he was absolutely unbiassed in the matter. I can only say he has charged us with coming here with the case prejudged, but as he had been carefully considering and offering advice to those who opposed this measure, in the opinion of this Council his opposition to the Bill did not come with that weight which would otherwise attach to it. With regard to the pro- secution at the Magistracy, which was brought by the opium farmer, the case failed because you cannot get a man to come forward and swear that he saw heat applied to it and there- fore the Magistrate dismissed the case with costs. We now ask you to alter the definition so that the opium farmer may be protected from these illicit dealers. It was asked by the hon. member why the case was not taken to the Supreme Court. I do not know what the decision there might have been. What we ask this Council to do is to give effect to that protection of the opium farmer which it intended. Your Excellency I submit that nothing that has fallen from either the hon. member for the Chamber of Commerce or from Hon.
Ho Kai-the first part of Dr. speech was extremely interesting historically has any relevance to the subject, and I move that the Bill be read a second time.
whose
HIS EXCELLENCY-Gentlemen, the Govern- ment has been accused of bringing in this Bill to interfere with rested interests and thereby doing an injustice to certain traders in this Colony. In the first place I claim for the Government an absolute right of dealing with a drug like opium in any way, as it is the undoubted right of the Government to deal with the sale of alcoholic liquor in any way it Can it be denied pleases, or things like arms. that owing to the heavy increase in the arms licence the business of every Chinese arms dealer in this Colony has been absolutely closed. and can it be denied that the Government did that with their eyes open, of malice prepense if you 80
wish the call it raised
licence 90 high caused we
these
dealers arms close ? Can
anyone say that these men had a right to be compensated for the businesses that they lost? Can it be deni-
to
that
to
to
ever
come into ex.
ed that various dealers in spirituous liquors have of late owing to the large increase in the price of licences closed their businesses? Or will anyone contend that they should be no longer compensated because they can
take out & licence. How did afford
farm the opium
Did hon. members know that istence? in days gone by the preparation of and dealing in opium was licensed out to licencees, and this Government for its own objects. wanting to control the traffic in opium, swept away all these licencees and put the licence in the hands of one man. Did anyone claim at the time that whose businesses had been these licencees swept away should be compensated? But to place this while claiming the right monopoly in the hands of one man to the exclu- | sion of all others, I say that careful investiga- tion shows that these petitioners, those of them who have been dealing in these pills, have got no real claim for consideration. They took out 1895 till licenses for three
years, from to deal in these pills. They 1898,
80 when they
licensed admitted
in trafficing opium. Sub- they were sequently, owing to the smallness of their businesses, the opium farmer considered it Now the price not necessary to license them. for smoking opium has been enormously raised owing to the large increase in the fees, and the Government find that while the business these dealers has increased, at the opium has decreased. If we
of same time the farmer's opium
were
sale of the
[May 21, 1904. believed that the trade of these dealers in pills and wine has increased because people wish to avoid the opium habit there might be something in their cry. But this is what we find written in one of the leading Chinese newspapers in an article against this very Bill. This shows, I think, what the real business of these opium pill dealers has been of late. Swallowing anti-opium pills is more handy than smoking opium with lamp and pipe. Opium smokers who happen to be travelling or in mourning or watched by their parents or relatives prefer to use anti-opium pills as a substitute for opium. Prices for prepared opium will undoubtedly be raised on account of the fee for the opium monopoly being consider. Coolies of the poorer class ably increased. who cannot afford to smoke opium will be If they compelled to use anti-pills instead. cannot obtain anti-opium pills they will leave the Colony and the result will be a lack of coolie labour in the Colony." That is the way the man in the street looks at this Bill, a very different light indeed from that in which the to it have been presented objections
TIS. I
on find
investigation that the sale of opium pills in the Colony
about
9,000 bottles a year. Large is
sold at 25 cents and small ones at If we strike an average we will see that the sales amount to between 32000, and $3000 per annum, and this is the enormous and valuable trade that we are accused of interfering with. Gentlemen the only point to my mind that has been made to-day was perhaps that of the wholesale dealers of these pills who deal in them for the purpose of export. There are such dealers, and no doubt their trade is very the retail of larger than that dealers who are simply trying to cut into the monopoly of the opium farmer. I do not know whether the Government would be able to arrange anything with the farmer in the matter of licensing these wholesale dealers and placing those valuable goods which come from Canton in bond while in the Colony and allowing them to export them out of bond; but on behalf of the Government I undertake to try and arrange something of the sort that no suspicion of injustice may rest upon our heads. (Applause).
to
bottles are 11 cents.
much
SO
On a division there voted for the second read- ing-the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney- General, the Registrar-General, the Colonial Treasurer, the Director of Public Works, the Harbour Master, Sir C. A. Chater, Hon. Ger- shom Stewart and Hon. W. J. Gresson (9); and against-Hon. Dr. Ho Kai, Hon. Wei Yuk. and Hon. H. E. Pollock.
The second reading was accordingly carried.
FINANCE COMMITEEE.
held after the Council, the Colonial Secretary A meeting of the Finance Committee wa5
(Hon. A. M. Thompson) presiding.
The following votes were passed :
COTTON-GROWING IN THE NEW TERRITORY,
The Officer Administering the Government recommended the Council to vote a sum of $200 in aid of the vote Botanical and Afforesta- tion Department, under Other Charges, for preliminary experiments in cotton-growing in the New Territories.
READJUSTMENT OF LOTS.
The Officer Administering the Government recommended the Council to vote a sum of $34,700 in aid of the vote Public Works, Extraordinary, for readjustment of Kowloon Marine Lots 44-46 and Kowloon Inland Lots 887-897, Taikoksui.
TREE-PLANTING,
The Officer Administering the Government recommended the Council to vote a sum of $1,500 in aid of the vote Botanical and Affores- tation Department, Other Charges, for tree- planting.
This was all the business.
From the Peking and Tientsin Times we see that the Dallas Company's total receipts in Tientsin for seven nights were $8,999, but on the last night a number of complimentary tickets were given to the guarantors and their friends. The Company only played four nights in Shanghai, and open here at the Theatre Royal to-morrow.
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