THE ROYAL COMMISSION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 0f>IUJR TO^FFIG. 
 
 Special Heport of le EvidencB taken 
 
 in India. 
 
 Part II. 20th November, 1893. 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY, or ONE ANNA, for each daily part. 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, 
 Broadway Chambers, London, S. W. 
 
 Also at the 
 
 Methodist Publishing House, 45, Dharamtala St., Calcutta. 
 
IliB llopl Oomniission on OpiuiR. 
 
 ■*000^-- " 
 
 Eisliop Thoburn’s Evidence. 
 
 The Rev. J. M. Thoburn, D.D. examined, stated, in answer to 
 questions by the President, as follows : — I am a missionary, and am at 
 present Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in India and 
 Malaysia. I have been thirty-four years in the East, and have personal 
 experience in almost all parts of India. My present duty is to superin- 
 tend all the Methodist Churches in the Indian Empire. We have 
 missions among thirteen different races, and I am expected to visit all 
 these every year, and I have therefore had a very wide field of observation. 
 We have a large number of Natives under our supervision, about 50,000, 
 chiefly in Northern India, but we have some of all these races. In my 
 early life in India, I spent a great deal of time among villagers, and had 
 opportunities of ascertaining their views on public questions, and I am 
 convinced that the habit of opium-eating is a very great evil, but not so 
 much in villages as in towns. I have had opportunities of comparing 
 Indian Natives with the Chinese in Singapore and Penang, and in every 
 place I regard the opium habit as a very bad habit and very-deleterious to 
 those who indulge in it ; but it is very much more mischievous among 
 the Chinese than.among the Natives of India. The opium habit is worse 
 in Rajputana than in Rohilkund; whilst in Kumaon and Garhwal and many 
 other parts of India it is not used at all. The physical condition of the 
 people of the Punjab is very satisfactory when they are not under the effect 
 of this or any other pernicioirs habit ; they are a finer race natimally than 
 the people in many other parts of India. The lower classes of Rajputana 
 are an inferior set of men. The opium habit is certainly more prevalent 
 among the lower classes than among men of the superior classes. There 
 is very great difference in the hold the opium habit has upon different 
 persons ; some can give it up without much trouble ; with others it is 
 nearly impossible. I have been told by intelligent Chinamen that it has 
 a peculiar hold upon those of their countrymen who indulge in the habit ; 
 it has a fascination for them, and they cannot give it up without extreme 
 suffering. It would be difficult to fonn an estimate of the proportion 
 of the population who indulge in the habit temperately, and those who 
 take it in excess ; but, as a general imle, you can tell a man who takes 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 
 VV\*| x»c' 
 
 'Ate 
 
 opium in oxcess by his countenance. Speaking roughly, I tvouIcI say that, 
 among tho.se who are in a position to get it, aboixt one-half use it in 
 excess ; among others, about o ne-tenth. Habitual consumers of opimn 
 among the poor expend about one-eighth of their earnings, which, as a 
 minimum, would mean, say, one pice ; the maximum, to a man of the 
 labouring class, would be about four pice, the earnings of that class 
 ranging from eight to twelve pice a day. At the lowest, a man spends 
 about one-eighth, at the highest, from one-third to one-half. It is very 
 common for them to spend one-half, and as the highest of the class earn 
 about twelve pice, it follows that their children suffer from insufficiency 
 of food. There are some forty or fifty millions of people in India who 
 have insufficient food as it is, and if one-third of a labourer’s income is 
 taken for indulgence in the opium habit, it follows that it mirst cause 
 suffering among their children. I think the worst of the evil is that it 
 is the cause of the staiwation of millions of children. This applies to 
 Eajputana more particularly, to my certain knowledge, and it is much 
 the same among the poorer classes in the Pxmjab. The classes which 
 are called the “ depressed classes ” are the same in all parts of the 
 empire. 
 
 Q. — Can you give a general -view as to your experience as to the 
 results of the opium habit physically, mentally, and morally ? 
 
 A. — Physically, where opium is used at all to excess, it xmdoubtedly 
 weakens the constitution after a very few years. It differs, however, in 
 individuals ; some may take it for many years without much apparent 
 harm ; but, if you take fifty confirmed opium smokers,- you would find 
 that forty were physically affected ; they show it at a glance. With 
 regard to those who eat opium, tb.e effects are not. so bad ; there is a 
 great difference between eating opium and smoking or drinking it. In 
 the Punjab opuuu is chiefly taken in a solid form ; sometimes they mix 
 it with other substances, .but that is more commonly done in Rajputana. 
 
 Q.-— Have you any experience as to the vahie of opium as a protec- 
 tive against fever. 
 
 A. — I think that is a popular delusion. I have never met a doctor 
 ; who prescribed opium in any form as a protective against fever, 
 or a cure for fever. The natives of India, especially the poorer classes, 
 are subject to all manner of delusions. They believe that anything 
 which makes a man feel more comfortable is doing them good and it un- 
 doubtedly makes them feel the effects less. I have been in districts 
 where the natives expose children in the rain as a cure for measles. 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 Q. — On this point yon give 3"our belief, as a layman ? 
 
 A. — Certainly ; but I have had experience in the most sickly places 
 and swamps where they never use opium, and where some of our Civil 
 Surgeons say that it does protect them from fever they don’t obtain 
 exemption from fevers. 
 
 Q. — Have you any experience of the value of opium as enabling 
 people to bear an unusual amount of bodily toil ? 
 
 A — I have given some attention to the point. They can carry heavy 
 burdens, perhaps to the extent of fifty per cent more, within a given time : 
 but they have no powers of endurance, and ultimately it tends to break 
 them down. At Singapore, where there are about ten thousand jinrilc- 
 shaw drawers, I am told that they use opium to give them strength and 
 endurance, but the reaction which ensues must, in the nature of the cases, 
 and it undoubtedly does, break down the constitution. Intelligent Chinese 
 connected with the administration of the public revenue at Singapore, told 
 me that those ten thousand men don’t live on the average more that seven 
 years. I asked an intelligent physician if that statement was correct, 
 and he said that it undoubtedly did shorten their lives very much. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything to tell us with reference to the manner in 
 which the opium habit is regarded by public opinion from a moral point 
 of view ? 
 
 A. — The opium habit is considered a public vice generally, and 
 in sections where it is more common it is in less disfavour. Wherever 
 the Hindustani language is spoken, the term “ aphimi ” is used, and is 
 regarded as a term of abuse. It has a sting which does not belong to 
 the epithet “ drunkard.” An opium eater is regarded as untrustworthy ; 
 he would steal or do anything to get the drug. Hence in most parts of 
 India it is considered disreputable. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that persons who consume opium are generally un- 
 reliable and dishonest ? 
 
 * 
 
 A. — Yes, unless they are well-to-do men ; if they have not the money 
 and become confirmed in the habit, I would not tnist them. I would 
 not trust their word, but I cannot say that ordinarily a man who 
 takes opium is dishonest or untruthful. 
 
 Q. — In China it is a matter of common knowledge that many 
 natives, who are employed in confidential positions, are more or less con- 
 sumors of opium. 
 
 A. — I don’t deny it. I have stood before an opium den in a street 
 hard by and watched the people entering it. I found that the lowest 
 
( « ) 
 
 amount a man spent in his purcliase was two annas, and the largest was 
 one and-a-half rupees. When a poor man must have a large quantity of 
 opium daily, there is only one way for him to get it. 
 
 Q. — With regard to the licensing system, do you consider that the 
 restriction upon the production and sale of opium is regarded as an evil. 
 
 A. — I should say that anything put upon sale publicly will have its sale 
 increased, no matter what the article is. Then when you add to that the 
 authority of the Government, the people generally think that because it is 
 under Government restriction its value is enhanced, and that tends to 
 increase the sale. 
 
 Q. — Suppose the Government did not consider itself called upon to 
 prohibit the sale of opium ; the imposition of license duty on the sale, or 
 the levy of export duty must, to that extent, be a restraining influence. 
 
 A. — It is a chai’ge upon it, and my idea is that the sale will be increased 
 by any policy except prohibition. If you close a few shops it is so much 
 in favour of morality, but as long as you keep enough shops open to 
 supply the public, in the nature of the case the use of opium will continue 
 to increase. 
 
 Q. — But the system of licences to a certain extent is a restriction as 
 compared with free sale. 
 
 A. — Certainly ; anything that reduces the number of shoj^s is better 
 than free trade. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell whether the prohibition of the consumption of 
 opium on the premises has been fully carried out in Calcutta yet ? 
 
 A — I think it is carried out as far as I know everywhere now : in 
 Calcutta it has been carried out since March or April last. 
 
 Q. — Have the results of this prohibition been beneficial. 
 
 A. — I think undoubtedly they have. There have been some private 
 opium clubs set up in Bombay, and I am told in this city, but they will 
 do much less harm than the opium dans which used to exist. 
 
 Q. — As you consider it desirable to prohibit the sale of opium, would 
 public opinion be in favour of such a measure ? 
 
 A. — I say without exception, that if you leave a million of people 
 'from the higher classes and from thirty to fifty millions from the lowest 
 ^ classes out of consideration, the balance of the people would be overwhelm- 
 ' ingly in favour of closing opium shops. 
 
 Q. — Do you recognise any exceptional difficulty in the carrying out 
 of such a measure by a Government like the British Government of India ? 
 
C 7 ) 
 
 A. — Nothing very difficult, but they would have to consider the 
 question of confirmed opium eaters ; I should be glad to see some con- 
 sideration shown in such cases. 
 
 Q. — Supposing a policy of prohibition were adopted, how would you 
 propose that the loss of revenue resulting from such prohibition should bo 
 met. Would you be prepared to propose additional taxation, or can you 
 suggest economies or other means of meeting the difficulty ? 
 
 A. — I am not a British subject, and therefore I feel a little hesitancy 
 in expressing an opinion, but I must say that the people of India are 
 extremdy sensitive about any increase of taxation. If assured on that 
 point, they would be almost unanimously in favour of doing away with the 
 production and sale of opium. But if I may be allowed a single suggestion, 
 
 I would say that if tobacco were put in the place of opium, it would yield 
 almost the same revenue ; certainly one-half. And if the British Govern- 
 ment were to take into consideration the fact that the heaviest portion of the 
 military expenditure is incurred in the North-West Provinces and on the 
 North-West frontier, and, would regard it is an Imperial and not an 
 Indian question, and, in view of that fact, if the Imperial Government 
 would pay a part, if not the whole, of the military expenditure on the 
 Nbrth-Western frontier, this question would disappear. 
 
 Q. — Are you aware that, by a declaration of the representatives of 
 the British Foreign Office in the House of Commons, the position now 
 taken up by the British Government in regard to opium is this, that it is 
 free to the Government of China to adopt any policy they think fit in 
 regard to the importation of opium. 
 
 A. — I am aware of that. As to the political view of the question, 
 
 I don’t feel competent to express any opinion. 
 
 Q. — Do you regard this matter as a moral one ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. 
 
 Q. — Do you think there is any danger of the habit spreading among 
 the Indian people generally ? 
 
 A. — I think, if the present policy is pursued, it will. I think there 
 is great danger, because the people are becoming more prosperous, and if ; 
 they had the means, and if the sale is within their reach, there is the i 
 great danger of its spreading all over the Empire and becoming a very 
 common habit. 
 
 Q. — Do you know anything of the statistics of consumption in India 
 
 A. — I do not. 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 Q. — You are not prepared to say what the statistics would sliow as 
 to increased consumption as per head of the populatioy ? 
 
 A. — I liave had no opportunity of collecting statistics. 
 
 By Sir William Koberts. Q. — I think you said that the evil effects 
 of opium-taking were seen in some districts and not in others. Bo you 
 know of any malarial district where there is not a belief in the saving 
 power of opium ? 
 
 A. — In the Terai districts of Rohilkund, about thirty years ago, I 
 never heard of opium being used, though it is the most malarial district 
 in all India. I should have discovered it if the opium habit had been 
 there. 
 
 Q. — Is that the only district you can speak of ? 
 
 A. — I am told that in some of the districts in Lower Bengal it is 
 not used ; in others it is, but I cannot speak from personal observation. 
 
 Q. — You have heard it said that it enables a man to do vdth less 
 food ? 
 
 A. — I believe it does : he does eat less when he has the opium habit. 
 
 Q. — You are aware that the belief in the prophylactic power of 
 opium in India is not confined to ignorant people ? 
 
 A. — When I first came to India people thought that we could not 
 do without alcoholic drink. 
 
 Q. — Do you regard drinking as an equally bad vice ? 
 
 A. — It is like asking which is worse — a cobra, or a kerait. People 
 I who drink alcohol are willing that their children should learn the habit, but 
 Ut is not so in the case of opium-taking. 
 
 Q. — You are aware that it is a common custom for them to 
 administer small quantities of opium to their children ? 
 
 A. — It is a very pernicious habit, and is complained about. Natives 
 generally regard it as a vicious practice, and it leads to the death of 
 many children, and certainly injures many permanently. I know a case of 
 one of our own missionaries whose infant had been drugged by a native 
 nurse, and almost lost his life. 
 
 In answer to Mr. Pease and Mr. Wilson the witness said ; I have 
 not noticed any difference in the toleration of opium between Europeans 
 and Natives. We do not admit any personal use of opium, and if 
 the habit is acquired, we put our people under discipline. The use 
 of opium, in my opinion, is inconsistent with a correct Christian life. 
 It creates certain vices, which no other habit does. I once asked the 
 
C 9 ) 
 
 Commissioner of Police why he closed opium shops at 6 p.m., and left 
 liquor shops open up to 9 p.ji., and he said, tliat if he did not do so, 
 all the bad characters of the city would be found congregated there, and 
 he dared not leave them open. Opium-smoking takes tlie moral stamina 
 out of a man. The head-quarters of my mission are in the United 
 States. We have about eighty foreign missionaries, and a large number, 
 something over a thousand, of native preachers of aU classes, some of 
 them medical missionaries. The Eajputs are the descendants of the 
 ancient warrior-castes of India. They used to be a kind of aristocracy 
 and at the present time they would still be regarded for the most part as 
 forming a sort of an aristocracy, though very much reduced. This would 
 refer in that province to the upper classes ; and people, when they use 
 this term, refer to these people as belonging to a particular caste. As a 
 matter of fact, I never knew one doctor who used opium as a medicine 
 in cases of fever. I have' been told by doctors that it does good as a 
 preventive against fewer ; but I never found one use it himself for that 
 purpose. I regard the whole thing as a myth. There are several 
 forms of using opium. Smoking is held as its worst abuse, worse than 
 eating or drinking it ; but indxilgence in any form of ft gets a man a 
 reputation which is by no means favoi;rable. Opium-smoking is more 
 common in China, and eating it is more common in India. There 
 are a number of races in India, and I do not think ft would be practicable 
 or desirable to discriminate in any way between one race, or one part of 
 the country, and another, as far as the opium habit is concerned. India 
 lias become cosmopolitan, and it would be impossible to draw a line 
 between them. I referred to the use of opium being worse than the use 
 of alcohol, in the sense that it undoubtedly leads to immorality in the 
 sensual sense of the word. I was told by a gentleman in Singapore, who 
 had gone in disguise through its streets, that there was not a public 
 woman in the city who was not a opium-smoker. I have been often told 
 that. It was accessory to that vice, and it was kept for that purpose. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Mowbray. — You have told us that a large number of 
 children are actually starved in consequence of the waste of money upon 
 opium by their parents ; have you any reason to think that, if parents 
 spent less upon opium, they would not waste their money either upon 
 alcohol or ganja ? 
 
 A. — What I meant was that the infants were receiving insufficient 
 
 food. 
 
 Q. — Therefore to prevent the evil which you point out, it would be 
 necessary to go a great deal further and prohibit other things. 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 A — Ganja oug-lit to be prohibited, no doubt ; and the liquor habit 
 produces the same results. Under the Bengal outstill system, the worst 
 thing was the starvation of children. I have been to Guzerat and Kutch, 
 about Baroda and Ahmedabad, but my knowledge of Guzerat is very 
 limited. 
 
 To Mr. Fanshawe. — I lived first in Kumaon, then in Garhwal and 
 Boliilkund, and have frequently been in the IDoab. I have had very little 
 experience of the Panjab. When I spoke of the opium liabit starvnng 
 children, I alluded to the practice among what we call the “ depressed 
 classes ” in all these provinces, and I spoke of the two hundred and 
 eighty millions all over, including Bengal. I was speaking of all 
 India when I said that there would be an overwhelming majority 
 of the people in favour of proliibition. I have been in about six or 
 seven provinces, about half over India. I have expressed the opinion 
 that smoking opium was more deleterious than eating it. If the people 
 can get the money they will go on increasing the dose, but the majority 
 cannot get the money. Those who can eat two pice worth do so ; 
 those who can only get one pice, take one pice worth. But the tendency in 
 all cases is to increase the dose, and they are only limited according to tlieir 
 means. This is what I have been told. This habit continues all 
 through the year ; I liave not noticed any difference. 
 
 By Sir James Lyall. — You have used the word drunkard ; what is 
 the native term people use for the word drunkard ? 
 
 A. — It differs ; mutioallah is a very common word. 
 
 Q. — Do you really think tiiat the term mutwallah is a less opprobri- 
 ous term than the word aphimi ? 
 
 A. — I think so. 
 
 Q. — Does not the term aphimi apply to what is called an opium sot ? 
 
 A. — It corresponds with the term drunkard, but it has a sting in it 
 that the word drunkard has not. 
 
 Q. — If the use of opium as a stimulant were stopped, would it not 
 be likely that the poorer classes would spend as much money or more 
 upon buying spirits or hemp drugs ? 
 
 A. — I should say that the same policy should apply to ganja and 
 spirits as well. 
 
 Q. — You would have a general system working ? 
 
 A. — I think any of these drugs or drinks in the case of these very 
 poor people proves a scourge. 
 
( 11 )' 
 
 Q. — You do it amongst the people of your own church. If you 
 find a man beginning to take opium you bring him into discipline, as yoir 
 term it, and the same as regards hemp drugs or spirits ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Opium is, I think, you know, used in India by the common 
 people in villages, who form a great mass, for medicinal purposes, for 
 themselves and their cattle too. You propose that it should be prohibited 
 except for medicinal purposes. Have you ever tried to think out how 
 opium could be readily supplied for medical wants, and yet its use 
 prohibited as a stimulant and ihto'xicaut ? 
 
 A. — I have thought a little over the subject. I do not think there 
 are insuperable difficulties, but there would bo a difficulty, no doubt. I have 
 seen it tried in my own country in places where they have prohibition. 
 It is always attended with difficulty, but they have succeeded in doing it. 
 
 Q. — Alcoholic drinks are not used as medicine as much as opium 
 
 A. — I don’t know that ; I think they are used as much. Some 
 forms of drink ai’e constantly used as medicine. 
 
 Q.— Anybody knows that the great difficulty in administration is 
 to get reliable officers. If you give an ordinary native of India some 
 powers or discretion he does very often make money out of it ? 
 
 A. — I understand that. 
 
 Q. — Even if your views were carried out, how could you possibly 
 get a system by which opium could be made available at one’s doors ? 
 
 A. — I think it Avould be no worse than it is now. I have just been in 
 Garhival where they have no opium whatever, and they get along very 
 well without it. I don’t value opium very much as a medicine, and I 
 don’t think it is what would be called a medical necessity among the 
 common idllagers. There must be a multitude of Aullages where they never 
 see it. 
 
 Q. — You suggested that a tax could be put upon tobacco, which 
 would raise as much money as opium ; are you aware that an attempt to 
 put a tax upon tobacco by the Shah of Persia lead to a grievous revolt ? 
 
 A. — I should not think the Shah ought to be mentioned in the same 
 connection with the Governor-General. I think the Governor-General 
 could do a thing without difficulty, which the Shah would not dare to try. 
 I may say I should not have ventured to make the suggestion if I had 
 not read that the same suggestion had been originally in the mind of 
 Sir John Strachey. He estimated that tliey could get a revenue of two 
 millions from this tax. 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 Q. — Are you aware that these things have been considered and 
 thought so unpopular tliat they have been abandoned ? 
 
 A. — Sir J. Strachey said it was unpopular, but still he said it was 
 practicable. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that the Govenanent of India is so popular that 
 it can afford to take tlie risk of adopting any such unpopular measure. 
 
 A. — I am glad you asked me the question. I have often persons 
 come to me talking confidentially, because I am not an Englishman, and 
 I believe that leaving out of consideration the same people I spoke of 
 a little while ago, of a million at the top and fifty millions at the bottom^ 
 with the balance of the people, the English Government is exceedingly 
 popular. 
 
 Q. — This popularity would bear additional taxation. 
 
 A. — E^pon tobacco it would. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Wilson. — Do you think that missionaries in this 
 country w'ould generally agree with the opinions you have expressed ? 
 
 i\.. — I think they would ; in some details they might differ. We 
 have missions in the Central Provinces and in Southern India. In my 
 earlier years I have come into personal contact with the people. Since I 
 became bishop, I have had more intercourse with the missionaries and most 
 of them have stronger views on the subject than I have. 
 
 Mr. Joseph G-. Alexander’s Evidence. 
 
 Q. — Chairman : — I suppose you will concur with me that the ar- 
 rangement in pursuance of which you are here to-day to give evidence 
 was one which was practically suggested to you by myself on behalf of 
 the Commission. It was not convenient to hold protracted sittings 
 before oirr early departure for India, and it was difficult to find a day for 
 your evidence in England. I, therefore, suggested tliat it woidd be a 
 convenience that you should meet us here and give your evidence in 
 Calcutta ? 
 
 A. — That was so. 
 
 Q. — I believe you are the Secretary of the Anti-Opium Association .’ 
 
 A. — Yes. I appeared before the Commission in London, and put 
 in a few documents which I thought might be useful at that stage, reserv- 
 ing further evidence. I need only repeat that I am Secretary of tin* 
 Society for the Suppression of tlie' Opium Trade, and have been so nearly 
 four and-a-half years. But I had for many years previously been a 
 member of the Executive Committee of the Society, and taken great 
 inlere,-.'! in it- work. 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 Q. — Yon are a barristor-at-law ? 
 
 A. — Yes, Imt I ]iave not been in practice since I became Secretary. 
 
 Q. — We may take it from yon that yon bare been actively concern- 
 ed in bring’in,sr tlio which yon wish to present to the consideration 
 
 of the Committee to-day nnder tlie notice of Members of Parliament, 
 and also before the public in England at public meetings, by pamphlets 
 and (itbcrwise ? 
 
 A. — Tliat is so. 
 
 Q. — 1 think it is jmnr wish that we sbonld regard the last memorial 
 presentf'd by yonr Society to Lord Kimberley as containing in brief 
 yonr case for the suppression of the opium trade ? 
 
 x\.. — That is so. Kot strictly the last memorial, but onr last 
 general memorial. We have since had occasion to address His Lordship 
 about Burma. 
 
 Q. — It would be for the convenience of the Commission and yonr 
 wish also that we should address yon questions which will enable yon 
 to submit to the consideration of the Commission tlie views and argu- 
 ments put forward in that last general memorial, supported by a greater 
 amount of evidence than yon could conveniently incorporate in a forma 
 document. That is so ; is it not ? 
 
 Ho Ijiputation of Motives. 
 
 A. — Yes. .But before entering upon the consideration of the points 
 in that document, I should like to take the opportunity of adopting on be- 
 half of the Society the very appropriate words with which your Lordship 
 closed your opening address the other day : “ To those engaged in the 
 
 weighty task of governing this country, I can give a assurance on the 
 part of the Commission that, in common with our fellow countrymen 
 at home, we admire and recognise to the full the admirable qualities for 
 which the Civil Service in India is so justly renowned.” Our Society is 
 composed of gentlemen who would be very sorry indeed to take up any- 
 thing like a hostile position towards the Government of India. We differ 
 from them on this very important question, but we are very anxious 
 not to impute evil motives. We know that men differ on great ques- 
 tions of morality and policy from various circumstances, and it is far 
 from our desire to take up any position wliich would assume that those 
 who are responsible for the Government of India are not actuated 
 by the highest motives in their desire to fulfil their duty towards the 
 people of India. In support of that I would mention that we have in 
 connection with opr Society a number of gentlemen who have spent a good 
 
( ) 
 
 part of their years in the service of the Government of India. The vener- 
 able Sir Arthnr Cotton, now more than ninety years of age, is one of our 
 Vice-Presidents and one of our most ardent supporters. I will not simply 
 say that he is proud as he says of what England has done in India, but 
 the way in which he has expressed it t(j myself and others is that he feels 
 intensely thankful to God for the wonderful providential way in which, as 
 he believes, England has been permitted to discharge its duty towards 
 India. Then we have on our Executive Committee Lieutenant-Geaieral 
 Tremenheere, who was for some years Administrator of Sindh, and who' 
 was also at one time the Chairman of our Executive Committee ; and 
 again Brigade-Surgeon Pringle, who has spent thirty years in the Medical 
 Service of India. We have also two other members of the Committee who 
 have sons in the Indian Civil Service. It will, therefore, be seen that we 
 are not likely to wish to take up any attitude of general hostility to the 
 Government of India. Our attitude is that, admiring that Government, 
 and rejoicing in what it has done for the people of India, we want to 
 remove from it a stigma which we believe rests upon it at the present time 
 in connection with its opium traffic. 
 
 The Vote of 1891. 
 
 Q. — Turning to the general memorial, I notice that in the first 
 paragraph reference is made to the vote taken in the House of Commons 
 on the tenth of April, 1891, when by a majority of thirty-one votes a 
 resolution was adopted in principle run in as follows :■ “This House is 
 of opinion that the system by which the Indian opium revenue is raised 
 is, morally indefensible, and would urge upon the Indian Government 
 that they should cease to grant licenses for the cultivation of tlie poppy 
 and sale of opium in British India, except to supply the legitimate demand 
 for medical purposes, and that they shoidd, at the same time, take 
 measures to arrest the transit of Malwa opium through British territory.” 
 Have you any observations to make upon that part of the memorial ? 
 
 A. — I should like to point out that we have adopted a somewhat 
 careful wording with regard to the action of the House of Commons. 
 The House adopted the resolution “ in principle.” A good deal has been 
 made of a somewhat technical point owing to the way in which resolu- 
 tions have to be submitted to the House of Commons. The motion 
 was not an affirmative motion ; it was an amendment to the motion to go 
 into the Chair. Sir Robert Fowler had given notice of an amendment 
 dealing with the financial question ; and the result was that whilst the 
 vote was taken on the main question, it was technically only a vote not to 
 go into Committee of Supply. At the same time, practically, as Members 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 of the House of Commons will recognise, it was an adoption of Sir J seph 
 Pease's words. Those words were preferred to the ordinary formal vote 
 submitted iii the ordinary course by Cxoveriiment. ^.Vt tliat time the rule 
 of the House was to rise at one o'clock. One o'clock liad almost arrived, 
 the intervention of a Member for one or two minutes was sufficient to 
 prevent any vote being taken on the amendment submitted by Sir Eobert 
 Fowler, and therefore Sir Joseph Pease’s ' resolution never became a 
 substantive question, and was not formally adopted and recorded on the 
 Minutes of the House. 
 
 Did England Force Opium on China. 
 
 Q. — In your second paragraph you allege tliat the use of opium brings 
 misery to countless millions in China, and that whereas we in England 
 subject the sale of opium to great restrictions, and it is recognised as you 
 allege by the entire medical ! profession as a dangerous poison ; on the 
 other hand, in our dealings with China we did in past years endeavour 
 to force the importation of opium into China by acts of war. You point 
 to the repugnance of the English people to the whole system as being 
 evidenced by resolutions passed at hundreds of public meetings almost 
 always witli complete unanimity ; and you refer to the large number of 
 petitions which are constantly being presented to Parliament in support 
 of the views of the Anti-Opium Association. I think that that is a fair 
 summary of your second paragraph. Have you anything that you wish 
 to say to us further with reference to the wars by which in your view the 
 legalisation of the traffic was wrung from China? I need scarcely point 
 put that those wars are now rather old history, and you will recognise that 
 the attitude of the Government is substantially changed, as is clearly 
 proved by the speech of Sir James Fergusson, so often referred to, and by 
 the speeches of Mr. Smith, Lord Cross and other representative public 
 men. 
 
 A. — With regard to that question of the wars, I should have been dis- 
 posed to say exceedingly little, looking upon them as past transactions, had 
 it not been for the evidence produced before the Commission in London. 
 As the members of the Commission in London will remember, we had 
 three gentlemen. Sir Thomas Wade, Mr. Lay and Dr. Lockhart, all 
 alleging that England never forced the opium trade upon^China. It 
 seem.^ to me that one can hardly allow such an allegation as that to 
 pass unchallenged, because, as we put it here, the fact of those wars, 
 and the fact that as we believe opium was by those wars] forced upon 
 China, impose upon the British nation a greater degree of respon- 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 sibility for this trade tlian it would have had if China had from the 
 beginning’ voluntarily accepted the trade. I am afraid, therefore, that I 
 shall have to trouble the Commission with some attempt to show that tlie 
 statomeuts of Sir Tliomas Wade, Mr. Lay and Dr. Lockliart are really 
 not well founded. In the first instance I shoirld like to refer to a pamph- 
 let “ The Opium Question at tlie Society of Arts,” by my predecessor, 
 the first Secretary of our Society, Mr. Storrs Turner. As I told the 
 Commission in London, he was very ill at that time, and was unable to 
 give evidence. In one portion of that pamphlet he has dealt very carefully 
 with this question. It was written in connection with the debate at the 
 Society of Arts meeting last year, when Sir Thomas W ade made a speech 
 very much to the same effect as the evidence he gave before the Com- 
 mission. Mr. Lay not only made these statements, but he handed 
 in a note on the opium question and a brief survey of our relations with 
 China, in which he endeavours to make out that the wars were not waged 
 in any sense in support of the opium traffic. I have gone throughout that 
 note very carefully. I should be very sorry, as I have said, to impute 
 motives, and I do not wish to suggest that Mr. Ijay liad any desire to 
 mislead, but it seems to me that he has written under such extreme bias 
 that he has presented a most unfair and one sided view of the question. 
 I think perhaps it would be more satisfactory if instead of attempting to 
 reply in detail, I should go through the history briefly, and put forward 
 my own view and the view of the Society on the question. 
 
 Q. — That would be the more convenient course. 
 
 I have here a book which may be looked upon as an authorita- 
 tive history of China, “ The Middle Kingdom,” which I believe is adopted 
 officially by the diplomatic service in China as a text-book of Chinese 
 history and Chinese questions generally, to be studied by gentlemen 
 belonging to that service. It is written by Dr. S. Wells Williams, who 
 was I believe, at one time a missionary in China and who is an American, 
 not an Englishman, so that he may be supposed to look at the question 
 from an impartial and outside point of view as between England and 
 China. 
 
 The Origin of the Tr.\de. 
 
 The early history of the opium trade is best told in Dr. Edkins’ 
 pamphlet which has been already put before the Commission and will 
 be printed as an Appendix ; but I think that Dr. Edkins, who has 
 brought forward a great deal of new and most interesting information 
 from the early records of China, has omitted one point which 
 Dr. Williams here refers to. Dr, Williams says, “The use of 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 opium amongst the Chinese two centuries ago must have been very 
 little, or the writings of Eomish missionaries from 1580 down to tha 
 beginning of the nineteenth century would certainly have con- 
 tained some account of it.” Dr. Dudgeon, of Pekin, another very high 
 authority on Chinese questions, says ; “ the absence of any reference by 
 the Jesuit missionaries who resided in all parts of the country to either 
 opium-smoking or poppy cultivation is very remarkable. All other 
 sources of information are equally reticent, whether it be travellers, diplo- 
 matic agents or missionaries. Barrow and Staunton, who describe China 
 most minutely and correctly in their visit in 1793, only remark that many 
 of the higher mandarins smoke tobacco with other odorous substances, 
 and sometimes a little opium.” There is also a book containing a 
 description of Lord Macartney’s mission, which travelled through a 
 considerable district of China to Pekin, and had a botanical gentleman 
 attached to it. It contains a careful and accurate notice of the plants 
 met with, but it has no mention whatever of the poppy as having been 
 grown, that is at the end of the last century. Dr. Dudgeon has also 
 pointed out that some of the earlier extracts given by Dr. Edkins refer 
 only to the medicinal use, and not to what one may call, by way of distinc- 
 tion, the sensual use, and that the decree of 1729 , which was for the first 
 time brought to light by Dr. Edkins, and which was 
 
 THE FIRST CHINESE DECREE AGAINST OPIUM, 
 
 Avas not a general decree applying to the ivhole country, but 
 simply to the island of Formosa, where apparently the opium- 
 smoking babit was first known in China. A few years later, as 
 I am informed by Dr. Dudgeon, there Avas a decree generalising that, 
 because it was found that the use of opium-smoking had spread to the 
 mainland. Then I pass to 
 
 THE POSITION AVHICH LED UP TO THE OPIUJI AA'AR. 
 
 Dr. Williams states in his chapter on the origin of the first war with 
 England how that arose out of the ceasing of the East India Company’s 
 commercial prmleges in 1834 ; and he deals with the mission of Lord 
 Napier AV'bich followed that change. He comments upon Lord Napier’s 
 iU advised attempt to set aside the rules of the Chinese Government, which 
 ended in a somewhat tragic way by his death before the question 
 was at all settled. At page 478 he sums up the position just before 
 the AA'ar : “ The peculiar position of the relations Avitli the Chinese and 
 the value of the trade, present ami prospective, Avas so great that these 
 events called out many pamphleteers both in England and llie East. 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 The servants of the Company naturally recommended a continuance of a 
 peaceable system, urging that foreigners should obey the la-ns of the 
 Empire ■where they live, and not interfere Avith the restrictions 'put uiAon 
 them.” A little lower doAvn he quotes what was said by the Duke of 
 Wellington, “ That which we noAV require is not to lose the enjoyment of 
 what Ave haA^e got,” and liis advice, he says, “ Avas followed in most 
 respects.” It was a fairly satisfactory trade, altliough the English 
 traders were very anxioirs to liaA’e greater openings for tlieir commerce 
 than through the single channel of Canton. Tlien, speaking of the 
 diplomatic relations betAveen the two countries, lie says, “ Wliile tlie point 
 of supremacy seemed to be settled in faA'our of tlie Son of Heaven, the 
 virus of the contraband opium trade Avas Avorking out its evil effects 
 among ids subjects and hastening on a new era.” I noAV quote a despatch 
 from Sir G. B. Eobinson, who succeeded Lord Hapier as Superintendent 
 of the British trade : “ On the question of smuggling opium I will not 
 
 enter in this place, though, indeed, smuggling carried on actively in tlie 
 Government boats can hardly be termed such. Wlienever His Majesty’s 
 Government directs us to prevent British A^essels engaging in the traffic, 
 Ave can enforce any order to that effect, but a more certain method Avould 
 be to prohibit the groAvth of the poppy and tlie manufacture of opium in 
 British India ; and if British ships are in the habit of committing 
 irregularities and crimes, it seems doubly necessary to exercise a salutary 
 control over them by the presence of an authority at Lintin.” 
 
 Was China Sincere? 
 
 Dr. Williams, commenting on that despatch, says, “There is not the 
 least e'^^idence to show thatthe Court of Pekin was not sincere in its desire 
 to suppress the trade from the first edict of 1800 till the Avar broke out in 
 1840. The excuse that the Government smuggled because its revenue 
 cruisers engaged in it and the helpless proAuncial authorities Avinked at it, 
 is no more satisfactory than to make the successful bribery of custom- 
 house officers in England or elscAAdiere a proof of the corruption of the 
 treasury department.” I might apply that argument in India. When 
 I was passing through the Central Provinces, I Avas told some stories 
 about smuggling from the Native States said to be carried on with the 
 connivance of the English Government Police. I think it AA'ould be just as 
 appropriate to say that the Indian GoA^ernment is not sincere in its desire 
 to suppress the smuggling of opium into its territories because some of 
 its police officers are, or are said to be, bribed, as to say that the Chinese 
 Government Avere not sincere because some of its officers Avere bribed. I 
 therefore strongly object to the phrase, Avhicli Avas quoted by Sir 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 Thomas Wade or Mr. Lay with approval, that it was not properly 
 to be called smuggling because there was so much official connivance 
 with it. Then Dr. Williams goes on to recount a remarkable proposal 
 made to legalise the opium trade by Hu Nai Tsi. Some quotations were 
 made from his memorial in the evidence which was put forward in 
 London, as if those were the views of men who did not recognise the evils 
 of the trade. I think to any one who reads through those memorials it is 
 clear that these men did recognise the great evils of the trade, only they 
 thought it was hopeless to attempt to stop it, and it was better to legalise 
 it. But those memorials were replied to by statesmen on the other side. 
 One of them says, “It has been represented that advantage is taken of the 
 laws against opium by extortionate underlings and worthless vagrants to 
 benefit themselves. Is it not known, then, that when Government enacts 
 a law, there is necessarily an infraction of that law ? And though the 
 law should sometimes be relaxed and become ineffectual, yet surely it 
 should not on that account be abolished, any more than we should 
 altogether cease to eat because of stoppage of the throat. The 
 laws which forbid the people to do wrong may be likened to the dykes 
 which prevent the overflowing of water. If any one urging then that the 
 dykes are very old and therefore useless we should have them thrown 
 down, what words could express the consequences of the impetuous rush 
 and all-destroying overflow.” I venture to think that these arguments 
 may have some application in India at the present day as they had in 
 China then. The result was that the Court of Pekin decided not to 
 legalise. Meanwhile Captain Elliott had expressed himself in despatches 
 home as confident that legalisation was about to take place. The con- 
 trary actually took place. Two of these memorials suggest that the pur- 
 pose of the English in introducing opium into the country has been to 
 weaken and enfeeble it. That was in the memorial of Chu Tsun. A 
 Sub-Censor supported him, and in the abstract of that memorial Dr. 
 Williams says : “The Sub-Censor agrees with Chu Tsun regarding the 
 designs of foreigners in doing so, that they wished first to debilitate and 
 impoverish the land as a preparatory measure, for they never smoked the 
 drug in their own country, but brought it all to China.” It is interesting 
 to compare those views expressed more than half a century ago with the 
 evidence given by several missionaries that a precisely similar im- 
 pression is at present largely prevailing in China, and that among some 
 of the best classes in China it is said that England purposely intro- 
 duces opium into China in order to weaken and debilitate the Chinese 
 nation, so that they may ultimately conquer the country. Of ^course 
 
( ^0 ) 
 
 we know that it is not so, but we can understand how such a view has 
 arisen. Then Dr. Williams again refers to the question of sincerity. 
 He says, “It is unjust to the Chinese to say, as was argued by those who 
 had never felt these sufferings, tliat all parties were insincere in their 
 efforts to put down this trade, that it was a mere affectation of morality, 
 and that no one would be more chagrined to see it stop than those ap- 
 parently so strenuous against it. This assertion was made by Lord 
 Palmerston in Parliament, and re-echoed by the Indian officials ; but those 
 who have candidly examined the proceedings of the Chinese, or have lived 
 among the people in a way to learn their real feelings, need not be told 
 /how incorrect is the remark. The highest statesman and the debilitated 
 victimed smoker are alike agreed in their opinion of its bad effects, and both 
 wei’e pretty much in the position of a miserable lamb in the coil of a 
 hungry anaconda.” (That is a very favourite metaphor with the Chinese 
 on the subject of opium. A friend shewed me not long ago a little model 
 which he had received from some missionary friends in Cliina representing 
 the opium wretch in that way. It was not an anaconda, but it was a 
 cuttle-fish or octopus destroying the man.) 
 
 Commissioner Lin Sent to Stop the Tr.4de. 
 
 As is well known, the result was that the Emperor sent down to 
 Canton, Commissioner Lin in order to pul a stop to the trade. Before 
 Commissioner Lin arrived some measures had been taken. Dr. Williams 
 says : “There can be no reasonable doubt that the best part of his people 
 and the moral power of the nation were with their sovereign in this at- 
 tempt. Hu Nai Tsi was dismissed for proposing legalisation, and three 
 princes of the blood degraded for smoking opium ; arrests, fines, tortures, 
 imprisonments, and executions were frequent in the provinces on the same 
 grounds, all showing the determination to eradicate it. The Governor of 
 Hukwang, Lin Tseh-su, was ordered to proceed to Canton, with unlimited 
 powers to stop the traffic. The trade there was at thjs time almost suspend- 
 ed, the deliveries being small and at losing prices. Many underlings were 
 convicted and summarily punished, and on February 26th Fung A-ngan 
 was strangled in front of the factories for his connection with opium and 
 participation in the affray at Whampoa. The foreign flags, English, 
 American, Dutch, and French, were all hauled down in consequence. The 
 entire stoppage of all trade was tlireatened, and the Governor urged foreign- 
 ers to send all opium ships from Chinese waters. Commissioner Lin arrived 
 in Canton, March 10th. The Emperor sent him to inquire and act so as 
 thoroughly to remove the source of the evil, for, says he, ‘ if the source 
 of the evil be not clearly ascertained, how can we hope that the 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 stream of pernicious consequences shall be stayed ? It is our full 
 hope that the long indulged habit will be for ever laid aside, -.and 
 every root and germ of it entirely eifedicated ; we would fain think 
 that our ministers will be unable to substantiate our wishes, and so 
 remove from China dire calamity.’ It was reported in Canton that 
 the monarch when recounting the evils which had long afflicted his 
 people by means of opium, paused and wept, and turning to Lin said : 
 ‘ How, alas, can I die and go to the shades of my imperial fathers and 
 ancestors, until these direful evils are removed ? ’ Such was the chief 
 purpose of this movement on the part of the Chinese Government, and Lin 
 was invested with the fullest powers ever conferred on a subject. Although 
 long experience of the ineffectiveness of Chinese edicts generally lead those 
 residing in the country to regard them as mere verbiage, still to say that 
 they are all insincere and formal because they are ineffectual is to 
 Daisjndge and pervert the emotions of common humanity.” The following 
 events are such well- known history that I need not dwell upon them. 
 It is well-known that the Chinese Government obtained posses- 
 sion of the opium by imprisoning the British merchants in their 
 houses (you have had before you Mr. Donald Matheson, one of the 
 merchants imprisoned), and the opium was all destroyed. I)r. Williams 
 states that the market value of the 20,283 chests of opium destroyed at the 
 time was not far from nine milhbn dollars, and the cost price nearly eleven 
 millions. 
 
 The Opium Wae. 
 
 War ensued ; and here Hr. Williams quotes the language used by 
 Lord John Russell. “ The bonds were not made a pretext for war by 
 the English ministry ; that, on the part of England, according to Lord 
 John Russell, was ‘set on foot to obtain reparation for insults and injuries 
 offered Her Majesty’s Superintendent and subjects; to obtain indemnification 
 for the losses the merchants had sustained under threats of violence ; 
 and lastly to get security that persons and property trading with China 
 should in future be protected from msult and injury, and trade main- 
 tained upon a proper footing.’ ” 
 
 The cause of the War. 
 
 How I stop here to point out what seems to me to be the vice of 
 the argument of Sir Thomas Wade and Mr. Lay. Undoubtedly, as is 
 fully admitted by Mr. Turner in his pamphlet, there were other causes 
 leading to the war in addition to the seizure of opium ; and it seems 
 to me that Mr. Lay and Sir Thomas W ade have simply set aside this 
 one cause and have taken those other subsidiary and collateral causes 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 and said that tliey were the only reasons of the war^ It does not seem 
 to me that you can logically adopt that course. 
 
 Q. — I think Sir Thomas Wade urged that the exclusiveness of the 
 Chinese, their unwillingness to enter into relations with other powers, 
 treating us as barbarians only to be approached through the Hong Kong 
 merchants, were a natural and inevitable cause of misunderstanding. He 
 urged that if the Chinese authorities had been willing to enter into 
 direct communication with us, explanations woirld have been exchanged 
 which would probably have averted the ultimate warlike proceedings 
 which we all regret ? 
 
 A. — No doubt that was the substance of his argument. Dr. Williams 
 combats that by pointing out that on previous occasions concessions 
 had been obtained from China without force ; and if China had been treated 
 in a proper way, these concessions might have been obtained. But at 
 all events, as he says, the war did, as a matter of fact, grow out of the 
 trade ; and Sir Thomas Wade himself admits that it may properly be 
 called the Opium War. Dr. Williams says : “ The war was looked 
 upon in this light by the Chinese, and it will also be so looked upon by 
 candid historian, and known as the Opium war.” Dr. Williams also 
 refers to the debate which took place in Parliament. Of course it was 
 not admitted in that debate by Lord Macaulay, who was the Government 
 spokeman, that opium was the object * of the war ; nor was it by Sii 
 George Staunton, who took an independent position in the debate, and 
 whose authority, from his great knowledge of China, was very great. 
 He defended the war, but spoke in the strongest terms against the opium- 
 smuggling trade. But I venture to think that the speech made by Mr. 
 Gladstone already quoted by Sir Joseph Pease, truly states the case, that 
 while there had been no doubt many things on the part of the Chinese which 
 were objectionable, yet in the main the Chinese were right and we were 
 wrong. Lord Melbourne in the course of the debate said, “We possess 
 immense territories peculiarly fitted for raising opium, and though I 
 would wish that the Government were not so directly concerned in the 
 traffic, I am not prepared to pledge myself to relinquish it.” Dr. 
 Williams remarks : “ This debate was in fact a remarkable instance of 
 the way in which a moral question is blinked even by conscientious per- 
 sons whenever politics or interest come athwart its course.” He also 
 refers to two letters written by Commissioner Lin to Queen Victoria 
 desiring her assistance in putting down the opium trade. One of those 
 letters has been recently published. I should lilce to hand in to the 
 Commission a publication of ours, “ A Chinese Statesman on the Opium 
 
( 2S ) 
 
 Traffic.” It begins with one of these letters, and the other letter will be 
 found in Mr. Storrs Turner’s book, “British Opium Policy,” The 
 note on the first page is incorrect in the supposition that these were 
 different translations of the same letter. Mr. Lay has already pointed 
 out that they were two different letters. In dealing with the conduct 
 of the war, on two or three occasions Dr. Williams points out that 
 negotiations which were begun with the object of stopping the war failed 
 mainly because of the determination of the Chinese to resist rather than 
 to grant full idemnity for the opium. 
 
 The Treaty of Nanking. 
 
 As we all know, the Chinese were defeated and ultimately had to 
 yield. One of the conditions of the treaty was that a large sum, I think 
 six million dollars, was to be paid iby China as compensation for the 
 opium that was destroyed, that opium having been contraband. Then, 
 after the treaty, at the final interview between Sir Henry Pottinger 
 and the Chinese Commissioners, there was a remarkable conversation of 
 which Dr. Williams gives an account taken from Captain Loch’s “ Events 
 in China” : “When matters connected with the treaty had been arranged, 
 
 • Sir Henry proposed to say a few words upon the great cause that 
 produced the disturbances which led to the war, viz., the trade in 
 opium.” That is a round-about-way of saying that it was the trade 
 in opium that led to the war. , “But upon hearing this (Captain 
 Loch says) they unanimously declined entering upon the subject 
 until they were assured that he had introduced it merely as a 
 topic for private conversation. They then evinced much interest, 
 and eagerly requested to know why we would not act fairly towards them 
 by prohibiting the growth of the poppy in our dominions, and thus effect- 
 ually stop a traffic so pernicious to the human race. This, he said in 
 consistency with our constitution and laws, could not be done ; and he 
 added that, even if England chose to exercise so arbitrary a power over 
 her tillers of the soil, it would not check the evil, so far as the Chinese 
 were concerned, while the cancer remained uneradicated among themselves, 
 but that it would merely throw the market into other hands. It, in fact, 
 he said, rests entirely with yourselves. If your people are virtuous, they 
 will desist from the evil practice ; and if your officers are incorruptible 
 and obey your orders, no opium can enter your countiy. The discourage- • 
 ment of the growth of the poppy in your territories rests principally 
 with you, for nearly the entire produce cultivated in India travels east 
 to China ; if, however, the habit has become a confirmed vice, and you 
 feel that your power is at present inadequate to stay its indulgence, you 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 may rest assured- your people uill procure the drug in spite of every 
 enactment. Would it not, therefore, be better at once to legalise its im- 
 portation, and by thus securing the co-operation of the rich and of your 
 authorities, from whom it would thus be no longer debarred, tliereby greatly 
 limit the facilities which now exist for smuggling ? They owned the plausi- 
 bility of the argument, but expressed themselves persuaded that their 
 imperial master would never listen to a word upon the subject.” Dr. 
 Williams comments severely, as well he may, upon tlie tone adopted by 
 Sir Henry Pottinger, and his really untruthful statement that there was 
 anything unconstitutional in prohibiting the growth of the poppy, which 
 had already been prohibited in a large area of British India, and upon 
 the melancholy picture of British statesman saying to Chinese statesmen, 
 “Your people must become virtuous and your officers incorruptible, and 
 then you can stop opium coming into your borders. ” I think it must 
 have been about that time, though I have never been able exactly to 
 ascertain the date, that the Emperor of China used some very memorable 
 words which are reported by Mr. Montgomery Martin. When approached 
 with a view of legalising the trade, the Emperor replied, “It is true that I 
 ' cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison ; gain-seeking and 
 ^ corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes ; but nothing 
 will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people.” 
 Sir Edward Fry has pointed out that whilst nothing was said about this 
 opium trade in the treaty, we almost immediately afterwards concluded 
 a treaty vrith China in which we agreed to put down smuggling. That 
 was really never carried out. A proclamation was issued by Sir Henry 
 Pottinger, which was entirely futile, telling the traders in opium that they 
 carried on the trade at their own cost. Dr. Williams says, “All this 
 was done chiefly to throw dust in their eyes and put the onus of the 
 contraband traffic on the Chinese Government, and the violation of law 
 on those who came off to the smuggling vessels, and these proclamations 
 and orders, like their edicts, were to be put ‘ on record. ’ This was shown 
 when Captain Hope of H. M. S. Thalia, for stopping two or three of 
 the opium vessels proceeding above Shanghai, was recalled from his sta- 
 tion and ordered to India, where he could not ‘interfere in such a manner 
 with the undertakings of British subjects;; ’ to quote Lord Palmerston’s 
 Despatch to Captain ElUott. This effectually deterred other British 
 officers from meddling with it. ” 
 
 Once more Dr. Williams gives this final summaiy of the war : — 
 “ Public opinion will ever characterise the contest thus brought to an end 
 as an opium war, entered into and carried on to obtain indemnity for 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 opium seized, and setting aside the niceties of western internationnl law, 
 which the Chinese Government knew nothing of, most justly seized. 
 The British and American merchants, who voluntarily subscribed one 
 thousand and thirty-seven chests to Commissioner Lin, acknowledged 
 themselves to be transgressors by this very act.” He refers to Mr. 
 Justin MacCarthy’s chapter X of the “ History of our own Times,” and 
 says that his “ short and pithy digest brings out the leading features 
 in a fairly candid manner. ” 
 
 Smuggling Continues. 
 
 Well, tlie trade went on as an illegal trade. Further on, there 
 is a mention of Sir John Davis’ attempt to obtain its legalisation and 
 to his conversation with Ki-yug, to which I think I need not refer. Then 
 we come to the second China War. As Mr. Pease stated in London, 
 neither Mr. Turner, my predecessor, nor I have used the expression “the 
 Second Opium W ar. ” It has been sometimes so called by advocates on 
 our side, and they have the justification of a letter by Li Hung Chung, 
 in which he speaks of two Opium wars, and which form the second of 
 the documents in the publication I handed in: “A Chinese Statesman 
 on the Opium traffic. ” At the same time it did not directly arise out of 
 the opium traffic ; it was only indirectly connected with it. Dr. Williams 
 has a statement of the position of affairs which I need not read, showing 
 how these lorchas, of which the lorcha “Arrow” was one, were all engaged 
 in this smuggling trade ; and that it was in that way the difficulty arose 
 that led to the second war. 
 
 Lord Elgin’s Views. 
 
 Here I turn to another authority, “The Letters and Journals of 
 Lord Elgin, ” the Ambassador employed to negotiate peace and to 
 settle the difficulties with China. His letters are fuU of allusions to 
 the strong feeling he has that war was an altogether unjustifiable 
 and unjust war, and brought about by the misconduct of English sub- 
 jects in the East. Here is one of them under the date of December the 
 9th, 1837, “I have hardly alluded in my ultimatum to that wretched ques- 
 tion of the ‘Arrow, ’ which is a scandal to us, and is so considered, I have 
 reason to know, by all except tlie few who are personally compromised.” 
 In another place he says, “I thought bitterly of those who for the most 
 selfish objects are trampling under foot this ancient civilisation. ” Again 
 he says, “ Two months I have been there engaged in this painful sendee, 
 checking as I liave been best able to do the disposition to maltreat this 
 unfortunate people. ” Again, there is a reference to a Blue Book issued 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 by the British Government in order to justify itself, detailing a series of 
 insults to British subjects by Chinese authorities. He met with Mr. 
 Burns, a missionary, a man whose name is very distinguished in mission- 
 ary records, and he says, “Hearing that Mr. Burns, a missionary, whose 
 case is narrated in the series of ‘Insults by the Chinese Authorities’ sub- 
 mitted to Parliament (he having been in fact very kindly treated, as he 
 himself acknowledges ), was at the island, I invited him to breakfast. ’’ 
 That document is referred to by Mr. Lay as one of those which support 
 his view. Then he sums up, “Ho doubt, as you say, one cannot help 
 sometimes regretting that one is mixed up with so bad a business as this 
 in China, but then in some respects it is a great opportunity for doing good 
 or at least for mitigating evil.” May I be permitted, though it is perhaps 
 irrelevant, to say that those extracts and others which I could have 
 read show how great and noble was the character of Lord Elgin, how 
 supremely he desired that justice should be done to races which had been 
 proved to be weaker in war than the English race, and how one cannot 
 help rejoicing in the confident hope that his son who is so shortly to 
 arrive in India will prove to be a man imbued with similar sentiments. 
 Lord Elgin, went from China to Japan. There he signed the treaty 
 which first opened Japan to our commerce, a treaty which had not been 
 forced by war, and a treaty which absolutely prohibited the opium 
 trade, a prohibition which has been strictly enforced by the Japanese 
 ever since. The Japanese are well aware of the vice which is bring- 
 ing such terrible evils upon their neighbours in China ; therefore 
 they have always shown themselves on the alert to prevent its introduc- 
 tion into their own country. I heard a missionary who had resided some 
 years in Japan tell how very severely some men were treated who were 
 once caught attempting to smuggle opium into J apan. 
 
 The Treaty op Tientsin. 
 
 In the peace Lord Elgin did not deem it consistent with his duty to 
 make the legaUsation of the opium traffic one of the terms of treaty. 
 I have dealt with that subject in a letter to the Times a few years agO) 
 and if I read it, it will perhaps be better than attempting to go over the 
 ground afresh — 
 
 “It may be well in the first place to observe that our present 
 agitation is merely based, not on the assumption that China is being still 
 forced to admit Indian opium, but on what appears to us to be the im- 
 morality of the Indian Government in producing, for the purpose of sale 
 to China, a drug which causes such widespread demoralisation in the 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 latter country. The question raised by Mr. Lay is, therefore more a 
 historical than a practical one. At the same time it undoubtedly adds 
 immensely to the responsibility of Great Britain if, as we are convinced, 
 the action of our Government in the past has been such to as overbear 
 the genuine objection formerly entertained by the Chinese Government 
 to the admission of opium, and has brought about her present apparent 
 acquiescence in its import. If Mr. Lay simply means that China has 
 never been coCipelled, as the condition sine qua non of a cessation from 
 armed' force, to place opium in the category of imports permitted to be 
 brought into the treaty ports, we must admit his correctness. But we 
 maintain that the legalisation of the opium trade was really and truly tlie 
 result of the cruel and unjust wars of 1840 and 1856, and of the power- 
 ful moral support continuously given to opium-smngglers by the British 
 Government before the first war and in the interval between it and the 
 second. As to the Opium War of 1840, it is needless to defend, even 
 against Mr. Lay, the general verdict of histoiy. Securus judicat o>‘bis 
 terrarum. It was unquestionably one of the conditions of the treaty of 
 Nanking, which brouglit the war to a close, that compensation should 
 be made by China for the value of the opium destroyed by Commissioner 
 Lin ; and this fact speaks for itself. As regards the tariff supplement 
 to the treaty of Tientsin, with which Mr. Lay was personally connected, 
 and by which opium was first recognised as a lawful article of commerce, 
 it is to be remembered that the treaty itself was the result of violent 
 coercion. Lord Elgin says of the negotiations ( ‘ Letters and Journals 
 page 253, ) ‘We went on fighting and bullying and getting the poor 
 Commissioners to concede one point after another.’ One of the ‘chief 
 articles ’ of the treaty thus concluded was, as stated by his biographer,,' 
 ‘the tariff fixed by the Treaty of Nanking to be revised. ’ If the treaty ^ 
 itself was obtained by force, how can it be said that the insertion of a 
 fresh item in the revised tariff for wliich that treaty provided was purely 
 voluntary ? 
 
 “ With regard to the circumstances under which opium was inserted 
 in the tariff supplement, they are fully stated in the ‘Eeport on the Revi- 
 sion of Tariff,’ etc., furnished by Messrs. Oliphant and Wade, the 
 deputies appointed by Lord Elgin to act on his behalf, which is annexed 
 to Lord Elgin’s despatch to the Earl of Malmesbury, dated Shanghai, Octo- 
 ber 22, 1858. They show that on October 12th the deputies ( with whom 
 Mr. Lay was associated by Lord Elgin’s request) had a preliminary 
 conference with the Chinese Commissioners, at which, by reqirest of the 
 lattei-, they furnished the Chinese with a list of subjects for discussion,. 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 No. 7 beiu,f>' ‘legalisation of opiitm under duties.’ It appears further that 
 on this occasion it was urged by the British deputies that opium was an 
 article which ‘no laws were found to exclude, and the irregularity of the 
 present trade in which was highly objectionable.’ The following day 
 another conference was held, when, for reasons not necessary to be here 
 stated, the British deputies desired, and the Chinese Commissioners 
 consented, to proceed with opium as the very first subject of discussion. 
 One of the Chinese Commissioners, ‘whose position as Superintendent of 
 Customs at Shanghai, ’ says the report, ‘ naturally gives him a chief voice 
 in such matters, admitted the necessity of a change. China still retains 
 her objection to the use of a drug on moral grounds ; but the present gene- 
 ration of smokers, at all events, must and will have opium. China would 
 propose a very high duty, but, as opposition was naturally to be expected 
 from us in that case, it should be as moderate as possible.’ He proceeded 
 to urge that opium should be treated quite differently from other articles 
 of import, and, ‘after much discussion’ as to the rate of duty, the British 
 first naming fifteen to twenty taels and the Cliinese sixty taels per chest, 
 it was finally fixed at thirty taels. Reviewing the whole transaction, it 
 appears clear that Sir Rutherford Alcock was substantially justified in 
 telling the East India Finance Committee of 1871. ‘We have forced 
 the Chinese Government to enter into a treaty to allow their subjects to 
 take opium.’” 
 
 Dr. Leg'ge, who gave evidence before the Commission in London 
 and who is one of the greatest authorities in England or Europe on 
 Chinese questions, in a letter to the Thnee, which was not published 
 in that paper, but appeared in the Frierul of China, wrote ; “ The 
 instructions issued to Lord Elgin from the Foreign Office (April 
 20th, 1857) directed him when discussing commercial arrange- 
 
 ments with any Chmese plenipotentiaries to ascertain whether the 
 Government of China would, revoke its prohibition of tlie opium trade, 
 for there would be obvious advantages in placing the trade on a legal 
 footing by the imposition of a duty instead of its being carried on in 
 the present irregular manner. Various expressions in Lord Elgin’s 
 diary show that, as a whole, his mission was not very agreeable to him ; 
 to procure the legalisation of the opium trade was especially disagreeable. 
 How he got over the feeling, and yet we find no reference to opium iii 
 the articles of the Treaty, appears in a letter of the 19th October, written 
 to Mr. Reed, the American plenipotentiary: ‘When I resolved,’ he 
 says, ‘ not to press the matter on the Chinese Commissioners at Tientsin, 
 I did so, not because I questioned the advantages that would arise from 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 the legalisation of the traffic, but because I could not reconcile it to my 
 sense of riglit to urge tlie Imperial Government to abandon its tradition- 
 al policy in this respect under the kind of pressure which we were bring- 
 ing to bear xrpon it at Tientsin. He then speaks of the circumstances 
 under which the question was to come up for discussion in the approach- 
 ing Conference on the subject of the tariff being ‘ happily different.’ So 
 he was able to satisfy his ‘ sense of right’ in fulfilling his mission by 
 a delusion of tlie mind. The Conference on the tariff was a natural 
 sequence to the discussions with the Commissioners at Tientsin. And 
 tlie officers appointed by them to conclude the arrangements must have 
 well known that they dared only to discuss and accede to the wishes of his 
 officers, with any slight modification favourable to themselves which they 
 might well be able to secure.” Further down Dr. Legge says : “ In 
 this way the import of opium at the ports of China opened to foreign 
 commerce was legalised. To say the legalisation was not ‘in opposition to 
 the will and in defiance to the remonstrances of the Chinese Imperial 
 Government,’ is not, to use your own language, ‘ according to the real facts 
 of the case.’ It was compulsion, the consequence of coercion, of < 
 which no one has written so strongly as Lord Elgin himself did . I 
 Some of his expressions about it cannot be read without extreme pain. ! 
 I do not think it material to refer at length to the subsequent war of • 
 1860. It will be remembered that the Chinese Government did not 
 ratify that treaty, under circumstances which laid them open to the 
 imputation of bad faith. That is a question the rights and wrongs of 
 which Dr. Williams fuUy discusses. The consequence was that we 
 went to war again. Lord Elgin was sent to China a second time. 
 It was after the burning of the Summer Palace that the Chinese finally 
 gave way, and the treaty was ultimately ratified. 
 
 Q. — Does that conclude what you have ■ to say with reference to 
 the war ? 
 
 A. — I will quote three opinions on the matter from very high 
 authorities, and that will conclude what I have to say on that point. 
 The first is the evidence of Sir Rutherford Alcock (Sir Thomas Wade’s 
 predecessor as British Ambassador in China) before the Indian Finance 
 Committee in 1871. , 
 
 “ Q. — Now, is there anything in our treaties to force them to take 
 our opium ? 
 
 “ A. — Yes, it is put in the tariff of articles of import. 
 
 “ Q. — Then they are hound to allow the free import of opium ? 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 “ A. — Tliat was the condition introduced into the treaty which Lord 
 Elgin made. 
 
 “ Q. — But we do not enforce the purchase ? 
 
 •' A. — Not the purchase ; but they cannot prohibit the import of 
 opium ; it is amongst the admitted articles on the tariff. 
 
 “ Q.^ — Then, notwithstanding the Cliinese Government are so sensible 
 of the demoralization of their people caused by the import of opium, they 
 cannot prevent our sending it there : we force them by treaty to take it 
 from us ? 
 
 “ A. — That is so in effect. 
 
 “Q. — We have forcedjthe Government to enter into a treaty to 
 allow their subjects to take it. 
 
 “A. — ;Yes, precisely. 
 
 “ Q.— Isit any wonder that the Chinese (government complain of our 
 conduct in that respect ? 
 
 “ A. — No,.! do not think it is any wonder. 
 
 •• Q. — What should we say if these Chinese imposed the like re- 
 strictions upon us ? 
 
 “ A. — I think that our answer to them for putting it into the treaty 
 is: ‘You cannot prevent it being smuggled, and the lesser evil is to 
 admit it as a legitimate article of trade.’ 
 
 “ Q. — But is it not for them to judge of that, and not for us ? 
 
 “ A. — No doubt, if two nations are negotiating together on equal 
 terms, each should have a voice. 
 
 “ Q. — But suppose the Chinese Government were to say, ‘We de- 
 cline to admit opium ; we will not renew the treaty except on the condi- 
 tion of excluding opium altogether ?’ 
 
 “ A. — I think they could only do that on the same principle as that 
 on which Prince Gortschakoff declared that Eussia would not submit to 
 the continued neutralisation of the^Black Sea, — they must be prepared to 
 fight for it. 
 
 “ Q. — As I understand you, you say that the Chinese have made a 
 treaty from which it is not possible for them to escape ? 
 
 “ A.— It is not possible for them to escape from it, except by a dec- 
 laration that they mil not submit to what they conceive to be injurious 
 terms. 
 
 “ Q.— The only way that they can escape from it is by a war ? 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 “ A. — A war, or a declaration that they are ready to go to war rather 
 than submit any longer.” 
 
 Sir Thomas Wade, speaking about aU that we have obtained from 
 China, said : “ Nothing that has been gained, it must be remembered, 
 
 was received from the free will of the Chinese ; more, the concessions made , 
 to us have been, from first to last, extorted ag'ainst the conscience of the; 
 nation, in defiance, that is to say, of the moral convictions of its educatedi 
 men, not merely of the office-holders, whom we call mandarins, and who! 
 are numerically but a ^all proportion of the educated class, but of the| 
 nucleus who are saturated with a knowledge of the.history and philosophy 
 of that country.” That was written by Sir Thomas Wade in amemoran-! 
 dum by him contained in a Blue Book presented to Parliament in 1871. 
 Once more, here are the words of Lord Elgin himself in a despatch 
 printed in a Blue Book of 1871 : “The concessions obtained in the; 
 treaty from tlie Chinese Government are not in themselves extravagant,! 
 but in the eyes of the Chinese Government they amount to a revolution.? 
 They have been extorted therefore from its fears.” 
 
 Q. — That concludes the statement you wish to make with reference 
 to the wars in China ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 The Effects of the Opium Trade on China. 
 
 Q. — Before we adjourn, it will be well to complete your examination 
 with reference to the second paragraphjof your memorial. It is alleged 
 in the paragraph that the opium traffic brings misery to countless myriads 
 in China. Have you anything to say in support of that Hew ? 
 
 A. — I have prepared an abstract of evidence in support of that 
 statement ; but I will simply go over a few heads. First we have the 
 evidence of 
 
 Protestant Missionaries, of whom seventeen appeared before the 
 Commission in London — I include Dr. Lockhart, who concurred with our 
 witnesses as to the evil effects on China. You had also the Secretaries of 
 two important Missionary Societies, who personally had no experience in 
 China, but who represented two large bodies of Missionaries, those of 
 the Church Missionary Society and the China Inland Mission. To 
 which I may add that all the Enghsh societies labouring in China and 
 one or two Scotch societies joined in a deputation to Lord Kimberley 
 a year ago in support of our views. There was also a practically un- 
 animous missionary petition presented to the House of Commons in 
 1883, and there have been on two or three occasions unanimous resolu- 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 tions by Missionary Conferences in China representing tlie whole 
 Protestant Missionaiy body. So that wo liave before tlie Commission 
 tlie mraniinons testimony of the whole Protestant Missionaiy bod}^ 
 ’including’ the medical missionaries, labouring in China. 
 
 Roman Catholic Missionaries are no less nnanimons on this point. 
 I have an official document from the Court of Rome on the question. 
 The Bishop and Vicars- Apostolic of Western China met in 1880, and 
 there was some difference among them as to whether the use of opium in 
 any form was to be absolutely prohibitary to reception into the Roman 
 Catholic Church by baptism. Tlie answer, of the Sacred Congregation 
 for the Propagation of the Faith with which I have been favoured by 
 Cardinal Vaughan, bears date last year only. Referring to previous 
 papal decrees on the subject, it lays down the absolute rule that with 
 ftlie exception of such necessary indulgence as there may be for those 
 Iwho need medical treatment, that the use of opium in any form is to 
 be considered absolutely prohibited to Roman Catholics in China, its 
 ■growth, and any share whatever in the traffic. So that the Roman 
 Catholic Churcli, owing to the representations of its missionaries in 
 China, is just as clear on the subject as the Protestant missionaries are. 
 Then we have 
 
 Some British Merchants in China, Mr. Donald Matheson, who 
 apeared before the Commission in London, and Mr. Hanbury, who 
 was with us at the deputation to Lord Kimberley, and who has traded 
 many years in China. He has always refused to have anything to do 
 with the opium trade. He has given strict orders that no portion 
 of his large property at Shanghai is to be let to opium dealers. Then 
 we have a considerable number of 
 
 British Officials connected with China. I have ah’eady referred to 
 Sir George Staunton. I have also quotations from Mr. Montgomery 
 Martin, who was Treasurer of Hong Kong, Mr. Lay, British Consul at 
 Amoy, (who used a very strong expression, speaking of it as “ hamstring- 
 ing the nation”), Mr. Majoribanks, Sir John Pope Hennessy, Gov- 
 ernor of Hongkong (who spoke in the strongest words of the way in 
 which the Chinese authorities had constantly remonstrated 'with him 
 against the trade, not so much on physical grounds as on account of the 
 moral effects of opiium-taking). Sir Rutherford Alcock, and Sir Thomas 
 W ade himself. Then I ought perhaps also to refer to an interesting 
 and curious book, which has lately come out, by an opium-smuggler, in 
 which, although he was engaged in the smuggling of opium, he admits 
 the great evil it is. As to 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 The Chinese, Mr. Hanbury, at the deputation to Lord Kimberley, 
 said : — Produce to me ten or even five Chinamen who will say that opium 
 smoking is innocuous.” No Chinaman has ever come forward publicly to 
 declare that he defends the trade. W e have seen that some of them were in 
 favour of legalisation as being a better thing than smuggling ; but so far 
 as I know, no Chinaman has ever said that the trade did not do a great 
 evil in his country. Tliere are a great many statements of Chinese 
 statesmen and others to be referred to on that head. 
 
 The Counter-evidence is only that of some merchants, some travel- 
 lers and some officials. 
 
 The Value of Official Opium. 
 
 With regard to officials, some important words were pronounced by 
 Mr. Gladstone in his speech in the recent debate : “ I do not think tliat in 
 this matter we ought to be guided exclusively, perhaps even principally, by 
 those who may consider themselves experts. It is a very sad thing to say, 
 but unquestionably it happens not infrequently in human affairs, that those 
 Avho ought, from their situation to know the most and best, yet from preju- 
 dice and prepossessions know the least and the worst. Eminently it was 
 the case in the great question of West Indian slavery, when this House 
 and the country for a long time were discouraged and abashed by the 
 assurance that those who were in favour of that great and radical change 
 were in favour of it only because they did not understand tlie Negro 
 character. There may be something of that element in this case. I 
 certainly, for my part, do not propose to abide finally and decisively by 
 official opinion. Independent opinion, — independent, but responsible — is 
 what the House wants, in my opinion, in order to enable it to proceed 
 safely in the career upon wliich, I admit, that it has definitely entered.” 
 That seems to me to be a very strong case, and bearing a remarkable 
 analogy to the present case. My acquaintance with the anti- 
 slavery literature of the past generation leads me to believe that the 
 West Indian officials were unanimous in the view that the institution of 
 slavery was desirable, but they have been proved by the public conscietice 
 of Great Britain and the experience of mankind since to have been wrong. 
 
 Public Opinion at Home. 
 
 Q. — Referring to the eiddence that you have with regard to public 
 opinion at home, is there anything you wish to bring before us in support 
 of your statement that the resolutions you propose are received with al- 
 most absolute unanimity at hundreds of meetings ; and have you any- 
 thing to say with reference to the number and influential position of those 
 who sign the numerous petitions that are presented to Parliament ? 
 
( ) 
 
 A.^I have taken a considerable share in the public meetings that 
 have been held on this question since I became Secretary, rather more than 
 four years ago, — latterly not so much as during the first year or two. 
 One thing that has struck me very much is the way in which at these 
 meetings different classes of opinion have been represented. One of the 
 most important meetings that I attended shortly after becoming Secretary 
 was a breakfast meeting held at Leeds. The remark was made to me after- 
 wards by a gentleman long acquainted with Leeds that he did not believe 
 that on any other subject such a meeting could have been gathered. 
 We had representatives of all the different classes of thought into 
 which English opinion is divided. Religiously we had Chirrch of Eng- 
 land people and Nonconformists, High Church and Low Church ; poli- 
 tically we had Tories and Radicals ; and altogether it was a meeting that 
 I was told was probably in Leeds unprecedented. What I have said of 
 that meeting applies generally and to a very large degree to a great many 
 other meetings that we have held throughout the country. Where the 
 unanimity has been broken, it has I think, always been only by those 
 directly connected with India and with the services in India. We have 
 always been accustomed to give the fullest opportunity to gentlemen 
 who wished to oppose the views we put forward. Tliey have, no doubt, 
 sometimes been listened to with impatience by the audience opposed 
 to them. But at all events they have been fully and fairly heard on many 
 occasions, and they have never sixcceeded in turning any votes. The 
 largest minority that I am aware of anywhere was a minority of 3, all 
 directly connected with Indian official life. Petitions to Parliament have 
 been very much to the same effect. According to the latest return 
 I have, up to the 10th July last, 2,470 petitions were presented during 
 the session, including 329 officially signed ; the total signatures being 
 205, 5G3. 
 
 . Printed by 
 
 Joseph Culshaxv, Methodist Publishing House, . Calcutta. 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 1 TO^IFFtC?, 
 
 ^ f 
 
 Special lieport of tie Eindence taken 
 
 in India. 
 
 \ 
 
 4 
 
 Part III. 21st November, 1893. 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY, or ONE ANNA, for each daily part. 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society foe the Suppeession of the Opium Teade, 
 Beoadway Chambees, London, S. W. 
 
 Also at the 
 
 Methodist Publishing House, 45, Dhaeamtala St., Calcutta. 
 
The HopI GomiRission on Opiq. 
 
 Mr. J. G-. Alexander’s Evidence, Continued. 
 
 Q. — Chairman . — After your examination yesterday the subject was 
 discussed by the members of the Commission, and it was decided that it 
 was not necessaiy to take any detailed evidence with reference to matters 
 so long since passed as these to which your statements chiefly 
 referred. We therefore do not propose to cross-examine you upon the 
 history of our wars and conflicts with China. In the thu'd paragraph 
 of your memorial presented to Lord Kimberley you express the 
 desire that the area under poppy cultivation in the Behar and Benares 
 Agency should at once be restricted, and you urge in support of that 
 prayer that declarations m that sense had been made in Parliament by 
 Sir James Fergusson and the late Eight Hon’ble W. H. Smith ? 
 
 A. — I think it is hardly correct to say that it is our prayer that 
 they should be restricted. This paragraph refers to the measures that 
 were actually taken, or that we understood to have been taken, by the 
 late Government. The credit given to the late Government for what 
 had been done must be modified in view of Sir David Barbour’s statement 
 the other day, that the Indian Government has not yet adopted any new 
 pohcy in the sense we had understood. But with regard to that I have 
 further to call attention to an express statement by Mr. George Curzon, 
 in reply to a question from Sir Joseph Pease, on the 25th February 1892, 
 founded upon those statements of Sh- James Fergusson and Mr. Smith 
 a year before. Mr. Curzon in his reply stated : — “ The figures for 1891-92 
 have not yet been received, but in order to restrict the area of cultivation 
 the Government of India reduced the number of chests for sale in the year 
 from 57,000 to 54,000.” We took that as an express declaration that 
 the Government of India were acting upon the pohcy that had been 
 announced in the House of Commons in 1891, 
 
 Q. — Do you desire to express yourself as satisfied with the declara- 
 tions that have been made by the representatives of the Government so 
 far as they went ? 
 
 A. — We considered those declarations to mark decided progress 
 from our point of view. 
 
 'otrt o- • 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 Q, — Do yon now desire to say that the indications that have been 
 given in Sir David Barbour’s evidence liave been received by yon with a 
 certain amount of regret ? 
 
 A. — Regret and surprise, because we bad been given to understand 
 that the Government of India was carrying out the views expressed by 
 Sir James Fergusson and Mr. Smith. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything further to say with reference to this 
 question of acreage under poppy cultivation ? 
 
 A. — Perhaps this will be the best place for me to say that, from our 
 point of view, a gradual diminution of this kind cannot really be satis- 
 factory ; it does not meet our main objection which is, that the trade is 
 altogether an immoral one ; and if it is an immoral trade obviously it 
 ought to be stopped at once, and no question of gradual diminution can 
 arise. But there is another point of view, apart from what I may call 
 the moral point, from which we may look at the question — that is, the 
 point of Hew of practical philanthropy — the practical wish to put a stop 
 to the consumption of opium in the East, and especially in China. For 
 myself, — I do not venture here to speak as representing all the members of 
 (urr society ; I do not know wliether they would all follow me ; but 
 for myself I should be willing somewhat to lay aside the urgency of the 
 high moral point of view, namely, that the trade is immoral, and should 
 therefore at once and altogether be suppressed, if I could feel sure that 
 by anotlier course we should more speedily arrive at the real practical 
 philanthropic object that we have in the stoppage of the consumption 
 of opium in China. E think Sir George Staunton in the debate in 
 1840 made the declaration that this trade could never be stopped except by 
 a •consensus of the Chinese and British Governments ; and, holding 
 that he was right in that view, I should be satisfied to waive something 
 of our claim tliat the trade must be immediately and absolutely 
 suppressed, in order to obtain, from the Chinese Government some 
 concurrent action which would promise a more speedy end of this 
 great evil. My objection to gradual diminution on the lines laid down 
 by the Government in 1891 and which we supposed the Indian 
 Government had been adopting, is that practically it makes iro difference 
 to China. So long as there is no agreement with the Chinese Govern- 
 ment that it will reciprocate those measures the practical effect simply is 
 that so many thousand chests are produced in China instead of in India. I 
 believe that the Indian opium is more injurious and deleterious than 
 native grown opium, and from that point of view there perhaps may be 
 some improvement ; but otherwise, as long as the British Government has 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 no agreement with the Chinese Government that it will carry out the 
 same policy in China, a gradual diminution does nothing whatever to put 
 an end to the great evil that we are combating. That is why we consider 
 any policy of gradual diminution without a distinct agreement witli the 
 Chinese Government to be a wholly unsatisfactory one. 
 
 Q. — Have you any reason to suppose that the Chinese Government 
 is at the present time anxious to come to an agreement with the 
 Government of India for the total prohibition of the use of opium ? 
 Has it not been represented to those who have recently been negotia- 
 ting on the part of the British Government, that the Chinese Govern- 
 ment are of opinion that if they were to totally prohibit importation, 
 tlie demand could be met by a local supply, and that having that 
 in view, they thought it would rather be a question of checking the 
 consumption of opium by taxation, and that it was impossible to 
 entertain at present a policy of total prohibition. Was not that repre- 
 sented by Sir Thomas Wade in his evidence in London, and is not that 
 view confirmed in the course of negotiation in which the Marquis Tseng 
 was engaged first with Lord Granville and afterwards with Lord Salisbury 
 for modifications of the Chefoo Convention ? 
 
 A. — In 1869 the Tsung-Li-Yamen (Foreign Board) of China addres- 
 sed to the British Government through Sir Eutherford Alcock a memoidal 
 in which they said : “ The writers hope that His Excellency will 
 memorialize his Government to give orders in India and elsewhere to 
 substitute the cultivation of cereals or cotton. Were both nations to 
 rigorously prohibit the growth of the poppy, both the traffic in and the , 
 consumption of opium might alike be put an end to.” Within* the 
 last few years, shortly before the signing of the Additional Article of , 
 1885, a special mission was again sent from Cliina to Calcutta, to propose j 
 to the Indian Government a scheme for the gradual suppression of the 
 poppy cultivation in both countries. 
 
 Q. — I suppose you mean on the part of the Chinese Government ? 
 
 A. — On the part of the Chinese Government. Of that mission so 
 far as I am aware no official account has ever been published. Informa- 
 tion has reached me through private sources that there was such a 
 mission. I believe that a gentleman employed in the Chinese Customs’, 
 service came to Calcutta in order to ascertain whether it would not be, 
 possible to come to some such arrangement with the Indian Government. 
 
 Q. — For total prohibition ? 
 
 A. — For gradual suppression in both countries concurrently. 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 Q. — What year was that ? 
 
 A.— I do not know the exact year. As far as I know it has never 
 been pnhlislied. Perhaps the Commission will be able to get information 
 in regard to it which is not at present before tlie public. I presume the 
 Calcutta Government will have some record of the proceedings. 
 
 Q- — dfr. Pease. — Is tliere any evidence that he was authorised by 
 the Chinese Government? 
 
 A. — I understood he came with the approval of the Chinese Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Q. — Chairman. — Was he a properly accredited representative of the 
 Cliinese Government ? 
 
 A. — I am not sure how far lie was officially accredited. He must 
 have received some introduction. 
 
 Q. — You have no direct knowledge ? 
 
 A. — No, it has simply reached me unofficially. The Marquis 
 Tseng in 188G in a letter addressed to our Secretary said: — This 
 treaty I admit does not accomplish the desired result, but it would prove 
 nevertlieless the first important step towards checking tlie use and abuse, 
 of opium. The British Government as well as my own will enjoy greater 
 facilities in future for re-opening negotiation on the opium question 
 with a view of agreeing to measures that would reduce each year the 
 quantity of importation and consumption. “ The British Government 
 may in the meantime see its way clear to place restrictions upon 
 the present cultivation, in which case my Government would surely 
 lose no time in following the example and put an effectual check 
 upon the growth of opium iu China.” Since then the only evi- 
 dence that I think I can bring before the Commission as to the willing- 
 ness of the Chinese Government still, and its desire, to concur in such an 
 arrangement, is that derived from the interviews which His Excellency 
 Li Hung Chung, the Great Chinese Viceroy, has accorded to some of 
 our friends : to Mr. Dyer of Bombay in 1890, and more recently to the 
 Kevd. Dr. Glover and Mr. Morris a deputation from the Baptist Missionary 
 Society, who were visiting China. In those inteiudews Li Hung Chang 
 expresses the great desire of the Chinese Government to put down the 
 trade. I do not remember that in either of these interHews this special 
 proposal was again put forward. Li Hung Chang at all events recognised 
 that this is a great evil, and expressed himself in the strongest terms 
 as to the impossibility of the Chinese Government taking any practical 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 step to deal with that evil, except by some agreement with the British 
 Government which would aim at the suppression of the import from India. 
 
 Q. — Was Li Hung Chang on the occasions to which you are refer- 
 ring expressing his own individual views, or was he putting forward the 
 opinion of his Government ? 
 
 A. — I think he was speaking his own individual views, hut the 
 Commision has already had some evidence on that question. The 
 Revd. J. S. Adams put before the Commission his very strong view 
 that tliat opinioir is almost universally held amongst the higlier statesmen 
 of China. I have had similar very strong opinions from Hr. Dudgeon of 
 Pekin, who was Private Secretary to the Marquis Tseng, and who knows a 
 great deal of many of tlie liigher officials in Pekin. I may remind the Com- 
 mission, too, that Sir Thomas Wade in his evidence said he would not 
 undertake to say whether the majority of Chinese statesmen are or are not 
 strongly opposed to the opium traffic. In particular Tso Tsung Tang, 
 whose position and influence, as I understand, are only second to those of 
 Li Hung Chang himself, is known as a strong and determined opponent 
 of the opium traffic. 
 
 Q. — Sir Thomas Wade placed before us in London, a report entitled 
 Conferences on the Opium Question, which had taken place between 
 himself and the Ministers of the Tsung-Li-Yamen in 1881-82. To the 
 best of my recollection he called our attention to a declaration made by 
 the Yamen to this effect that, while desiring to see the abuse of opium 
 repressed in China, the Yamen held the view that the habit was now so 
 widely spread in China that any reform must be the result of a general 
 moral improvement among the people ; that they recognise that the growth 
 of opium in China had become so extensive that it would be impos- 
 sible by merely putting an end to the trade in India to put an end 
 
 to the supply of opium ; and that for the moment they held the view that 
 there were many questions of greater urgency than the decisive step of 
 absolutely prohibiting the importation of opium. I believe that was the 
 effect of the conversations to which Sir Thomas Wade called our attention 
 in London. 
 
 A. — I should say with regard to that conversation referred to by Sir 
 Thomas Wade that we only have his account of it, which of course rests 
 chiefly on his own private memoranda. W e know how, when a man has 
 strong views, he is apt to take others as agreeing with them perhaps 
 
 more than they really do ; and no official or public statement of that 
 
 kind has ever been made by Chinese statesmen, 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 Q. — In the concluding part of the third paragraph of your memorial 
 you refer to the abolition of what are described as licensed smoking dens 
 throughout India. Have you anything more to say upon that subject ? 
 
 A. — On that point we rejoice in the action of the Government of India 
 as a very decided step in the right direction, but it seems to us to require sup- 
 plementing by further measures in the same direction. That has been sug- 
 gested in a correspondence presented to Parliament this year at the instance 
 of Mr. Caine — a correspondence arising out of a confidential circular issued 
 by the Board of Revenue of the North-West Provinces and Oudh. In 
 his despatch closing that correspondence, Lord Kimberley says, under 
 date IGth of March 1893. — “The question arises whether the law 
 ought not to be strengthened, so as to enable your officers to take legal 
 steps for suppressing private opium saloons ; otherwise, if unlicensed 
 saloons for opium-smoking can be established without hindrance, the 
 object which was thought to be attained by prohibiting opium-smoking 
 on the premises of licensed opium vendors may be practically defeated. 
 I shall be glad to learn the views of your Government on this point.” 
 I am not aware whether the Indian Government has replied to that 
 enquiry of Lord Kimberley. We strongly hold the view expressed by 
 Lord Kimberley that it is desirable to prevent private and unlicensed 
 opium dens or opium clubs being established so as to provide facilities 
 within the law for this practice of opium-smoking which the Indian 
 Government has by its action and its minute recognized as being 
 undoubtedly a very great evil. 
 
 Q. — You refer to the removal of the Minimum Guarantee Clause 
 from the agreement made with those who hold opium licenses in Bombay. 
 Have you anything to say on that ? 
 
 A. — I can only say that we also rejoice in that as a step in the right 
 direction. I may be allowed to add one point. In going through India 
 with Mr. Wilson, I have had my attention called to the fact that this 
 measure of the suppression of opium dens has not been fully carried out. 
 We visited a town, which I think it better not to name because I do not 
 want to bring special officials before the Commisson. In that town we 
 were taken to three opium dens on the premises of licensed opium vendors, 
 where we saw in three of them cliandu smoking and in one muddak 
 smoking going on just as if no order had been issued by the Government 
 of India. I think it desirable to call the attention of the Commission 
 to the fact that, although those orders have been put into the licenses in 
 every province prohibiting the sale of opium for smoking, on the premises, 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 those orders have not been fully carried out, as I have seen with my own 
 eyes. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Fanshawe . — Were those public shops ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Licensed public shops ? 
 
 A. — We were told that they were licensed. Our gharry driver was 
 a Mahommedan, and we were told that he would be able to take us to the 
 places. He took us, and we found them open, with no attempt at conceal- 
 ment. 
 
 Q. — Where were they ? 
 
 A. — I would rather not mention the town ; but I will send the name 
 up to the Chairman. 
 
 Q. — Chairman — You had better mention it. 
 
 A. — It was in the town of Gya. We were told that there were 
 some others also in the same town. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall. — In the third paragraph of your memorial 
 you speak of “ the extremely objectionable ‘minimum guarantee’ clause 
 contained in the opium licenses used in the Presidency of Bombay.” Do 
 you not think that that is a very strong term to use ? 
 
 A. — It seemed to me that it was extremely objectionable in the 
 natural operation. I am aware of the object which was intended in the 
 insertion of that clause, that is, to prevent smuggling ; but it seems to 
 me that the necessary operation of such a clause would be that there 
 would be great pressure put upon the licensee to extend his sales so as 
 not to incur the risk of a fine. 
 
 Q. — I think you are aware that before that system was invented 
 there was most extensive smitggling. The licensed vendors in Bombay, 
 though they paid heavily for their licenses and sold a good deal of opium, 
 yet took hardly any of the high-priced Government opium for their shop 
 and relied entirely upon the smuggling trade ? 
 
 A. — I have been so informed. 
 
 Q. — So that there were strong reasons for it ? 
 
 A. — I do not impute bad motives to the Government in adopting 
 that clause, nevertheless I think that the clause as adopted was “extremely 
 objectionable,” as the memorial says, and I am glad that it has been 
 done away with. 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 Q. — A man could only have one shop, lie could not establish branch 
 shops ; the license only allowed him to establish a certain shop and sell 
 to anybody who came ? 
 
 A. — Except with permission of the Government official. 
 
 Q. — If that permission was not given as a rule, he had only one shop ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — It would make a great difference to him in the amount he sold 
 whether he had to pay the maximum amount or not ? 
 
 A. — The ordinary motives of self-interest would make a man sell 
 as much as he could. You may strengthen those motives by telling him 
 that he is under a fine if he does not sell a certain quantity. 
 
 Q. — Under that strong motive how would he increase the sale ? 
 
 A. — I have heard since I have been in India of a licensee 
 sending round to his customers, if they did not turn up at the accustomed 
 period in the evening, to ask them why they did not come, in that way 
 trying to induce a man who was perhaps making some struggle to free 
 himself. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Ucms/in we. — With regard to Gya, I understand that your 
 statement depends on information given you by a gharry driver. Did you 
 notice if there was a licensed board up at the shop. 
 
 A. — The information was not given by the driver, but it was 
 given me by the Baptist Pastor of the place. He referred to our 
 driver as being a man who would know where the shops were. It was 
 he who made the statement to us that the shops were Government licens- 
 ed shops. 
 
 Q. — Was any licensed board up in front of the shops ? 
 
 A. — I did not observe any board. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Mowbray. — You are quite aware that similar difficulties 
 have arisen in England with regard to clubs and public houses ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — You are aware that there was a Committee of the House of 
 Commons sitting on that subject last year ? 
 
 A. — I did not remember that ; I take it from you, and I have no 
 doubt it is so. 
 
 Q. — And so far as I know. Government have not taken any steps to 
 put down these clubs in England ? 
 
 A. — I do not think they have, but I think the Temperance party, 
 f I may speak as a humble member of that party, is very desirous indeed 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 and is endeavouring to put pressure upon the Government, to introduce a 
 measure dealing with clubs. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Wilson . — Upon that point about the bogus clubs in Eng- 
 land, I suppose you are also aware that the members of the licensed trade 
 are equally anxious to get them put down ? 
 
 A. — I believe it is so. 
 
 Q . — Chairman : — Keturning to your General Memorial, in the fourth 
 paragraph you say tliat you accept those measures of reform which have 
 already been adopted as steps in the right direction, but in your view those 
 measures fall short of carrying out the resolution which the House of 
 Commons had approved. You then proceed to make a reference to the 
 observations of Mr. Gladstone to the Electors of Midlothian, and you hold 
 that those observations imply a sympathy with the cause which you have 
 taken up. You then refer to the specific measures which you would re- 
 commend for adoption witli a view to the repression of the opium trade. 
 You also refer to the Bengal opium monopoly, to the Malwa transit duty 
 system, and to the excise system. Then in your seventh paragraph you 
 proceed to deal somewhat more in detail with Bengal opium monopoly. 
 You recommend that there should be an immediate reduction in the area 
 of poppy cultivation mth a view to limiting the production of opium to 
 that which medical use requires ; and you complain that opium is not 
 prepared in India for medical use, but solely for sensual indulgence. Have 
 you anything further to say upon that subject ? 
 
 A. — I should like to point out under this paragraph the great dis- 
 tinction between opium prepared for medical use and opium prepared for 
 smoking or opium-eating, which is what we mean by sensual indulgence. 
 The British Pharmacopeia does not admit of the use of Indian opium in 
 the preparation of medicines in England. In Fluckiger and Hanbury’s 
 Pharmacographia it is shown that Indian opium, though very potent for 
 intoxicating purposes, does not contain a sufficient proportion of those 
 ingredients which are specially useful for medical purposes. In this par- 
 agraph we point out that a specially prepared article is issued from the 
 Government Agencies to the Medical Department in India. Ho doubt 
 a good deal of opium prepared, for the Excise Department, and prepared, 
 as I should say, for intoxicating use, is in fact used by doctors in India 
 for medical purposes. And Dr. Maxwell, who gave evidence with regard 
 to China, told me that when he was practising in Formosa, having run 
 out of medical opium, he had used the Indian smoking opium. 
 
 Q . — Sir William Roberts : — I think he said Indian crude opium? 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 A. — That is what I mean, crude opium intended to be prepared for 
 smoking purposes. 
 
 Q.-^ — He added that it answered just as well? 
 
 A. — I did not remember that. I suppose he must have used it in 
 some different proportions. 
 
 Q. — The differences are really very slight. 
 
 A. — Fluckiger and Hanbury, I think, speak of the difference as be- 
 ing considerable. 
 
 Q. — The analysis can be had ; the differences are very slight. 
 
 A. — Dr. Fluckiger has suggested that the Indian Government would 
 do well to pay attention to the demand for good opium for medical use, and 
 prepare opium with a view of competing with the Turkey drug which at pres - 
 ent has a monopoly for medical use in Great Britain and Europe generally. 
 I have various authorities that I can refer to on the question of its being 
 prepared for sensual indulgence. That largely rests npon a statement 
 made by Julius Jeffreys, F. E. S., formerly Staff Surgeon of Cawnpore, 
 and Civil Surgeon at Fategarh, pubhshed in 1858 in an appendix to a 
 book on the British Army in India": — “ My own acquaintance with the 
 subject dates from the year 1831, when, in passing by water the chief 
 opium magazine of the East India Company at Patna, I paid a visit to a 
 friend who had charge of the scientific department of it. After he had led 
 me through story after story and gallery after gallery of the factory, with 
 opium balls right and left tiered in shelves to the ceiling, upon my 
 expressing amazement at an exhibition of opium enough to supply the 
 medical wants of tJie world for years, he rejrhed, nearly in these words : 
 ‘I see you are very innocent ; these stores of opium have no such benefic- 
 ent destination. It is all going to debauch the Chinese, and my duty is 
 to maintain its smack as attractive to them as possible. Come to my 
 laboratory.’ There I saw broken balls of opium procured, I understood, 
 from China, by the Bengal Government, as approved musters (samples) 
 for imitation by the cultivators.” Mr. Jeffreys adds : “ Upon looking 
 around for infonnation, I heard that the natives, where they ventured 
 an opinion, the Mahommedans especially, were equally scandalized at 
 the engagement of the Company in such a traffic.” 
 
 Q. — What year was that ? 
 
 A. — The visit was in 1831. 
 
 Q. — I presume you are aware that very httle was then known 
 about opium smoking ? 
 
( 13 } 
 
 A. — Not very much in 1831. It was about 1840 that the first 
 pamphlets came out attacking'tlie opiumftracle. Bishop Thoburn referred 
 to the fact that it was condemned in very strong tenns in the Impeach- 
 ment of Warren Hastings more than 100 years ago. And tlie East 
 Indian Company’s despatch of 1817, sanctioning the establishment of the 
 excise system of selling opium in India, spoke in the strongest terms 
 of condemnation of the habit. The Directors said that in compassion to 
 mankind they would gladly stop the traffic altogether were it possible. 
 
 Q. — Do you draw any distinction in point of moral responsibility 
 between the working of a system such as the Bengal opium monopoly 
 and the position taken by the Government in otlier parts of India where 
 it is not a manufacturer or producer, and interposes only to levy export 
 duties and to enforce the payment of licenses. I believe that has been 
 done in some pamphlets issued by your Association ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I was intending to deal with that under paragraph 
 thirteen, but I may as well take it here. I may say that the opinions 
 expressed in that pamphlet dealing with Sir William Muir’s minute are 
 not the opinions held by our Society now. 
 
 Q.— When was that pamphlet published ? 
 
 A. — Very early in the history of the Society — in 1875. 
 
 Q. — You were not connected with the society at that time ? 
 
 A. — I was not. 
 
 Q. Was Sir Joseph Pease connected with it ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; he was not President then. Lord Shaftesbury was 
 President until his death. There was some difference of view, as I ex- 
 plained in London. In starting the Society it was not committed to any 
 very definite policy. That came out in a meeting at the Mansion House 
 held in 1883, when three different speakers suggested three different 
 lines. One speaker advocated a policy of gradual suppression. I think 
 it was Lord Shaftesbury himself. Another speaker, who I think was 
 Sir Eobert Fowler, our late Treasurer, advocated that the change of 
 policy should be on the line of Sir William Muir’s minute. Cardinal 
 Manning who was a subsequent speaker, quoted the old story about 
 the lung who wished that all his nobles had but one neck so 
 that he might strike them all off at a blow, and he applied that to the 
 opium traffic. He very strongly objected to the suggestion that the 
 opium traffic should be handed over to private capitalists, because he 
 pointed out that if that were the case, you would at once have a number 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 of vested interests like those that we liave in England in connection with 
 the liquor trattic. He would rather have the one neck of the Govern- 
 ment of India to deal with than have the vested rights of a number 
 of private capitalists. Since that time that view has been completely 
 accepted by our Society, and in the Statement of Facts and Principles 
 which I put in, and which was adopted by us at the beginning of 1886, 
 the suppression of the cultivation of the poppy in Bengal was for the first 
 time I think distinctly laid down as the programme of the Society, and it 
 is embodied in paragrapli 1 3 of the memorial to Lord Kimberley. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall : — Suppression not merely of the monopoly but 
 of the cultivation ? 
 
 A.' — Not merely of the monopoly, but of the cultivation. 
 
 Q. — Chairman : — You put that forward now as the view held 
 unanimously by the members of your Society ? 
 
 A. — Unanimously by the active members of our Society. 
 
 Q. — What interpretion do you put upon the passage in Sir Joseph 
 Pease’s speech last session which I quoted in my question to Sir David 
 Barbour ? 
 
 A. — I think Sir Joseph Pease only meant to say what we have 
 said in paragraph thirteen, that is, that the Calcutta sales are the most 
 prominent and the most obviously indefensible part of the system from 
 oirr point of view ; that the Malwa system has more analogy to the drink 
 traffic repressed by taxation with which we are familiar in our own 
 country ; and that the fact tlaat the Government holds this position 
 under the monopoly brings out in a more glaring light the evils of 
 the system. 
 
 Q. — You have nothing further to say on the Bengal monopoly ? 
 
 A. — It is sometimes said that there are no precedents for the prohibi- 
 tion of a trade in this way by a Government. I venture to put before 
 the Commission two precedents both relating to tbe liquor traffic. One 
 is xmder the North Sea Convention for the protection of sailors in the 
 North Sea against the liquor traffic that used to be carried on by what 
 were called copers. 
 
 Q. — You would not draw any parallel between the North Sea liquor 
 traffic and the opium traffic of India in point of magnitude ? 
 
 A. — No, not in point of magnitude certainly. I refer to it simply 
 as answering the objection that has been raised against our proposal 
 that it is altogether unprecedented. That is a precedent, I think, for 
 the absolute prohibition of traffic of a similar character. The second 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 is that of the Brussels Anti-Slavery Convention, under which a large 
 zone of Central Africa is absolutely protected from the liquor traffic. 
 The pro'\dsion is that where the liquor traffic has not yet been carried 
 on in Africa, it is totally prohibited. This Convention also porvides, 
 by taxation for the limitation of the local traffic in those districts where 
 it already exists. 
 
 Q. — In the case of Africa, I apprehend there is no difference of 
 opinion among professional experts as to the effect of indulgence in liquor 
 by the African tribes ; — they are unanimous that it is a bad thing ? 
 
 A. — That is so, and I think there is practical unanimity in regard 
 to the effects of opium in China. 
 
 Q. — With regard to the Malwa system, you deal with that in the eighth 
 paragraph, and you say that, with a view to preventing the cultivation 
 of opium beyond what is required for medical use, it is desirable that 
 there should be a mutual prohibition enforced alike in British India and 
 in the Malwa States, and you say that if such an arrangement were 
 made, the objection which has been urged on the part of the Government 
 of India to the proposals on the ground of smuggling would be to a 
 large extent removed. Have you anything to say in development of 
 these views ? 
 
 A. — I would simply more clearly bring out our view that the 
 Bengal trade ought first to be stopped. The Government of India ought 
 first to cease itself from deriving on revenue from carrying on this trade . 
 Having stopped the Bengal system and having given up its own revenue, 
 it would then be in a position to goto the Chiefs of the Native States 
 and say: “We on moral grounds have abandoned this trade, feeling that 
 it is indefensible and ask you to follow our example.” 
 
 Q. — How long would you concede to the Government of India for 
 the purpose of dealing with the case in Bengal ? 
 
 A. — I would say that it should be done as quickly as possible, and 
 would say. Stop the trade immediately and convert the stocks you| have 
 in hand to medical use at once. 
 
 Q. — You recognise the financial difficulty ? 
 
 A. — Yes I do, but I am unable to put a financial difficulty on the 
 same line with a moral objection. I think England should help in regard 
 to the financial difficulty. I should like to add another point on the eighth 
 paragraph. I think that pressure upon the Native States would be 
 justifiable, should it become necessary, on the ground that in the past 
 we have forced the trade upon the Chinese ; that if the Chinese Gov- 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 
 ernment had succeeded in its effort in 1 840 to pnt down the trade, the 
 Native States would have lost the whole of their trade. It is the force 
 of the British arms that established the trade and has kept it open ever 
 since, and on that ground we should be entitled to exercise pressure 
 upon the Native States if necessary ; though I would only advocate that 
 in the last resort. 
 
 The difficulty as to the smuggling of-opium would be met, as far as 
 regards the States of Central India, which produce opium by an arrange- 
 ment of that kind with the Native States. That is my answer to those 
 who say that smuggling would be an insuperable difficulty. Some little 
 difficulty might no doubt arise as regards smuggling over the North 
 West Frontier and perhaps Bfes^l, but I do not think that it is so formid- 
 able as is often stated. Sir Charles Aitchison, in a memorandum in 1880 
 with regard to opium in Burma, says — “ As regards smuggling, I do not 
 believe that, even with our open seaboard of 1,000 miles and our long and 
 unguarded frontier with Upper Burma, the Shan States and Siam, there 
 would be a very great increase in illicit traffic, either from Bengal or from 
 China, if the importation of opium were altogether forbidden and the pos- 
 session of opium were made illegal. Already the price of opium is artificially 
 forced up to a maximum, presenting the very strongest temptation to the 
 smuggler, while the fact that possession of the drug is not unlawful 
 increases the difficulty of detection. The pecuniary temptation cannot 
 become very much greater than it is if opium were altogether forbidden ; 
 the drug wherever found would be contraband without question, and we 
 should have the sympathies of the people with us in the suppression of 
 smuggling. One fact is worth a bushel of argument ; we have succeeded 
 in almost stamping out ganja, although the plant from which it is made 
 grows wild in Burma. The difficulties we have in any case to contend 
 with, in preventing smuggling are so great that an addition to them 
 would not be a very appreciable burden. Anyhow, smuggling, even on a 
 considerable scale, would never lead to the universal consumption of the 
 drug ; and the extension of the revenue is not to be compared to the 
 gradual demoralization of the people.” 
 
 Q . — Sir James Lyall -. — With reference to the Bengal opium 
 monopoly I understand that your Society admits that the Bengal mono- 
 poly system is preferable to the Malwa or export duty system as the 
 most powerful engine for restricting and regulating internal consumption ; 
 and the preference is not based simply upon the fact that it is easier to 
 attack, but it is also admitted that, if the prohibition of cultivation is not 
 to be enforced, the Bengal monopoly system is the most powerful engine 
 possible for restricting and regulating the internal cons^imption ? 
 
( n ) 
 
 A. — I do not think we have ever admitted that. We recognise that 
 there will be a risk in changing the system — that if we really changed 
 the system, we might find ourselves worse off. My own private opinion 
 is that we in all probability sh 9 uld not find ourselves worse off. 
 
 Q. — Not worse off in what way ? 
 
 A. — I mean there might be a greater consumption — it might possi- 
 bly lead to a greater trade. 
 
 Q. — If you free the trade ? 
 
 A. — And simply placed it under a system of excise similar to that 
 which we have at home in regard to the manufacture of beer. 
 
 Q. — You do not think that your Society admitted that, but you 
 yourself are inclined to think so ? 
 
 A. — I beg your pardon, I am inclined to think otherwise. 
 
 Q. — What, that the free trade system is better for internal consump- 
 tion than the Bengal system ? 
 
 A. — I do not suppose that anybody contemplated free trade. 
 
 Q. — Free growth and an excise and export duty ? 
 
 A. — Excise and export duty, a system such as that sketched out by 
 Sir William Muir, which is one of licensing the growth. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that would be better for regulating and restricting 
 internal consumption than the Bengal monopoly system ? 
 
 A. — Yes. My personal opinion is that probably there would be less 
 grown and less trade altogether under such a system than under the 
 present system. 
 
 Q. — I am speaking of internal consumption ? 
 
 A. — I have not formed an opinion about that. I recognise that 
 there are risks, and that we might possibly find ourselves worse off. The 
 Society has recognized those risks, and does not wish to make the 
 experiment. 
 
 Q. — Are you aware that poppy cultivation once extended throughout 
 India in all parts where the soil and the climate were suitable, and, except 
 in certain favorable tracts, it was mainly or entirely for consumption, not 
 an export trade ; and are you aware that the operation of the Bengal 
 opium monopoly and the policy of the Government of India in connection 
 with it since its first establishment, more than a hundred years ago, have 
 had the effect of putting an end to poppy cultivation in much the greater 
 part of British India and in the greater part of the territory held by the 
 Native States— are you aware of that 1 
 
( 18 ) • 
 
 A. — I could not say that I was aware of it as regards the Native 
 States. As regards British India, I am aware that poppy cultivation 
 existed here and there over a large part of it until the measures were taken 
 at the end of the last century to which we have referred to in para- 
 graph eleven. 
 
 Q. — In Mysore and Hyderabad by agreement with the Government, 
 poppy cultivation was prohibited. There are two instances ; and all the 
 ' Native States under the control of Bombay are also other instances ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say I was aware of it. I have no doubt you are 
 correct. 
 
 Q. — Then but for the monopoly and the policy in connection with it 
 would not the cultivation of the poppy and the consumption and export 
 of opium have been in all probability much greater than they are under 
 the present system ? 
 
 A. — It is quite possible. I cannot form a definite opinion as to what 
 would have been. 
 
 Q. — I ask the question because in the anti-opium literature these 
 facts are altogether ignored and it might be thought that we had introduc- 
 ed the cultivation of the poppy and entirely created the export trade ? 
 
 A. — I think we have frequently used the fact that the Government of 
 India prohibit and put down the opium growth in many parts of India 
 as an argument why it should and could do the same in the remainder of 
 India. We have used that as an argument in paragraph eleven and often 
 refer to it in our publications. 
 
 Q. — In paragraph seven you speak of limiting the production of 
 opium to that wliich medical use requii-es. That means, does it not, that 
 it must only be supplied on medical advice ? 
 
 A. — That is our view. 
 
 Q. — But the mass of natives of India prefer their own system of 
 medicine to ours ; they may admit the superiority of our surgeiy, but they 
 prefer their own system of medicine. Our doctors on the contrary say 
 that their ideas of medicine are all wrong. Is not that a difficulty in 
 laying down a rule that opium should only be supplied on medical advice 
 of some kind ? 
 
 A. — I should not have thought so. I include in medical advice 
 Native as well as European doctors, advice according to the native system 
 as well as according to the European. 
 
 Q. — You are aware that the medical system of the village doctors is 
 of a most primitive land possible ? 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 A. — I was not aware of that. 
 
 Q. — That people administer medicine for themselves, a man advising 
 for his own family or for his neighbour ? 
 
 A. — We attempt to deal with that in England, where people also 
 medicate themselves to a great extent, by directing that no medicine of a 
 poisonous character shall be sold except by druggists. 
 
 Q. — Do yon think from what you know or of what you have heard 
 of India that the native practitioners, the hakims and vaidas, can be 
 trusted with tlie power of prescribing opium and saying whether it shall 
 be used for medical purposes or not, there being great inducements for 
 them to misuse their power owing to the large demand for opium as a 
 stimulant ? 
 
 A. — My answer is that you must work with such tools as you have. 
 Although it may be true that the medical profession in India (using the 
 word in the large sense of all who practise medicine) is not in a very 
 satisfactory state, and that there would be some temptations of the kind 
 you have suggested, yet it is far better that a general restriction should 
 be applied than that the sale should be perfectly public and open, and 
 every man allowed to get poisonous drugs exactly as he pleased. 
 
 Q. — You know that opium is a stimulant, as alcohol is ; would it not 
 be very difficult to draw a line between the use of such a thing for medical 
 requirements and its use for other pur^wses ? If you asked most 
 people who took opium moderately why they took it at aU, they would 
 nearly all answer that they took it because they thought it did them 
 good ; how can you possibly draw a line and say that in this ease it is 
 for medical use and in that case it is not ? 
 
 A. — I cannot admit the suggestion that most people in India who 
 use opium even, as you say, moderately would say that it was doing them 
 good. It may be so, and my limited knowledge of India does not entitle 
 me to say that it is not, but I cannot be taken to admit that it is. 
 I have heard a good deal in India to the contrary, — that those who take 
 opium even in comparatively small doses admit that it does not do 
 them .'good. 
 
 Q. — Sir William Roberts: — Do you not recognize the analogy bor- 
 tween the-use of brandy in our country, partly as an intoxicant and largely 
 as a domestic remedy, and the use of opium ? Is not the parallel pretty 
 even ? 
 
 A. — No, I should have thought not, 
 
 Q. — Why not ? 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 A. — There is this broad distiniction, at all events, that opium has been 
 recognized by medical science as a poison and that at home we do attempt 
 to protect our people from its indiscriminate use in that way. We have 
 not yet given that protection at home against alcohol, and if it were to be 
 extended to India it would be something beyond what we have at home. 
 
 Q. — Is not that begging the question that India and home are 
 identical in regard to opium ? 
 
 A. — It is assuming that opium being a poison in England is also 
 a poison in India. We certainly do assume that. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall. — Are you aware that the English system 
 which you recommend to be introduced is not sufficient for preventing any 
 person who wants to get opium for excessive indulgence ? 
 
 A. — We have admitted in our ninth paragraph that the provisions 
 of the present law as regards opium are too lax. I may explain briefly 
 what the provisions are in the Pharmacy Act. The Act divides poisons 
 into two categories — violent poisons, amongst which strychnine and 
 arsenic are included, and milder poisons, amongst which opium and all 
 the preparations of opium are included. With regard to the more violent 
 poisons, the provisions are exceedingly strict ; they can only be sold by 
 certified druggists, who must make entries and have a knowledge of the 
 person, to whom they are selling. With regard to opium, as one of the 
 milder drugs, the provisions are only that it must be sold by a registered 
 druggist and that it must be labelled “ poison.” There is a considerable 
 amount of medical opinion at home in favour of taking opium out of the 
 milder category and putting it in the stricter. 
 
 Q. — You are aware that under the present system in the Fens and 
 other parts of England where opium is freely taken as it is in India the 
 druggists have it prepared on market days on their counters ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — People come in and take the opium without question ? 
 
 A. — I am aware that that is so, and that medical men and other 
 observers in those districts speak of it as a very great evil, and greatly 
 deplore that such a state of things exists. 
 
 Q. — Some do and some do not ; some medical men justify the 
 system ? 
 
 A. — I think I have seen one opinion of that kind, but I have heard 
 a good many to the contrary. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 Q. — Has yoiir society ever thought out any system for India by 
 which opium would be available for medical use and yet not available as 
 a stimulant ? 
 
 A. — We have taken the view that that was a question upon which 
 we at home could not work out the details, that we could only lay down 
 principles and leave the Indian Government, which knows India and has 
 its officials to consult, to ascertain the best way of applying those 
 principles. 
 
 Q. — In paragraph eight you say : — “ As regards Malwa opium we 
 would point out that the present wide extension of poppy cultivation in 
 the Native States is due to the policy of the British Government itself.” 
 Then you go on to quote as an authority the statement made by Mr. St. 
 George Tucker. Has your society made any further enquiry to test the 
 correctness of Mr. Tucker’s statement ? Does it still adhere to the 
 statement as true in fact that the present wide extension of poppy 
 cultivation is due to the policy of the British Government itself ? 
 
 A." — I do not think the society can be said to have made any further 
 enquiry. I have received from yourself information, which you were good 
 enough to furnish me wjth on the voyage out, which I admit tends to show 
 that Mr. Tucker probably somewhat inaccurately represented the state of 
 the case. We naturally took his statement as being that of a very great 
 authority, and we were not aware of any facts which would displace the 
 statement. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall: — You have not seen the memorandum as to 
 the arrangement with the Native States which the Government of India 
 prepared ? 
 
 A. — No I only received it yesterday and I have not been able to 
 look through it. 
 
 Q. — Have you looked at the subject in Sir Charles Aitchison’s 
 work 7 
 
 A. — I looked up the book and I was unsuccessful, I may almost say, 
 in finding any trace of the opium question. Perhaps there was a foot-note 
 somewhere. 
 
 Q. — There is a copy of the Treaty made in 1820 with Holkar and a 
 similar treaty with nine other States. In his philanthropic zeal Mr. 
 Tucker mistook the facts and misrepresented them. You wiU find the 
 treaty given there ? 
 
 A. — I did so, but I did not read it in such a way as to contradict 
 Mr. Tucker’s statement. I think Sir Charles Aitchison’s object was to 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 show that the new arran gement was^better than the old, and that it seems 
 to me from every point of view it undoubtedly is. 
 
 Q. — You mean better than that made by treaty ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Better for the Native States. They objected strongly to the 
 old arrangement and so did the natives. The-object of the treaties was to 
 bring poppy cultivation into control and reduce it for the benefit of the 
 Bengal opium ? 
 
 A. — It led to a system of espionage jwhich i^was unendurable. We 
 mention that the treaties were repealed in paragraph eight. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Tucker stated that we contracted burdensome treaties with 
 the Rajput States to introduce and to extend the cultivation of the poppy. 
 There he was entirely wrong, as any reference to the authorities will show? 
 
 A. — I am glad to know that it is so. I take it from you. 
 
 Q. — When you say : “at the present time the Native States engage 
 so to manage their opium cultivation and production as to safeguard the 
 British revenue ; and in exchange for this service they receive either 
 money compensation or other ooncessions, — ” did you imagine that the 
 Native States there referred to were the same Native States — the Rajput 
 Native States or Rajputana or Central India ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — As a matter of fact they are not the same Native States ? 
 
 A. — We have given a reference to the passage. It is not our state- 
 ment, but the statement of the Government of India in the Report on the 
 Moral and Material Progress of India, 1887-88. 
 
 Q. — Those States are Bombay Native States ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q- — The Native States under the Bombay Government ; it may be 
 that other Native States are included like Hyderabad and Mysore ; but in 
 all cases when money compensation or other concessions are given they 
 are given with a restrictive object ? 
 
 A. All I can say is that that did not appear to us to be the mean- 
 ing of the paragraph. If you tell me it is so, I will accept it on your 
 statement. In my examination-in-chief, I have endeavoured to put our 
 case as regards the Malwa opium on quite different and broader grounds. 
 
 Q- Would it not have been better to enquire of some person in au- 
 thority before making a statement of that sort in a letter like this ? 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 A. — I think we were surely justified in taking these statements from 
 two such high authorities and putting them down in their plain and obvi- 
 ous meaning. Of course we labour under great difficulties in England . 
 Not nearly all the papers of the Government of India are published in 
 England. 
 
 ■"y) Q. — You piece the two things together — Mr. Tucker’s statement of 
 18i|l and ^mething that is said in the Moral and Material Progress in 
 1887 — six^ars after. Surely you might have enqumed of some person in 
 authority ? 
 
 A. — Those two statements seemed to justify the statement we made. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Fanshawe. — Your Society has recommended that opium 
 should only be purchasable in Chemists shops ? 
 
 A. — It has never made that recommendation, so far as I know. 
 
 Q. — It is in a pamphlet addressed by the President of your Society to 
 Lord Cross, and it is also made by some medical men at home, and quoted 
 with approval. I think it is distinctly stated hy your Society ? 
 
 A. — It has not been made by the Society ; it certainly has not come 
 before me as an official publication. 
 
 Q. — Does not this letter from the President represent the Society ? 
 
 A. — The Society is not committed to every statement in that letter. 
 
 Q. — Does it not represent the views of the Society ? 
 
 A.— Will you read the words ? 
 
 Q.— At page twenty-three he says: “With regard to No. 2, dealing 
 with old established habits I would submit for Your Lordship’s considera- 
 tion that in substituting the Chemist’s shop for the opium market, etc.,” — 
 putting that forward as a recommendation of the Society. Then he says : — 
 “ I believe Your Lordship is already aware that upwards of 5,000 medical 
 men, some of them knowing India thoroughly, have signed the following 
 declaration one of the paragraphs being, “ That the drug opium ought in 
 India’as in England to be classed and sold as a poison and be purchasable 
 from Chemists only.” I should like to know what your Society con- 
 templates in speaking of the Chemists’ shops as applied to a large part of 
 India ? 
 
 A. — Our Society has not made that proposal. Our proposals will 
 be found in paragraph nine. 
 
 Q. — What proposals ? 
 
 A. — “We would urge upon Your Lordship to request the Indian 
 Government without delay to prepare and adopt such regulations under the 
 I ndian Opium and Excise Acts as may be found best suited to adapt to the 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 requirements of British India the fundamental principles that the sale of 
 ’ poisonous drugs is to be restricted to medical and scientific use, and that 
 
 I discretionary powers for such sale should be entrusted only to responsible 
 and carefully selected persons, who possess adequate knowledge of the dele- 
 terious properties of these drugs, who can readily be called to account for 
 any improper use of the discretion conferred upon them, and whose remu- 
 neration in no degree depends on the amount of their sales.”, 
 
 Q. — Then I may take it that your answer is that you have not 
 thought out for yourselves the means by which the opium could be supplied 
 even for medical purposes throughout the country ? 
 
 A. — I did not say we had not thought it out, but that we had left it to 
 the Indian Government to apply the principles laid down in the way that 
 the circumstances of India might require — the principles which underlie our 
 home legislation. 
 
 Q. — You do not see the difficulty? 
 
 A. — No doubt there are difficulties, but I do not know what 
 Governments and Statesmen are for, if it is not to deal with difficulties 
 and overcome them. 
 
 Q. — With regard to the limitation to medical use only, I will ask 
 you to take the case of the Central Provinces, where Dr. Eice told us 
 that many persons living in malarial conditions, the causes being constant 
 and the effects constant, take opium in very moderate doses. Would 
 you cut oS that whole class of Indian society from the possibility of 
 obtaining opium? 
 
 ^ I spent some, days in the Central Provinces, and I was inform- 
 
 ed that a measure of this kind would be generally welcomed. 
 
 Q_ How would you arrange to provide those men with that kind 
 
 of dose, so small that it was described as almost a medical use, or do you 
 intend that they should be cut off from the possibility of obtaining it? 
 
 ^ I think it is quite necessaiy, as part of the policy of prohibition. 
 
 I have been everywhere told in India that those moderate doses almost 
 invariably lead to greater doses — that those who begin go on. 
 
 Q_ .^re you aware that in many parts of India very great changes 
 
 in temperature, especially during the cold seasons, take place, and that 
 generally malarial conditions prevail ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q jf it was shown that the use of opium is a comfort in the way 
 
 of enabling men to withstand that cold — ill-clad men as most of them are 
 —would you still propose that they should be entirely deprived? 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 A. — I apprehend that if the Commission is satisfied on that point, 
 it will not report in favour of prohibition. 
 
 Q. — You wish to confine it to medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — Of course, to begin with, our Society has a conviction that it 
 is not necessary. But even if it were established that there are some 
 districts in India where there is a moderate use which is perhaps not 
 injurious but even slightly beneficial, we might still think that the evils 
 produced by opium are so great that any deprivation to small classes of 
 that kind would be greatly overbalanced by the benefit to the people of 
 India as a whole from the prohibitive policy. 
 
 Q. — But if it could be shown that they are not small classes, but to 
 some extent large classes ? 
 
 A. — It must be simply a question of a balance of considerations. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall. — You said you would be prepared to cut oS 
 those classes of moderate consumers from the use of opium, but in 
 answer to my question you said you would entrust the discretion of pres- 
 cribing opium for medical use to allthe vaidas and hakims, Native medical 
 practitioners in India. Would not these medical practitioners prescribe 
 opium in those cases ? 
 
 A. — That seems to me a very hypothetical question. Perhaps I 
 made rather too large an admission when I assumed that medical advice 
 would include such practitioners as you have spoken of. I am not 
 sufficiently acquainted with the classes of which you speak. It may be 
 that some of them are what in England we should call quacks, whom the 
 law does not recognize as entitled to give medical advice. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Mowhray. — Did I understand you to say that your so- 
 ciety contemplated in the last resold, compulsion in 4he case of these 
 Native States if the cultivation of the poppy in British India were aban- 
 doned ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I think so. These Native States are entirely dependent 
 for their export trade upon the permission of the British Government that 
 the drug should pass through its States, and if the Government has 
 stopped its own trade purely on moral grounds, I think it would in the 
 last resort be justified in refusing that permission to the Native States. 
 
 Q. — I suppose your society contemplated the alternative method of 
 compensation ? 
 
 ,A. — I do not think I can say officially that the Society has done 
 so. No doubt that might come into operation. I do not think the 
 Society would have any objection of principle, if it can be shown that 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 there is a real hardship in cutting off some of the revenue from the 
 Native States, to their receiving compensation, 
 
 Q. — I should have thought that before contemplating compulsion 
 you would have contemplated the necessity of compensation ? 
 
 A. — We have been unable to ascertain exactly how far the Native 
 States derive any substantial revenue from this system, and until one has 
 the facts as to the profits derived from the Native States it seems premature 
 to go into the question of compensation. I hope the Commission will 
 obtain full evidence on that point. 
 
 Q. — With regard to the statement put forward by your Society 
 with regard to the Indian Government as to the readiness of the English 
 people to provide money in substitution of the opium revenue, that item 
 has not been taken into consider ation ? 
 
 A. — It has not . 
 
 Q. — Mr. Wilson. — You have referred to the Bombay system. I 
 think it is unfortunate that the Commission has not had some official 
 witnesses to describe to us exactly what the existing system is in different 
 parts of India ? 
 
 Chairman. — You will have them. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Wilson. — It is like putting the cart before the horse, I 
 am therefore obliged to ask you to tell the Commission what you under- 
 stand to be the Bombay system ? 
 
 A, — I cannot do so better than by reading paragraph 6, sub-section 
 2 of the memorial ; “ The Malwa transit duty system, under which by 
 arrangement of the Indian Government, opium grown and prepared in 
 some of the Native States of Central India pays to the Government of 
 India, on its passage to Bombay for export, a heavy transit duty, equal 
 to nearly two-thirds of the present wholesale price at Bombay ; the 
 revenue obtained from it by the Native Princes being only a small per- 
 centage of that received by the Government of India. ” 
 
 Q. — With reference to the use of opium by certain persons or classes, 
 have you ever contemplated the possibility of a system of registration 
 such as already prevails in part of Burma ? 
 
 A. — It has recently been introduced in Lower Burma, and it is a 
 suggestion that we have considered, but on which we have mot; finally 
 pronounced an opinion, that possibly some system of that kind might 
 be devised to meet the case of habitual consumers, so that you might allow 
 them to continue to obtain the drug ip doses to which they are accus- 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 tomed, whilst stopping the spread of the habit by making it impossible for 
 fresh individuals to obtain the drug in the same way. 
 
 Q. — Has the possibility of any system of local option been at all 
 considered ? 
 
 A. — I do not think I can say that our Society has considered that. 
 The Anglo-Indian Temperance Society, of which Mr. Caine is Honorary 
 Secretary, and which on this opium question in India works concurrently 
 with our own, has considered it, and I believe it has pronounced fft 
 favour of local option as applied to opium as well as Jie aip drugs : — "But 
 our Society has never officially pronounced an opinion on the question 
 of local option. 
 
 Q. — May we take it that the Society has never considered it a part 
 of its duty to work out an elaborate system adapted to every part of 
 India and to the varying circumstances, but that you would be quite 
 prepared dispassionately to consider any proposals that might be made 
 for meeting the various difficulties ? 
 
 A. — I am sure the Society would gladly consider any proposal of 
 that kind which might be made by the Commission, after obtaining fuller 
 evidence than it has been possible for us to obtain in England. 
 
 Q. — You consider that the elaborate details of any system ought 
 to be worked out by the responsible Government and not by a voluntary 
 Society ? 
 
 A. — That is my view. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Pease. — Is it not a fact that at one time the duty from 
 Native States was Rs. 700 per chest? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — And that duty was reduced to encourage the Native States to 
 increase the quantity of opium produced ? 
 
 A. — I think that would be overstating the case. It was reduced, 
 because, as I understand, it was found that the duty of Rs. 700 was 
 likely to kill out the trade. It was only at Rs. 700 for a short time; 
 it was then reduced to Rs. 650, because Government found that Rs. 700 
 was more than the trade would bear. Two or three years ago on the 
 petition of the Bombay merchants it was reduced it to Rs. 600, because the 
 merchants stated that it was no longer a remunerative (rade. 
 
 Q. — Chairman. — With reference to the ninth paragraph, in which 
 you deal with the excise system, you express a belief that “there is 
 evidence that grave dissatisfaction is felt in India at the facilities offered 
 
( ^ ) 
 
 by the existing system for the sale of these drugs.” You cite the 
 practice at home under our latest legislation, and you propose that the 
 fundamental and underlying principles which have been accepted in 
 England should be extended to British India. I think in cross-exami- 
 nation you have already made a very full statement upon that subject, 
 and perhaps you have nothing more to say with reference to the excise 
 system in India ? 
 
 A. — As regards other narcotic drugs, I should like to explain 
 how we were led to take up this question in India. Our Society 
 was formed for the purpose of putting a stop to the opium trade 
 between India and China, and if you refer to Mr. Storrs Turner’s Prize 
 Essay, you will see that he speaks with satisfaction with regard to the 
 measures adopted by the Indian Government to protect its own 
 
 subjects against the evils of opium. In a note subsequently written he 
 refers to facts which had just come under his observation with 
 
 regard to Burma, as showing that that satisfac tion could not be ex- 
 tended to Burma, though he thought it applied to India generally. 
 It is only within the last four or five years that our attention has been 
 called to a number of statements which seemed to us to deserve consideration 
 and enquiry, to the effect that in several parts of India the use of opium 
 was greatly extending, and that serious evils were arising from it. It was 
 on that ground that we for the first time took up the question, as regards 
 India, in our memorial to Lord Cross, which is printed in the Blue Book 
 
 “ Consumption of Opium in India.” In that memorial we included other 
 
 narcotic drugs, owing to what we heard of the evils arising from the sale 
 of hemp drugs. That branch of the question has since been dealt with by the 
 Society I just now referred to, — the Anglo-Indian Temperance Society 
 so that it has passed out of our hands. With regard to India, we have had 
 evidence from India that there is a desire on the part of at least a very 
 considerable section of the Indian people that protection such as is given to 
 our own people at home by our Pharmacy Act should be extended to India. 
 We have had during the last two winters visits from India. Miss 
 Soonderbai Powar has addressed a large number of meetings, and has repre- 
 sented a very strong feeling on the part of the women in her part of India, 
 desiring suppression. You will, I hope, hear her evidence at Bombay or 
 Poona. Then Mr. Eaju Naidu came from Madras, representing a similar 
 feeling there. I have a brief list of public meetings held in India. A great 
 representative public meeting was held at Bombay in April, 1891, on the eve 
 of Sir Joseph Pease’s motion, presided over by the Bishop of Bombay. It was 
 an enthusiastic gathering, and they adopted a memorial in support of his 
 
i 29 ») 
 
 motion, the result of which was telegraphed to him in time for 'him to read 
 it to the House of Commons. A few days after, a great public meeting was 
 held, at Dacca, which also was a most enthusiastic meeting, where all 
 classes of native opinion were represented. At Madras, Bombay, 
 and Poona great public meetings were held, which were attended by the 
 leading Native gentlemen of the place. There was a remarkable petition 
 from 227 opium drunkards at Bombay, begging that the dens might be 
 closed, and that they might be protected from the habit. 
 
 Q . — Sir William Roberts — Was the object of these meetings with 
 
 reference to opium-smoking or with reference to opium-eating ? 
 
 / 
 
 A. — I do not know that the distinction was clearly made : it may 
 have been in some cases, but I think not generally. I think one may say 
 generally at all these meetings, and in the petitions from India, that opium- 
 smoking has been put to the front as being the most serious form of the 
 vice, but that opium-eating has also been included in the condemnation 
 and in the prayer for protection. Then there were two memorials — one 
 signed by twenty thousand persons in India, and another later op, 
 in January, 1892, with twenty-two thousand signatures ; and there 
 was a great Tamil petition in March, 1892, with forty thousand sig- 
 natures. Some of these, I am afraid, do not appear in the Parliamentaiy 
 Records simply because the signatures have been in Tamil, or some other 
 language, and I understand the practice in the Petitions Office in the 
 House of Commons is that they pass over signatures which they are unable 
 to read, because they are not written in English. There have also been 
 meetings at Jubbulpore, Agra, Sholapore, and at Igatpuri and at Tanna, 
 both near Bombay. Then there was another meeting at Madr-as, and 
 one or two other meetings in different parts of Bombay. Besides these, 
 there have been a considerable number of meetings connected with Mis- 
 sionary Conferences, meetings of the Missionaries and the Native Christ- 
 ians, which have unanimously adopted resolutions. Some were large 
 meetings, and others were meetings of the particular bodies only. 
 
 Q. — Were those resolutions which were passed resolutions directed 
 against the use of opium or against the public houses, or divans or dens 
 in which opium is used ? 
 
 A. — I think against the sale of opium : that was always the objec- 
 tive of the petitions. 
 
 Q. Chairman. Have you anything further tn say upon para- 
 graph nine ? 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 A. — I should like to refer to the closing words of the paragraph : 
 
 ‘ ‘ whose remuneration in no degree depends on the amount of their 
 sales.” In that item I admit that we go .beyond the principles which are 
 in force under the Phannacy Act in England ; but then the conditions 
 of India and England are very different. No one would suppose that 
 chemists in England would be likely to be tempted to betray their trust 
 by reason of the profit they would make on the sale of poison. Public 
 opinion is too strong, and that is, after all, the real sanction of our law 
 in England. A chemist who carelessly sold a large dose of opium with the 
 result that fatal consequences ensued, would be brought before a Coroner’s 
 inquest and would be gravely reprimanded. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall. — Fatal consequences do not occur every day ? 
 
 A. — No, but a case of that kind would bring a druggist in England 
 under the censure of public opinion. That, I think, is the real sanction 
 of the ;law at home. But in India it seems to me to be a very 
 important principle to lay down that those who sell should not be re- 
 munerated in proportion to the amount of their sales. I look upon it 
 as the essential vice of the licensing system in force in India, with regard 
 to opium, to hemp drugs, and to alcohol, that it so strongly gives to the 
 licensee a direct interest in his increasing sales. The Indian farming 
 system is based upon the old system familiar to readers of the New Testa- 
 ment as that of the Publicans in the Roman Empire. The tax-gatherers 
 gathered the taxes on their own account, and were responsible to the 
 Government for paying in a certain quota. That is still the principle 
 of the farming out of licenses in India. It seems to me that that prin- 
 ciple is radically objectionable, and that, whatever means are adopted for 
 the repression of the use of opium and these other dangerous articles, we 
 should altogether steer clear of that wrong principle. 
 
 Q. — What wrong principle ? 
 
 A. — The principle of farming out the licenses. 
 
 Q. — Sir William Roberts. — I should like to ask you whether that 
 does not include the condemnation of the Gothenburg system which is in 
 favour in England ? 
 
 A. — On the contrary, under the Gothenburg system in Norway 
 and Sweden the licensees have no interest in promoting the sale of 
 spirituous liquors, and that is exactly what the supporters of that 
 system urge as being the basis of its success. 
 
 Q. — I suppose you are aware that the municipalities get the profits 
 to the busiiiess ? 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 A. — Yes, but not the vendors. That is the point : that the vendor 
 has no interest in extending the sales. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall. — You object very strongly to the farming 
 system, that is the system of giving the shop in which to sell opium, or 
 anything else, to the man who bids highest for it ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — The other system is to make over the opium at a very high 
 price to the man who pays a mere licensing fee for it. Say, you make 
 over the crude opium to a licensed vendor, and you charge, perhaps, 
 twenty rupees a seer, a very high price : youimake it over to the licensed 
 vendor, who only pays, perhaps, a fixed fee for it, and he has to sell it. You 
 are aware that the great objection to that system, as compared witli the 
 other system of giving him opium at a low price and making him pay a 
 high fee for his license ? 
 
 A. — That is not the alternative I had in my mind, or the alterna- 
 tive I should suggest. 
 
 Q. — Are you aware of the reason why it is done in India ? 
 
 A. — I suppose it is the same reason which I think you have already 
 stated for the minimum guarantee clause. 
 
 Q. — That is, if you depend upon giving Government opium to a 
 manjat a high price, it becomes at once his interest not to take the 
 Government opium, but, wherever possible, to take smuggled opium in 
 preference. The evil of that is not only that the Government loses 
 revenue, but that we have to rely generally in India to a large extent for 
 checking smuggling, and therefore for checking excessive consumption of 
 clieaper opium, upon the self-interest of the contractors. The contractor 
 being a monopolist for a certain town or certain tract of country, it is 
 to his interest to stop smugghng and inform against smuggling as much 
 as possible, if he is dealing with Government opium ; but if he 
 himseh is dealing with illicit opium, or smuggled opium, he cannot 
 afford to inform against other people, for the people of the country 
 would soon know that he is doing it ; and if he informs against the 
 smugglers they will inform against him. That is the difficulty. It is 
 easy, of course, for people in England to find fault with a system, but the 
 officials out here know the Natives and know the country and know the 
 position of things. They have for generations been working up these 
 things, and they know the balance of good and evil of the different 
 methods, and that has led them to decide upon what they think best. 
 May I ask what is the system you propose ? 
 
i S2 ) 
 
 A. — I think yon are putting to me, if I may say so, two vicious 
 systems — two systems which I should characterise as botli intrinsi- 
 cally bad. 
 
 Q. — Give me your reasons why you think one of these systems 
 is better than the other ? 
 
 A. — I think one of the reasons why Government olficials are apt 
 to go wrong is that it is so difficult for them to go far enough back 
 to root principles. You discuss two methods 'which have been applied, 
 to both of which the same objection of principle applies ; that you are 
 giving an interest in some form or another to the vendor. 
 
 Q. — How would you avoid giving an interest to the vendor ? 
 
 A. — I should say by selling entirely for Government profit. 
 
 Q. — That is, you would give the man a salary and put him in a shop, 
 and say, “ you must sell this opium and account to Government for the 
 whole profit.” Is that it ? 
 
 A. — I think so. 
 
 Q. — Chairman — You utterly dislike the sale of opium under any 
 system ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — But if any other system had been adopted you probably would 
 have attacked it ? 
 
 A. — Probably; any system that does not aim at restricting opium to 
 medical use. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall. — At present you are putting forward an objec- 
 tion to an existing system and a preference for another system which you 
 describe to be practically this, that you give a man opium, put him in a 
 shop, or whatever you choose to call it, and tell him to sell on behalf of 
 the Government, and account for the Government money? 
 
 Chairman. — I think the witness would not like to make himself 
 responsible for recommending such a course. He wishes to recommend 
 nothing but prohibition. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall. — He was taldng the farming. You would not 
 recommend that system ? Do you think it workable ? 
 
 A. — No, I was going to say that I have been told by natives of 
 India that there are already Government officials, employed in connection 
 with Government dispensaries and other places of that kind, established 
 about India, amply sufficient to supply the demand for opium for medical 
 puipjoses, and that nothing would be easier than to make use of those 
 
( »8 ) 
 
 existing facilities for this purpose. That is what I have been infomred, ’ 
 both before I came to India and since I have been in India. 
 
 Q. — You mentioned in your evidence a Miss Soonderbai Powar. 
 Can you tell me if she is a Christian or a Hindu ? 
 
 A. — A Christian. 
 
 Q. — Edircated by Missionaries ? 
 
 A. — Yes, her parents were Christians ; she was born in a Christian 
 family. 
 
 Q. — I do not know whether you would take her evidence seriously as 
 a matter of importance ; do you put any serious weight upon her 
 evidence ? 
 
 A. — Before she took part in any meetings I had informed myself 
 about her from the best qualified person I knew, a Missionary, who had 
 resided for many years in Bombay, and whose judgment I could thorough- 
 ly rely upon, and he^told me that I might certainly accept her evidence 
 as genuine. 
 
 Q. — Genuine no doubt, but is she not a young girl ? 
 
 A. — Certainly not. 
 
 Q. — Chairman. — Is she coming before us as a witness ? 
 
 A. — Yes, certainly, at Bombay or at Poona. 
 
 Q. — We now pass from India to Burma. In your tenth paragraph 
 you urge that there should be no further delay in sanctioning throughout 
 Burma the measures which have been so carefully elaborated by the Chief 
 Commissioner, Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Have you anything to say 
 upon the case of Burma in addition to what is contained in your general 
 memorial ? 
 
 A. — I think I may very briefly say that there are just two points 
 which we have further to urge with regard to Burma. In Lower Burma 
 there has been established a Register for opium consumers, and as regards 
 the Natives of the Burmese race no additions are to be made in future to 
 that Register. That provision does not apply to the Chinese and other 
 non-Burmese inhabitants of Burma. We advocate the extension of that 
 rule to the Chinese and non-Burmese. Then, secondly, that Register is 
 not in force in Upper Burma, and the Excise Report for Upper Burma 
 two or three years ago stated that the nominal prohibition that exists of 
 sale to Burmans is absolutely inoperative, because the Buimans can 
 always obtain as much of the drug as they require under cover of the 
 sale to non-Burmese. We therefore urge that the Register already in 
 force in Lower Burma should be extended to Upper Burma as well, 
 
( S4 ) 
 
 Q. — Is that all you wish to say as regards Burma ? 
 
 A. — Perhaps I ought to add a reference to our last memorial to 
 Lord Kimberley. It was based on a telegram which appeared in the 
 Times to the effect that the Chinese and other non-Burmans were not to 
 be registered at all. That was not in accordance with the original rules 
 as drafted by the Burmese Government ; and we very strongly objected to 
 the change. The Times telegram said, “ This alteration will materially 
 increase the difficulty of the policy of suppression, which are already 
 almost insuperable.” We memoralised Lord Kimberley in the hope that 
 that modification, which the Tmes telegrams stated to have been introduced 
 by the Government of India, should not be insisted upon. I do not know 
 what the present position of the matter is. No doubt the Commission 
 will have -before it distinct evidence as to the rules which have been finally 
 approved and passed. 
 
 Q. — Now we come to the Punjab. In paragraph eleven you urge that 
 the Punjab system of licensing the cultivation of the poppy shouM be 
 at once put an end to, and you further urge in support of that recom- 
 mendation that “the prohibition of poppy culture has been already 
 enforced by the Indian Government in 1879 as regards Lower Bengal 
 and Orissa, as well as throughout Southern India, about 1860 in Assam, 
 and at other dates elsewhere.” You further say, “ we are assured by 
 competent witnesses that the Sikh people would generally welcome the 
 adoption by Government of measures which would enable them to rid 
 themselves of a habit which they recognize to be a debasing and injurious 
 one.” Have you anything to put before us in support of that prayer, and 
 those references to the opinion and feeling of the Sikh people ? 
 
 A. — Iihave nothing special to say on that, in view of the fact that the 
 Commission will no doubt visit the Punjab and inquire for itself the opin- 
 ion of theiSikhipeople. The Commission will get very much better inform- 
 ation there than we were able to obtain in London. 
 
 Q. — That is no doubt the case. Now we turn to the twelfth 
 paragraph. In that paragraph you refer to the possible financial 
 objections to the policy of prohibition which you recommend, and you state 
 as a matter of opinion that the people of England would be ready to make 
 up any deficiency which might arise from the prohibition of the export 
 trade in opium. At the same time you urge that much can be done to 
 meet the loss from the opium revenue by greater economy and by the develop- 
 ment of Indian resources, and you are also of opinion that if there were 
 loss from the abolition of the cultivation of the poppy, there would be a 
 
< 35 ) 
 
 gain to the people of India from the cultivation of other productions and 
 the general development of the soil. Have you anything to say upon that 7 
 
 A. — I do not think I need occupy the time of the Commission on 
 this paragraph because my views are so fully embodied in the little pamphlet 
 I have already laid before the Commission entitled “ Substitutes for the 
 Opium Revenue.” 
 
 Q. — Chairman . — We have carefully read it, and we recognise the 
 ability with which the pamphlet has been prepared. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Mowbray . — You state here that you believe the people of 
 England wiU be ready to make up the deficiencies. Would you mind telling 
 us exactly what Lord Kimberley said to the deputation in reply to that 
 paragraph 7 
 
 A. — After quoting that passage of our memorial, Lord Kimberley 
 said: “ That you regard as a very important declaration ; but I am bound 
 to say that I have not the slightest reason to suppose that there will be 
 any disposition on the part of the Treasury to place a heavy burden upon 
 the tax-payers of this country for the purpose indicated. I do not think 
 that there is any warrant for that. I am speaking as the Minister respon- 
 sible for India now ; and I do not think that such a proposition to the 
 Treasury, no matter what the Government in power, would be likely to meet 
 with a favourable response. The sum will be very large, not only to corn. 
 
 pensate the Indian Treasury but also to compensate those who produce the 
 opium, and also the Native princes, who derive considerable sums from the 
 growth of opium.” 
 
 Q. — I also notice that the only one of your Vice-President who is in 
 the House of Commons, who signs this memorial to Lord Kimberley, 
 distinctly declines to pledge himself to that particular paragraph of the 
 memorial 7 
 
 A. — That is so. Sir Mark Stewart frankly said he could not agree 
 with that statement. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell us upon what that particular paragraph in the memo- 
 rial was based 7 
 
 A. — First of all let me speak as regards our own Society. We have 
 made this a part of our programme definitely ever since the year 1886. 
 I put before the Commission the Statement of Facts and Principles adopted 
 at the beginning of that year. I was at that time a member of the Execu- 
 tive Committee, and I took part in the Conference at which that statement 
 was drawn up. We had a debate upon this particular point. The late 
 Mr. Chesson very strongly urged that it was right and I’easouable towards 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 India that we should express ourselves distinctly on the question. I 
 supported him, and the paragraph to that effect was carried. I have 
 mentioned in the preface of “ Substitutes for the Opium Revenue ” that 
 the same view was even more solemnly reaffirmed in 1891, shortly after 
 the debate in Parliament, at our annual meeting, when a ConfereTice of 
 members and friends of the society was held. In the evening a public 
 meeting was held which confirmed the decision of that Conference. I will 
 read that resolution. 
 
 “ This Conference of members and supporters of the Society 
 for the Suppression of the Opium Trade hereby declares that, in 
 advocating the abolition of the Indian opium trade as a measure of 
 national morality, it is strongly opposed to the imposition on the 
 people of India of any oppressive taxation. Whilst urging upon the 
 Government of India its obUgation to effect such retrenchment of 
 needless expenditure and to carry out such measures for the develop- 
 ment of Indian resources as may enable it to govern India efficiently 
 without imposing any permanent or long-continued burden on the tax- 
 payers of the United Kingdom, this meeting is in favour of sucli 
 temporary pecuniary assistance being given by this country to the 
 Indian Government as may be found requisite to enable India to bear 
 the loss of the opium revenue, without adding to tlie burdens at 
 present resting upon the people of that country.” 
 
 The phrase “ temporary pecuniary assistance ” was commented upon 
 by Mr. Gladstone in the late debate as being somewhat ambiguous. Our 
 meaning was very clear. Certainly we have always attached to it tlie 
 meaning of a grant and not a loan. Mr. Gladstone .seemed to 
 think that it might be a temporary loan to be repaid. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall : — You mean a temporary grant. 
 
 A. — What I mean is explained later on : a grant spreading over 
 a period of years ; but a grant, not a loan. 
 
 Q. — Chairman : — Mr. Gladstone contemplated the contingency that 
 that loan might not be repaid. That made the material for his speech ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; I Avished to clear that up. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall : — 'In any case a grant would be temporary. 
 The loss would be permanent, and the grant Avould be temporary, would ’ 
 it not ? 
 
 A. — Yes. We take the view tliat India ought to be able to pay 
 for its own government witliout reliance upon an immoral trade, and 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 tliat therefore it is only a question of a few years to adjust the Govern- 
 ment of India to the exigencies of morality. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Mowbray : — I am sure you will understand that I do 
 not doubt for a moment that the Anti-Opium Society had expressed 
 that wish. But I wish to illustrate that it had not been endorsed by 
 the responsible Minister.^ 
 
 A. — I quite understand your object. That part of our programme 
 has very frequently been put before the public in England. I have 
 already spoken of enthusiastic public meetings which we have held 
 during the last three or four years especially. Almost always when I 
 have taken part in those meetings I have made this one of the 
 special points, — that India could not reasonably be expected to bear the 
 loss of giving up the China trade. Over and over again I have found that 
 that sentiment was most cordially taken up by the meeting ; that Eng- 
 land, which two generations ago paid twenty millions sterling for the 
 emancipation of the slaves, should not hesitate to come to the help of 
 India, and make a grant of some kind for the purpose of putting 
 an end to this immoral trade, withoirt undue pressure on the tax- 
 payers of India. I should like to narrate what occurred at one 
 particular meeting at which I was not pi-esent ; but of which I read the 
 reports and had them supplemented by those who were present. It was a 
 meeting held at Norwich. One of the members for Norwich, Mr. Colman, 
 has for many years been a staunch supporter of our Society. The other 
 member, Mr. Hoare, who had been asked to take part in the meeting, 
 wrote a letter to the Chairman in which he drew attention to this phase 
 of the question, expressing a dorrbt whether the British people would 
 be willing to have an addition to the income-tax or iir some other 
 way to bear additional taxation in order to get rid of the trade. 
 The point was taken up in speeches by two of Mr. Hoare’s strongest 
 supporters, I believe, two clergymen of the Church of England, who 
 expressed themselves in very strong terms upon it. It was put into 
 the resolution of the meetings and, I was told, was most enthusiasti- 
 cally adopted. In face of this letter from Mr. Hoare, the meeting 
 expressed its conviction that the British people would not hesitate to 
 incur such a sacrifice in order to put down the opium traffic with 
 China. I give that as one particular instance of a great many meet- 
 ings at which the same point has been raised. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Wilson : — You have given ns cases of these meetings 
 which, of course, would usually be attended by those who were more ©r 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 less predfsposad to favour anti-opium views ? Have you any means 
 of suggesting anything to us, as to Iiow it would be received by 
 the general bxilk of the voters and tax-payers, of any tendency in English 
 public opinion that would lead you to believe that it would be so ac- 
 cepted ? 
 
 A. — These meetings are by no means exclusively composed of those 
 who already have an interest in the opium question. During the last two 
 years we have had the presence at our meetings of these deputations 
 from India. The winter before last we had also a Chinese gentleman from 
 Australia. The presence of these people has attracted a very large 
 number of persons who were not previously informed on the question, 
 but who came to listen to what was said, and they have been very 
 enthusiastic in supporting us. 
 
 Q. — Would the general tendency of English people with reference 
 to the moral and social questions lead you to take a hopeful" view of 
 what the average voters and tax-payers would say upon this question ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. Of course, very great power now rests with the 
 working classes ; and it has been especially amongst the working 
 classes that we have received responses to that sentiment. It is the 
 rich people, who can afford it better, who have been more inclined 
 to demur to the idea of increased taxation. 
 
 Q . — Sir James Lyall ; — You say at the end of the paragraph 
 that “ stoppage of the trade in opium with China would probably give 
 a powerful stimulus to the export of other Indian produce to that 
 country.” I want to ask whether you do not think it is the case, 
 that if China took other exports in the place of opium, it would, as 
 Mr. David McLaren, ex-President of the Chamber of Commerce in 
 Edinburgh, seems to hope, rather take them from England than from 
 India ? 
 
 A. — I think it would benefit both countries in that way. I 
 think that probably the Indian trade with China would be increased, 
 and that the British trade with China would probably be still more 
 increased. 
 
 Q. — At the end of the paragraph you refer to the loss of India 
 by exchange, and you say you think that the stoppage of the trade 
 in opium with China would be likely to diminish that loss. Do you 
 still adhere to that opinion ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 t 
 
 Q. — Can you exjdain on what ground.^ 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 A. — Oil tlie ground that the opium trade with China causes a very 
 abnormal state of things, viz., that the balance of trade between India 
 and China is very largely adjusted by means of actual specie payments. 
 At page 25 of Substitutes for the Opium Revenue will be seen the figures 
 showing the net importation of silver, — putting aside gold. The net 
 imports of silver from China ( Hong-Kong and Treaty Ports ) to India, 
 after deducting exports to China from India, amount to an average of 
 over one and-lialf millions a year. In 1890-91, the net imports from China 
 to India amounted to Ex. 3,545,518 in silver in order to adjust the 
 trade. Mr. Hanbury obtained specific information from a banker in 
 London, engaged in the Eastern trade, that the heavy drain of Silver in 
 that year very materially and manifestly affected the value of the rupee send- 
 ing it down considerably. In that year there had to be such a large ' 
 import of silver from China and from the Straits in order to pay for 
 the Indian opium that the Government, I feel no doubt lost by the depre- 
 ciation of the rupee from that cause at least half its real net gain from opium. 
 
 Q. — You know that India annually owes a balance to England? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — And she meets that balance in large part by transferring the 
 debt which China owes to her for opium ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — That being the case, how could the stoppage of that trade 
 improve the difficulty of exchange between England and India, which 
 is thei difficulty we are talking about ? 
 
 A. — It would minimize this drain of silver. The drain of silver would 
 have to be very much greater than it in fact is if it were not for that 
 circumstance. 
 
 Q. — We are talking of loss to India by exchange. How can the 
 change of a method by which India settles part of her debt to England 
 get rid of the difficulty of the loss by exchange ? 
 
 A. — It may be that there would be some counteracting influence 
 of the kind in connection with the balance of exchange, but I do 
 not think that that can counterbalance the depression of the exchange which 
 must result from this great inflow of silver from China to India. 
 
 Sir James Lyall : — I am not an expert like Sir David Barbour: but 
 I agree with him in not being able to understand your argument. 
 
 Q . — Chairman : — In so far as the balance of trade between India and 
 China fails to be adjusted by bills of exchange, and is adjusted by exporta- 
 
( ) 
 
 tion of silver from China to India, to that extent yon say there is an infln- 
 ence tendin';- to depreciate the valne of silver in India? 
 
 A. — Yes : and I wonld point ont further in reference to what Sir James 
 Lyall put to me, that if the poppy were not grown, there would be a greater 
 cultivation of cereals and other products. You must not assume that the 
 whole value of the opium crop would disappear. There would be some con- 
 siderable value to be put in its place by some substituted crop. With 
 regard to the estimate of the total value to India of the poppy crop which 
 was put before the Commission by Sir John Strachey, and which is em- 
 bodied in Mr. Batten’s paper in the Society of Arts Journal, I think it 
 was suggested to him at the time that that is obviously a grossly exag- 
 gerated statement, because it proceeds on the assumption that if there were 
 no poppy crop the land would be absolutely unproductive. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Pease : — And the labour ? 
 
 A. — And the laboirr. 
 
 Q. — Chairman : — You would, of course, admit tliat if the export of 
 opium to China from India ceased, ajid India failed to create another 
 export trade with China of equal value, that India’s position as regards 
 the rate of exchange would be prejudicially affected ? 
 
 A. — I suppose it would to some extent. 
 
 Q. — Now we turn to the last point with which I think you wsh to deal 
 viz., the monthly auction sales of opium in Calcutta. In your 1 Jth para- 
 graph you cite some eminent names of Indian Administrators, who have 
 expressed their objection to the system of the monthly auction sales. 
 You refer to Lord Lawrence, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Herbert Edwardes, Sir 
 Donald Macleod, and Sir William Muir. At tlie same time, you fairly 
 admit that most of these eminent men, while expressing their objection 
 to the monthly auction sales at Calcutta, were favourable to the substitu- 
 tion of a system in Bengal, similar to that which exists in Bombay. Your 
 Association, as you liave repeatedly told us, condemns both systems alike ; 
 but you seem, in reviewing these opinions to which you refer, to recognise 
 that there is some ground for saying that the system which obtains in 
 Bengal, the auction sales in Calcutta, do more particularly and strikingly 
 identify the Indian Government with what you describe as an immoral 
 traffic ; and you urge that the total cessation of the sales which are now 
 taking place in Calcutta could not fail to have the happiest results. Is 
 there anything you would like to say in development of the views put 
 forward in the paragraph to which I have refered ? 
 
 A. — I should like to read to the Commission the statement of Sir 
 Herbert Edwardes on that point as putting very strongly and clearly our 
 
( « ) 
 
 moral objections to the trade and summing up the whole case. I am n<% 
 cpioting from The Friend of China, June, 1886 : — 
 
 “ In the ‘ memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes,’ just published, there 
 is given a paper, written by him after the great Mutiny of 1857, in which 
 he points out what he believes to have been the national sins that drew down 
 that national chastisement. After naming our withholding the Bible from 
 the Natives, and other failures in Christian principle, he writes : — ‘Ninthly, 
 I would name the connection of the Indian Government with the opium 
 trade. This connection is fenced round with arguments nominally drawn 
 from political economy, such as that the monopoly causes increase of price 
 to the vicious consumer, and obtains the largest returns with smallest 
 outlay of capital. But no theories can get rid of the following serious 
 facts : that India grows opium for China ; that opium is ruining the 
 Chinese people ; that wherever grown in India, Government is an in- 
 terested party in it ; that in Bengal it is actually grown for Government 
 and for no one else ; that Government advances immense sums of money 
 yearly to enable the cultivators to grow it, and maintains a large staff of 
 officials to collect the produce ; that Government sells it to those who 
 import it into China ; that the vice of opium-smoking is so fatal to the 
 vital and moral powers of individuals, and therefore to the prosperity Of 
 a nation, and has spread such heart-rending misery in China, that the 
 Chinese laws forbid its importation, that English merchants nevertheless 
 force and smuggle it into China,” ’ (this was written before the legalization) 
 “ ‘ and are not prevented from so doing by the Government of England^ 
 which has formally engaged by treaty to prevent it (I think, perhaps, 
 there he has somewhat overstated the case) ‘“that aU this was. known to 
 the Indian Government while growing opium or organizing its cultivation, 
 and selling it to merchants who cannot legally get rid of it ; that the very 
 Chinese people, maddened with their laws and our own treaties, curse 
 us openly for bringing this destroying poison to their shores ; and, lastly, 
 that exactly in proportion as opium-ruin spreads in China, so the opium- 
 revenue of the Indian Government is increased. An honest, manly con- 
 science cannot get over these facts. It will not the misled by a phrase 
 chipped off from the only sound political economy, the common beneffi 
 of the human race, no matter in what country scattered. It will fasten 
 instinctively on the truth that with the Indian Government this is a question 
 of revenue; and in presence of the calamities of 1857, it will conclude 
 that revenue such as this does not come to much good in the end. It will 
 remember all the plausible excuses that were made for Negro slavery, and 
 it will urge the nation which abolished man-selling in the West Indies 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 to abolish maii^poisoning iu the East, let the cost be what it will.’” Taking 
 that as a true description of the trade, and of our objections to it, I tbink 
 it will be seen that a proposal merely to put that trade into private 
 hands, and whilst still continuing it, to derive a revenue from it, by means 
 of an excise or license duty instead of by means of monopoly, is a wholly 
 inadequate remedy, and does not meet the true moral objections to the trade. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Wilson. — Can you tell me who Sir Herbert Edwardes is, 
 and what he knows about it. 
 
 A. — He was a distinguished Indian soldier and administrator. 
 
 Q. — Sir James Lyall. — With reference to your quotation from Sir 
 Herbert Edwardes, wilting about national sins, are you aware that at that 
 time Sir Herbert Edwardes was inclined to be, what most people would 
 think, a bit of a fanatic : that he included in national sins our toleration 
 of the old endowments of Hindoo temples and Mahomedan mosques ; he 
 wanted to sweep them all away ? 
 
 A.— I am aware that moral reformers, in advance of their age are 
 generally considered fanatics. 
 
 Q. — Chairman. — The concluding paragraph of your memorial deals 
 with China. I understand that you wish to call particular attention to 
 the observations which you quote of Dr. Griffith John of the London 
 Missionary Society ? 
 
 A. — I will read the latter part of our quotation from Dr. John, who 
 is very well known in the missionary world, as one of the most experienced 
 and able of all the missionaries labouring in China. He says : — “ But have 
 the Chinese ability to put down the vice ? As long as the Indian trade in 
 opium exists, the hands of the Chinese Government are tied and paralyzed. 
 They can simply do nothing but allow things to go on from bad to worse. 
 Their best efforts, however sincere and energetic, would prove abortive. If 
 the Indian trade in the drug were abandoned, the Chinese would, I firmly 
 believe, make an honest effort to stop the native growth, and the attempt 
 would eventuate at once in a diminution of the evil. It might eventuate 
 ultimately in its complete suppression.” In expressing those views in a 
 careful, guarded form Dr. John agrees with some of the most weighty 
 evidence given before the Commission in ’London by other experienced 
 Chinese missionaries. Mr. Hudson Taylor spoke to the same effect — that 
 he did not feel able absolutely to prophesy what the Chinese Government 
 would do, but that he was clear that as long as the import from 
 India goes on under sanction of the Treaty of 1858, so long the 
 Chinese Government is helpless to deal with what it certainly recognizes 
 as being a great national evil Dr. Griffith John concludes with these 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 words — “ But whether the Chinese Government can put down the, native 
 growtli or not, our path as a Christian nation is plain enough. It is for 
 us to wash our hands clean of the iniquity. The trade is immoral, and 
 a foul l)lot oil England’s escutcheon. It is a disgrace to ourselves as 
 a people, and unworthy of the place which we hold among the nations of 
 tlie earth.” I do not wish myself to speak too confidently of what will 
 liappen in China, and of how soon, or how quickly, or how effectually the 
 Cliinese Government may be able to put down this vice, which has obtained 
 so great a hold of its people. The position of our Society is this, that 
 however that may be, it is not for us to wait for the Chinese Government, 
 liampered and fettered as it is, to take action, but that we ourselves should 
 recognise that the trade is an immoral one, and that we should begin by 
 wiping our hands of it. Then we should be free to exercise all the right 
 diplomatic pressure that we could to help China to free herself from 
 that evil. I have been longer a Member of the Committee of the Anti- 
 Slavery Society tlian of the Anti-Opium Society ; and it seems to me 
 that there is a very clear precedent for British action, viz.^ the part we 
 took with regard to the slave trade. When we had abohshed the slave 
 trade ourselves, we proceeded to use all our influence diplomatically with 
 the other nations of Europe, in order to get the trade put down in other 
 countries as well. I hope we shall do the same with regard to the opium 
 trade. When we have washed our own hands of it, we can rightly and 
 properly help China to deal with this great evil which haS grown up in 
 her midst, and for the growth of which we nationally have so grave and 
 serious a responsibility. 
 
 Q . — Sir James LyaJl . — Have you considered the fact that the mono 
 poly, and trade and revenue derived fi’om it is aU Indian, and that Indian 
 people are primarily interested in it, and that the sentiments to which 
 you appeal are English ; I mean that the object of putting the English 
 name right in the eyes of the Chinese, and facilitating the conversion 
 of the Chinese to Christianity is an English object — have you consider- 
 ed that ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I have. I think I cannot answer that better than in 
 the words of Sir Edward Fry. Sir Edward Pry wrote three Essays on 
 tlie opium question which appeared originally in the Contemporary Review^ 
 1876-7-8. The first and, perhaps, the second were written when he was 
 Mr. Fry, Q C., and the last after he had been made a Judge. He 
 deals with that argument thus : — “ An argument against interfering 
 with the opium revenue, somewhat to the following effect, is often urged 
 
( ^ 4 . ) 
 
 or suggested : ‘ Tt is very well,’ it is said, ‘ for you to assume this 
 
 high moral tone about the opium revenue ; the revenue is not yours, but 
 belongs to India, and with it England has nothing to do. To abolish 
 the traffic is to throw some nine millions ” (the amount was much greater 
 than it is now) “ more of annual taxation on the already over-taxed 
 population of India, and that for a scruple of some weak-minded 
 philanthroispts in England. Pray pay for your own philanthropy, 
 and do not make another country pay for it.’ Let us consider this 
 objection a little, and let us note, in the first place, that it may be 
 taken to concede the justness of the objection to the revenue ; it only 
 objects to the person of the objector.” Then there is a passage 
 which I need not read. Here is the answer — “ India is as it 
 were, a minor, under the guardianship of England, and England is 
 a trustee for India in the administration of Indian affairs. But in 
 taking upon ourselves that burden and that duty, we have incurred 
 no obligation to do for India what we might not la-wfully do for 
 ourselves. If in the course of our trusteeship we have sold a poison 
 wickedly for the gain of a minor, are we bound to continue so to 
 do ? Have we lost the right of repentance because our sin is to 
 some one else’s benefit ? India cannot change the policy, for she is 
 in tutelage ; England cannot change the policy, for she is a trustee ; 
 therefore the sin must go on for ever. Is that sound reasoning ?” 
 
 Q. — Sir William Roberts. — May I ask if your Society takes the 
 same attitude with regard to alcohol as it does with regard to opium ? 
 
 A. — A good many members of our Society are active prohibitionists; 
 but the Society as a whole consists of men who unite on this opium 
 question, although they differ upon all sorts of other questions in 
 politics, in religion, and in regard to temperance question. I think 
 aU would be in favour in some degree of prohibition, but I doubt 
 whether all the members of our Society would support the policy of the 
 United Kingdom Alliance. 
 
 Chairman. — That I believe concludes your evidence. We have to 
 thank you for the clear manner in which you have put us in possession 
 of the views of the Association which you represent, and we recognise 
 the efforts that you have personally made in the cause which has commend- 
 ded itself to you. Naturally, it has been your duty, entertaining the 
 views that you do, to say many things which are not accepted, at any rate 
 by some members of this Commission, but I am sure that we shall all feel 
 that wha4 you have put before us has been put before us with the utmost 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 si iioerity of purpose, and we all appreciate that in the encounter in which 
 vou are engaged with the Government of India upon its own ground, you 
 are placed in circumstances of no ordinary difficulty. 
 
 Witness . — There is one point that we did not deal with in our 
 memorial and which has come under my notice since I came to India, 
 it. is with regard to the system under which the poppy is grown in the Behar 
 district. 
 
 Q. — Chairman . — I think it would be appropriate to deal with that 
 when we get to that district. 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Joseph Culsh.iw, for the Methodist Publishing House, Calcutta. 
 

 '-■■■ ' ? ■ »'■ /. '. -i 
 
 y 
 
 0 SI -:|^ ft f’ 
 
 
 V ^ 
 
 U 
 
 I 
 
 h‘ 1 r - ■ ' •' ■ 
 
 ■.i- 
 
 I 
 
0l>fUJT! Tf?f!FFfe, 
 
 V 
 
 Special Haport of tie Evidence taken 
 
 in India. 
 
 Part V. 24th November, 1893. 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY, or ONE ANNA, for each part. 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society for the Suppression of the Opium Tra®* 
 Broadway Chambers, London, S. W. 
 
 Also at the 
 
 Methodist Puslishin© House, 45, Dhabamtala St., Cadcutia. 
 
The Kogal Gomiiiission on Opiuin. 
 
 Mr. A. P. Finlay, Secretary to the Government of India. 
 
 Q. — Will you state, in order that it may be placed on the minutes, 
 what your position is ? 
 
 A. — I am Secretary to the Government of India in the Financial 
 Department. I attend this morning for the purpose of producing, on 
 behalf of the Government of India, five papers, of wliicli copies have 
 already been handed in to the Secretary to the Commission. The first 
 is a statement of the public revenue and expenditure in British India 
 under all heads of account ; the second is a note regarding opium 
 produced or consumed in India ; the third is a note regarding the 
 arrangements with the Native States regarding the opium ; the fourth is 
 an account of previous proposals for placing the Government monopoly 
 of the cultivation, manufacture, and sale of opium in Bengal ; the fifth 
 is a reprint of a report and statement on a report on opium in Western 
 China by Mr. W. D. Spence, Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul, dated 
 11th April, 1882. 
 
 The President intimated that as the members of the Commission 
 had not had time to study all these papers which had been in the hands 
 of the Secretary for only a day or too, and Mr. Finlay desired that the 
 statements contained in those papers should be the evidence-in-chief on 
 the part of the Government of India, with reference to the various 
 matters dealt with in these papers, it was proposed to reserve till Monday 
 or Tuesday next the explanations which Mr. Finlay might wish to give 
 in answer to questions which might be put to him by any members of 
 the Commission. Mr. Finlay said he also produced the papers relating 
 to the confidential circular issued in the North-West provinces, in the 
 Abkari Department, regarding the smoking of chundoo in clubs or dens 
 which the Commission desired to have. 
 
 Baboo B>am Darlabb Mazumdar’s evidenoe. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Will you state yoim position and occupation ? 
 
 A. — I am a pleader of Nowgong in Central Assam, and have 
 experience, with regard to the opium question, of the Assam people 
 generally, over a period of eighteen years. As a pleader I have had 
 opportunities of meeting persons of every nationality andr of every 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 creed, caste, and colour ; we Iiave our domestic labourers and servants 
 from people of the Hindu and aboriginal tribes. 
 
 Q. — What is yonr experience with regard to the consumption of 
 opium ? 
 
 A. — A large number of persons consume opium in the district in 
 which I am. Smoking is prevalent among the Makies and Hazais. 
 
 Q. — What position of life do the Makies and Hazais occupy ? 
 
 A. — They are a barbarous people, and live mostly on the hills. 
 Smoking is not prevalent among people of position, but the eating and 
 drinking of opium is. 
 
 Q. — Can you give us an idea of the percentage of the adult popula- 
 tion who have the opium habit ? 
 
 A. — It would be about twenty-five per cent of the whole population, 
 including foreigners. 
 
 Q. — Can you give us an idea as to the age at which the opium habit 
 is contracted generally ? 
 
 A. — They begin the habit at the age of sixteen or eighteen, when 
 they are in a position to earn money. Some are taught to eat opium in 
 early childhood, some take it as a cure for rheumatism, and also in 
 cases of dysentery. 
 
 Q. — Can you give us any idea of the people who take opium as a 
 cure for disease ? 
 
 A. — No, I cannot. 
 
 Q. — Have you information that it is given by mothers to their 
 children ? 
 
 A. Yes, in the district in which I live, women form the greatest 
 
 portion of the labouring community ; they do seventy-five per cent of the 
 domestic and field work, and they give small doses of opium to their 
 children to keep them quiet while the mothers are out at work. 
 
 Q_ Have you information as to those who have acquired the 
 
 habit ever giving it up ? 
 
 J know the case of a pleader who is a neighbour of mine ; he 
 
 was in the habit of smoking opium, but he gave it up. 
 
 Q. Are there many who give it up ? 
 
 A. People find a difficulty in doing so, and do not give it U2) 
 
 unless compelled. Many take it to excess. 
 
 Q_ What proportion of their income do habitual consumers spend 
 
 on opium ? 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 A. — From te:i to tweuty-five per cent. 
 
 Q. — Do you fiiid tliat there is any tendency to increase the dose ? 
 
 A. — Yes, those who have acquired the habit increase the dose. 
 
 Q. — What is the effect on these people of the consumption of 
 opium ? 
 
 A. — 'The people are growing weak and indolent, and are unfit for 
 much physical labour. There is a vast difference between those who 
 take opium and tliose who do not, in their physical appearance. 
 
 Q. — Is opium assumed to be a protection against fever. 
 
 A. — I have never heard of it. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell us of the complaints for which opium is used ? 
 
 A. — It is used for rheumatic pains, and some times in cases of 
 diarrhoea. 
 
 Q. — What is used as a preventive of fever in malarial places ? 
 
 A. — Quinine and chinchona. As far as I know, opium is never 
 prescribed for fever. 
 
 Q. — Do you think it is necessary for the working classes to take 
 opium to enable them to do their work. 
 
 A. — No, I don’t think so. 
 
 Q. — Is the habit of taking opium looked upon as disgraceful ? 
 
 A. — Among the rising generation it is considered discreditable. 
 
 Q. — Do you mean that it is a disgrace to young people to take it 7 
 
 A. — Young people who are being educated look upon it as disgrace- 
 ful. 
 
 Q. — What is the effect of the licensing system on the sale of opium 
 in Assam ? 
 
 A. — I think it operates rather as an inducement to the people to 
 take opium. Licenses are given so freely that opium is placed at the 
 very doors of the people. In the district of which I am speaking there 
 are about two hundred licenses, if not more. 
 
 Q.' — Have you any suggestion to make with regard to the course 
 Government ought to take in regard to the granting of opium licenses 7 
 
 A. — The licenses should be reduced to as small a number as practi- 
 cable without giving much trouble to those who want it. 
 
 Q. — Do you think the law has been fully carried out in your 
 locality 7 
 
6 •) 
 
 A. — I think it is carried out — I mean the opium law. 
 
 Q. — Have you any suggestion to make with regard to the prohi- 
 bition of smoking ? 
 
 A. — Smoking should not be allowed on the premises of licensed 
 shops. If it could be stopped altogether, it would be a very good thing. 
 
 Q. — Is it your opinion that the sale of opium should be prohibited 
 except for medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — I think it should be ; but I don’t think it practicable in the 
 present state of the country. 
 
 Q. — Have you any suggestion to make with regard to a substitute 
 for the loss of revenue ? 
 
 A. — Tobacco should be taxed ; it is extensively used, and is a 
 luxury. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything to say in regard to the way in which opium 
 can be sold for medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — Licenses should be used under the strict supervision of the 
 police, and the licensees should keep a register of the people to whom they 
 sell the opium in the same way as is done under licenses for the sale of 
 arms and ammunition. If practicable, certificates should also be regis- 
 tered from medical men. 
 
 Q. — Should there be any supervision over those who should be 
 licensed ? 
 
 A. — I think police supervision would be sufficient. 
 
 Q. — Are you aware whether there is any smuggling in your district ? 
 
 A. — There is no smuggling of opium into the district. I have 
 heard of cases of smuggling in other districts. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — You refer in your printed statement to some 
 thing which you call black fever. What is that fever ? 
 
 A — It is called malarial fever by medical men, and is extejisively 
 prevalent in the district. 
 
 Q. — Is Nowgong a large place ? 
 
 A.— It is a small town, and is the hgad quarters of the district. 
 
 Q. — You say that people smoke and eat opium in the licensed shop 
 in Howgong. Is that done in all the shops ? 
 
 A. —There is only one opium shop in Howgong. It is a chundoo 
 shop I 
 
I 
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
 Q. — Is there any arrangement somewhere in that shop by which 
 the people can lie down and smoke cliundoo 1 
 
 A. — They smoke it in the shop or hut where the chundoo is sold. 
 The whole place consists of a single hut. 
 
 Q. — If I went there to buy chundoo, should I see people smoldng 
 there ? 
 
 A. — If you buy at the shop outside, you will not see the smoking ; 
 but if you go inside the hut, you will see it. 
 
 Q. — How many smoke there at a time 1 
 
 A. — About twenty or twenty-fiTe. 
 
 Q. — You say smoking on the premises should be stopped. By 
 whom should it be stopped ? 
 
 A. — By the authority of the Magistrate. 
 
 Q. — Does not the law now prohibit the smoking of opium on the 
 premises ? 
 
 A. — No : it is understood that they should smoke on the premises. 
 
 Q. — But there may be a difference between the law and the practice. 
 Are you aware of any law prohibiting smoking on the premises ? 
 
 A. — No, I am not. The Opium Act of 1878 and the Chief 
 Commissioner’s Rules do not prohibit it. As a pleader, I get cases of 
 breaches of the opium law, but I never heard of a prosecution for 
 smoking opium on the premises. 
 
 Q. — Could a prosecution be instituted ? 
 
 A. — I don’t think so. If it coidd, the police would have taken the 
 matter in hand. 
 
 Q. — Are you acquainted with the Blue Book on the Consumption of 
 Opium in India ? 
 
 A. — I have read parts of it. 
 
 Q. — Have you seen the statement made there by the Commissioner 
 of Excise in Assam under date the 2nd December 1890 (page twenty- 
 eight), in which he states positively that there are no opium smoking- 
 dens there, and that opium is not consumed on the premises of licensed 
 vendors : that there is no room into which a purchaser is entitled to enter, 
 or into which he can go and rest, if so inclined, and that as there is not 
 a single opium den there, it is not necessary to make any change in the 
 law. 
 
 A. — Yes, but that is qualified by a letter from Mr. Luttman Johnson, 
 Commissioner of the Assam Valley District, to the Chief Commissioner 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 of Assam (page thirty of the same book), in which he says, speakiag of 
 the proposal to make a change in the law, that opium is often smoked 
 on the premises ; that he would not mind closing those shops, as such 
 a measure would make no change in the habits of the people ; that the 
 few people wlio visit those shops were chiefly foreigners, and would be 
 able to make their own arrangements for smoking. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Are you aware that by a resolution of the 
 Finance Department dated 25th September, 1891, the Government of 
 India directed that when a license expires, a clause should be inserted 
 prohibiting the consumption of opium on the premises in any form. 
 Therefore if licenses have been issued in accordance with that resolution 
 the owners of the licenses are breaking the law by allowing smoking on 
 the premises ? 
 
 A. — At the time of sale the purchaser of a license is not told that 
 he is not authorised to allow his customers to consume opium on the 
 premises. 
 
 Q. — Is it not stated in the license ? 
 
 A. — I have not seen the licenses. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — The passages I have read to you from the 
 Blue Book show that the Excise Commissioner speaking of the whole 
 Province said that the consumption of opium was not allowed on licensed 
 premises, but Mr. Luttman Johnson, Commissioner of the Assam Valley 
 District, speaking of one portion of the Province, said that tliere are many 
 shops in which the smoking of opium took place, what have you to say on 
 the point ? 
 
 A. — I say that Mr. Luttman Johnson was right, at least in respect 
 of the town of Nowgong. 
 
 Q. — In reply to question twenty-five, as to the desirability of pro- 
 hibiting the sale of opium except for medical purposes, you said that the 
 people would be indifferent. I don’t understand how you say it is not 
 practicable, and yet that the people would be indifferent ? 
 
 A. — The population as a whole would not object to it, only those 
 who consume would raise a cry. 
 
 Q. — Then with reference to smuggling, if there is any smuggling, 
 where does the smuggled opium come from ? 
 
 A. — In the district where I am, I am not aware of any case of 
 smuggling into the district. 
 
 Q. — Then, what do you know in reference to Calcutta and the 
 N.-W. Provinces. 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 A.— I have heard of cases of smuggling into the province of Assam, 
 and I have heard that the smuggled opium comes either from Calcutta or 
 tlie N.-W. Provinces. Opium is cheap in Calcutta, but the price in Assam 
 is Rs. thirty-seven per seer. There ivould be great gain by selling it retail- 
 
 Q. — Do you consider the district of vrhicli you are speaking, a very 
 malarious district ? 
 
 A. — Yes, it is. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray — When was it that you saw those shops where 
 there were people smoking opium on the premises ? 
 
 A. — Some time in x^ugust last. 
 
 Q. — What did you say in answer to Mr. Wilson with regard to 
 the price of opium in Assam ? 
 
 A. — In x\ssam opium is sold by the Government at Rs. thirty-seven 
 per seer. 
 
 Q. — That is the price at which the licensed vendors buy it from the 
 Government, and what is the price at which they sell it ? 
 
 A. — They sell it at from Rs. forty-five to Rs. fifty per seer. The 
 price has increased lately. It has increased by Rs. five per seer this year. 
 I am speaking of the price to the consumer charged by retail vendors. 
 
 Q. — You say that licenses are given too freely. You are aware 
 that the number of licenses in Assam has been very much reduced 
 during the last ten years ? 
 
 A. — I should think that the number has not been reduced very 
 much. It had been reduced from 208 to 197 or 198. 
 
 Q. — Are you aware that, according to the figures furnished to 
 us by the Government of India, the number of shops for the retail 
 sale of opium has been reduced between 1883 and 1892 from 1,380 to 
 866, and that the number of shops for the retail sale of madak and 
 chundoo in Assam has been reduced from thirty-seven to sixteen ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say. There was only one shop in the towii where I 
 live, and it is there still. 
 
 Q. — Assuming the figures which have been been put in by the 
 Government of India to be correct, do they not show a considerable 
 reduction in the number of licenses during the last ten years ? 
 
 A. — They show a reduction ; but there is still room for further 
 reduction. 
 
 Q. — You told us there would be no general feeling against prohi- 
 bition ; do I understand your remark to apply to opium-smoking only, 
 or to opium-eating as well ? 
 
C 10 ) 
 
 A. — It applies to opiiim-smoking- and eating. The majority of the 
 popnlation will not mind the proliibition. 
 
 By Mr. Fansliawe. — Q. — Have you any experience of district life 
 or is yonr experience confined to the town of Nowgong ? 
 
 A. — I have not mnch experience in Hllages. 
 
 Q. — What length of standing have yon as a pleader ? 
 
 — Thirteen years in that district. My experience is mainly 
 limited to the town of Howgong itself and to the district. There is 
 very little difference between the town and the interior of the district. 
 The people residing in the town are as mnch cultivators as those in the 
 interior. Howgong itself is something like a village. 
 
 Q. — Have yon had the means of ascertaining the views of those 
 who consume opium ? 
 
 A. — They would be against the prohibition. 
 
 Q. — I think yon said that quinine is ordinarily used as a preventive 
 against fever ; whence do the Assam people get the quinine ? 
 
 A. — If they went to the charitable dispensary they would get it free 
 of cost. 
 
 Q. — Yon are not aware that the Post Office has lent its aid to the 
 Government to sell quinine at the Post Offices ? 
 
 A. — I am not aware that that is the case in Assam. 
 
 Q. — Is there any likeliliood of the people taking largely to 
 quinine ? 
 
 A. — I cannot speak positively on that point. 
 
 Q. Yon say that there is no law against opium-smoking on the 
 
 premises of licensed vendors ? 
 
 A. — I think so. 
 
 Q. Do yon mean that there is no order of the Government in 
 
 the Excise Department directing the prohibition ? 
 
 A. In the Opmm Act there is no provision, and I am not aware 
 
 that there is any Government order on the subject. 
 
 Q. What is ordinarily smoked in Assam, is it madah or chandoo ? 
 
 A. — I believe it is chandoo. 
 
 Q _What yon referred to was this particular shop where there is 
 smoking of opium ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 Evidence of the Hon’ble E. D. Lyall, C. S. Z., Member of the 
 Board of Revenue, Lo-wer Provinces. 
 
 By the Pi-esklent : — Q. — For liow long liave. j’-on served in this 
 country and in what districts ? 
 
 A. — I have served in this country lor over thirty-two years. Most 
 of my service as a young man was in East Bengal, in the districts of 
 Backergunge, Tippera, Faridpur, and Dacca. In this last district I 
 served nearly sixteen years as Assistant Magistrate, Subdivisional 
 Officer, Joint-Magistrate, Collector, and Officiating Commissioner. 
 
 Q. — What opportunities liave you had of forming a judgment as 
 to the effects of using opium ; did you see anything of the Chinese ? , 
 
 A. — When Subdivisional Officer of the Munshigung subdivision, 
 Narayangunge, which was then largely frequented by Chinese junks, 
 was under me. I also, as Collector, kept excise administration in my 
 own hands. Subsequently, after my return from furlough, I was Ins- 
 pector-General of Police for about three years, and Collector of the 
 twenty-four Parghannas and Officiating Commissioner of the Presidency 
 Division for about two years. I was then for nearly seven years Com- 
 missioner of the Chittagong Division, and after my return from second 
 furlough, I was appointed Commissioner of the Patna Division, whence 
 I was transferred to the Board of Eevenue, where I have been in charge 
 of among others, the Excise and Opium Departments. I have thus 
 knowledge, more or less, of the whole province, but chiefly of East 
 Bengal. 
 
 Q. — What is the opinion you have formed of the effects of the habit' 
 upon those who use it? 
 
 A. — My experience is that opium is far the least hurtful of the three . 
 principal sources of excise revenue in Bengal, viz., opium, ganja, and al- 
 cohol. As regards its effects on the natives of the country, I hold the 
 moderate use of opium to be beneficial in a nialarious country like Bengal, 
 and cases of immoderate use are very few and far between. Nor does 
 even immoderate use of opium cause such bad effects as the immoderate 
 use of alcohol. I can assert that I know no case in all my long resi- 
 dence in India in which I can say that I believe the death of any native 
 has been due to immoderate habitual use of opium, while I know very 
 many cases in which death has been due to the excessive use of alcohol. 
 A native who takes to alcohol, more particularly in its European forms, 
 almost invariably takes to it in excess. This is not the case with opium, 
 among Bengalis at least. It is said to be different with Burmese ; but 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 from what I saw of them in Chittagong, especially in the Cox’s Bazar 
 subdivision, I was not able to come to tlie conclusion that in tliis respect 
 Burmese differed from Bengalis. When I was Suhdivisional Officer of 
 Muushigunge, and later on Collector of Dacca, many Chinese junks used 
 to come to jSTarajmuguuge, and I studied the effect of opium on the 
 Chinese sailors. Some of these took opium iii very large quantities and 
 used to lie in a state of stupefaction, hut next day these men were fit for 
 their work, and did just as much as tlie abstainers and moderate smok- 
 ers. This greatly impressed me, as I had come out with tlie usual ideas 
 one gains in England that opium ruins a man body and soul, and I was 
 so fully convinced that opium did these men no harm, that wlien I was 
 Collector of Dacca, I proposed that they should be allowed to buy a seer 
 each nian to take with them for the homeward voyage, and this was sanc- 
 tioned. I think De Quincey is largely responsible for the general accep- 
 tance of the view that opium is so very harmful, and possibly when it is 
 taken in the form of laudanum it is more deleterious, and creates a great- 
 er cra^dng than when taken, as it usually is here, in pills. 
 
 Q. — What is the effect of opium as regards its leading up to crime? 
 
 A. — Opium never leads to crime of any kind so far as ray experience 
 goes. It does not make a man quarrelsome or violent, hut calms and 
 soothes him, and in this respect its effects differ entirely from those of 
 alcohol and ganja. 
 
 Q. — What is the real effect of opium from a medicinial point of view? 
 
 A. — The use of opium in Bengal is to a very large extent medi- 
 cal. It is irsed to keep off fever, and is the only excised article which 
 a good Mahommedan can use for this purpose. It is, therefore, lai-gely 
 used in the malarious districts of the Burdwan Division, in Orissa, in 
 Chittagong, Murshidabad, Eungpore, and Malda, and also in Calcutta 
 and the districts round it. The consumption in Calcutta is very large, 
 partly owing to the number of Chinamen here, partly owing to their being 
 a larger number of immoderate consumers here among the Mahommedans 
 than elsewhere, but also because it is more largely used by the respectable 
 classes of natives, chiefly by men over forty, than it is in the mofussil. 
 This is generally done under medical advice, and no stigma attaches itself 
 to the consumer’s character. I may mention, as showing that connexion 
 with the Opium Department is not held as involving any moral stain on 
 those serving in it, that the son of Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen, the great 
 Brahmo reformer, and brother of the Maharani of Kuch Behar, and the son 
 of Mahamahopadhyaya Mohesh Chundra Hyaratna, C. I. E., Principal of 
 the Sanscrit College, and an orthodox Hindoo, are both in the Opium 
 
( 'i3 ) 
 
 Department. There are also two Mahommedan gentlemen of good family 
 in the Department. 
 
 Q. — What is the use of it as a physical enjoyment? 
 
 A. — I consider its effects very limited indeed. Ordinarily I should 
 say that its comsumption in Bengal is in no way immoderate. 
 
 Q. — Do you think it possible that opium may be taken in limited 
 quantities as an indulgence, in the same sense as wine, without moral 
 harm ? 
 
 xV.-T-Such are mj' views. 
 
 Q. — What do you say in regard to the growth of the poppy and 
 manufacture and sale of opium being prohibited. 
 
 A. — With reference to the argument that we forced opium on the 
 Chinese, I think that is pretty well exploded. Mr. Alexander, in his 
 evidence on the point, has chiefly referred to matters of ancient historJ^ 
 Isow, Indian opium is simply used in China as the higher class Havana 
 cheroots are used in England, or as Indian tea is used along with 
 China tea. In the first case the Mandarins of North China and 
 Pekin use the more expensive Indian opium, just as a rich man at 
 home smokes an expensive cigar, and in the latter it is used to bring 
 up the quality of the indigenous opium, but its use in this respect is 
 steadily declining, owing to the improvement in the home-grown drug ; 
 and I am informed by men who know China that, whereas formerly seventy- 
 five per cent of Indian opium was ordinarily required to mellow the indigen- 
 ous drug, twenty-five per cent now suffices to produce an equal article. The 
 Indian drug is a milder and less harmful drug than the Persian, contain- 
 ing as it does less morphia and more narcotine. I confess I fail to see 
 any immorality in such a trade, and the opponents of the present system 
 seem to be on the horns of a dilemma. If opium is bad, then surely it is 
 better to have it under Govenment control and to restrict the production, 
 as is now done ; while if it is good, then why this outcry against it ? Even 
 if, for the sake of argument, it be allowed to be possible to forbid the 
 growth of opium altogether, such prohibition would be a gross political 
 error or even danger ; but it is impossible to allow it to be grown for 
 medical purposes, and for no other. 
 
 Q-— Do you think that actual prohibition would lead to smuggling? 
 
 A. — I believe that total prohibition and prevention for anything but 
 medical purposes would lead to smuggling, and it would be impossible to 
 draw the line between medical and other purposes. Such half-and-half 
 restriction would simply lead to smuggling, and it would also be 
 
( ) 
 
 impossible to draw the line between its use for medical purposes and 
 for pleasure only, In place of opium shops we should have the retail 
 of opium by hakims and kohirajes and pansaris, and supervision would 
 be more difficult than at present. Total restriction would mean 
 smuggling from Native States and increased use of alcohol and ganja — 
 both, as I have already stated, more hurtful than opium. Sir Ashley 
 Eden, than whom no better authority exists, said that the cost of a pre- 
 ventive service would be absolutely prohibitory. 
 
 Q. — What would be the political effect of abolition ? 
 
 A. — I hold further, that in a political point of view total prohibition 
 would be so dangerous, and would alienate so large a body of Her 
 Majesty’s subjects in India, as to be impossible. No good Mahommedan 
 can take spirituous or fermented liquors, while he may take opium. If 
 opium is prohibited, the opium-consuming Mahomuiedans will be driven 
 eitlier to spirits, to take which is contrary to their religion, or to ganja, 
 which is physically more injurious. The dissatisfaction would be en- 
 ormous, and I am not prepared to say that, fanned as it would be l\y 
 professional agitators, it would not amount to disaffection and re- 
 quire the presence of more British troops in India. It would, in fact, 
 arouse much the same feelings as any real attempt to “rob a qjoor man of 
 his beer” would do in England. There is also another danger, not con- 
 fined to any class, and that is, tlie total inability of the Native mind to 
 grasp the fact of the possibility of the present agitation being without 
 some motive. They cannot conceive that any body of intelligent human 
 beings can go in for a crusade against what tliey have always held to be a 
 harmless ai’ticle out of which a large revenue is realized without their 
 being called on to pay it, and not have some motive in the background ; 
 and in this case the motive is supposed to be the spread and increase 
 of the sale of imported European liquors. The same idea was started 
 when the discussion took place in Lord Mayo’s time, and is referred 
 to in Sir E. Baring’s (Lord Cromer’s) note and it was mentioned to me 
 the otlier day by an intelligent Native gentlemen. 
 
 Q. — What do you think would be the disposition of the people of 
 India with reference to restriction as regards its use for noii-uiedical 
 purposes ? 
 
 A. — I think people would object to this restriction. My experience, 
 as above stated, is chiefly in East Bengal ; but I have seen a good deal 
 of Sikhs, Goorkhas, and otlier opium consumers, particularly Goorkhas. 
 In the Lushai Hills Expedition, opium was regularly served out to the 
 opium consumers, and the men who consumed it did the same work as 
 
( is ) 
 
 their comrades, and bore the hardships as -well, if not better. One great 
 advantage of opium in campaigns, as compared with alcohoh is its small 
 bulk and consequent easy carriage. Thinking natives of India say with 
 truth. What right has England, which raises so large a revenue from 
 spirits, wine, and beer, to come and try and stop our comparatively 
 innocent equivalent.? and any legislation in this direction would be viewed 
 with great disfavour. 
 
 Q. — Should the prohibition policy be adopted, there would be a 
 serious loss of revenue ; money must be had to carry on the Government, 
 and this would mean increased taxation, what view do you take in refer- 
 ence to the disposition of the people to accept that alternative ? 
 
 A. — On this point there is, I believe, absolute unanimity. Even the 
 few organs of public opinion that favour prohibitive measures, say that the 
 loss to the revenue should be made good by economy here and by reducing 
 the home charges ; but the utmost economy could not produce five to 
 seven millions, and that sum would be required, or, in fact, more in case 
 the dissatisfaction amounted to disaffection. The bulk of the people of 
 India are poor ; not poor in the sense of the poor in England, but Imng 
 from hand to mouth, though in a state of fair comfort and with very few 
 hopeless paupers ; and being thus poor, they cannot stand direct taxation, 
 which is also specially bad in India because so much of direct taxation 
 fails to reach the State coffers. The only alternative would be to double 
 tlie salt tax, and I fancy the strongest anti-opiumist would hesitate to 
 propose this. In his evidence Bishop Thoburn lias suggested a tobacoo 
 tax. This would be a must expensive tax to realise, and it would fall on 
 exactly the same class as the salt tax. Almost every man, woman and 
 child in India consumes tobacco, and if taxation of this kind is to be 
 imposed, it would be infinitely better to double the salt tax, which is easily 
 collected at a minimum of cost. I fail entirely, however, to see the equity 
 of prohibiting men from using opium which they are willing to pay for, 
 and taxing non-opium consumers to make up the deficit. Tliere are some 
 who, while willing to see opium grown and exported, object to Govern- 
 ment having more to do with this than the mere levy of duty, and sucli 
 would have Government withdraw from all active participation in the 
 growth and manufacture of opium and deal with Bengal opium as Malwa 
 opium is now dealt with. 
 
 Q. — -I believe you came prepared to make a statement with reference 
 to the Bengal monopoly system, but it is not necessary that I should 
 trouble you upon the point, as I understand that the view of those 
 members of the Commission whose opinion in this respect we are specially 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 bound to consider is that that monopoly is not so much objected to as 
 the opium traffic itself. You were present when Mr. Alexander gave his 
 evidence, and -if you desire to do so, you may have this opportunity to 
 make any observations in regard to that evidence. 
 
 A. — I do desire to add a few words regarding Mr. Alexander’s evi- 
 dence. In the first place, I would desire to put on record the fact that 
 has, no doubt, attracted the attention of the members of the Commission 
 that his evidence deals very largely — in fact almost exclusively — with an- 
 cient history, more especially as regards the attitude of China. Next, 
 
 I would note that paragraph thirteen of the memorial identifies the Socie- 
 ty’s objects with the spread of Christianity. The Government of India is 
 a government by Christians strictly pledged to religious neutralit}^ and 
 it would be most dangerous and opposed to the most solemn pledges if 
 Government in any way moved from this attitude. Mr. Alexander also 
 stated that excise opium was more intoxicating than medical opinm. The 
 opium is the same, the only difference being that the medical opium is 
 selected, and that it is dried in the laboratory, and not in the sun. The 
 reason of Indian opium not competing with Turkey opium in England is 
 that the price paid even for Turkey opium in England is less than the 
 price realized in India for opium. If we competed, the price of Indian 
 opium would be lower than that of the Turkey drug, as the Indian opium 
 contains less morphia. With regard to farming licenses, I would only 
 remark that in practice we find it impossible to put on a sufficiently high 
 selling price in some districts. The range is from Rs. sixteen per seer in 
 the Patna -Division to Rs. thirty-two in Oi’issa. Communications have 
 so improved that smuggling is easy, and the profit on a seer bought at 
 Patna and smuggled to Calcutta is Rs. twelve. In Chittagong, with 
 the help of the farming system, the price .in the south of the district has 
 been raised as high as Rs. fifty to seventy. That was done to prevent 
 smuggling into Burma. Another point that requires notice is that, so 
 far as I could understand, the Anti-Opium Society has not dis- 
 tinguished between the smoking and the eating of opium, as I think 
 it should have done. All the arguments regarding China refer to smoking, 
 and not to eating. In India, opium is almost entirely eaten ; and all 
 that has been said really relates to eating, not smoking. I also desire to 
 draw attention to a memorial from the Rev. Mr. Phillips, which was sent 
 to me by the Government of Bengal. I desire to make a few remarks 
 upon it. The note, as originally drawn up, contained t'^'o extracts from a 
 private letter, and which I now desire to withdraw. A revised statement 
 has been circulated. 
 
(f 17 ) 
 
 Mr. M^ilson pointed out that this was very niutsual. They were 
 supplied with copies of tlie memorial, and it was immediately afterwards 
 withdrawn; consequently he had not read It. He would like to have an 
 opportunity of looking it over before questions were put on it. 
 
 By the President. — I shall not ask you any questions on it to-day ; 
 on Tuesday we may do so. 
 
 Witness continued. — I liave to add one or two words with reference 
 to the evidence which has been given since. About the decay of old Ma- 
 hommedan families, Avhich was referred to, I desire to say that the decay 
 is not peculiar to Moorshedabad, and extends all over Bengal. 
 To my certain knowledge, the decay is due to tlieir lagging behind the 
 Bengalis in education, and in their general ability to conduct their own 
 business. Most of the old families allow their estates to fall into the 
 management of the more cultured Hindu, who gradually ousts them. I 
 do not mean to say some are not opium eaters, but the general decay of the 
 Mahommedans is due to their falling behind the Hindus in the race for 
 life. Another point I wish to mention is that it has been said that 
 dispensaries can supply opium to all Bengal. From the last report on 
 charitable dispensaries in Bengal, it appears that, in the year 1892, there 
 were only 282 charitable dispensaries, and out of these seventy-two were 
 private, with which Government had no connection. I fancy that these 
 would not be engaged in selling opium ; this would leave 205 dispensaries 
 for all Bengal. Another point which has been raised in Mr. Evans’ 
 evidence is that the ryots object to cultivation. I can only say that no 
 pressure is put upon any ryot to cultivate, and that yearly, I imay almost 
 say daily, I receive petitions from ryots against Sub-Opium agents for 
 refusing to give tliem licenses. Instead of getting petitions objecting to 
 cultivating, the petitions are almost entirely from ryots who complain 
 of their not being allowed to cultivate. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — You I’emarked that was used to keep off fever, 
 and that it was the only excised article used for that purpose by Mahom- 
 medans. I suppose they have no difficulty in using articles that are not 
 excised ? 
 
 A. — That is why I put in the word “ excised.” Quinine might also 
 be used, but there is very strong prejudice amongst natives against its 
 use, because they think it gives them a headache. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — You say in the first page that opium is 
 largely used in the Bakergunge, Dacca, Faridpore, and other districts, and 
 Orissa : are these malarious lands ? 
 
 A. — Some of the most malarious lands. 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 Q. — Yet the price in Orissa is Rs. twenty-two per seer. 
 
 ■ A. — The price is fixed with reference to the facilities with whicli 
 smuggling can be carried on. Orissa is most remote from the opinm- 
 prodncing districts, and it is most difficult to take it there. The price, 
 therefore, is higher than in Bengal. I may add that we have had a 
 strong representation from the Assam Government to raise the price at 
 Rungpore and other districts, and the Government of Bengal has so far 
 been unable to accede to the wishes of the Assam Government, simply 
 upon the ground that the facilities for smuggling are so great that 
 raising the price would lead to smuggling. 
 
 Q. — Is it not an anomaly that the price in Orissa, which you say is 
 a most malarious district, is exceedingly high ? 
 
 A. — Exceedingly high, in one sense of the word. If you buy one 
 dose, the price is very little, and you must remember that the doses 
 taken are perfectly infinitesimal. The ordinary amount which is taken is 
 so small, that it would be laughed at in England. If you look at the 
 statistics, you will see that in the whole of Bengal the expense, per head, 
 is only '038 of a rupee. 
 
 Q. — The fact remains that it is just twice as high in Orissa as in 
 Patna ? 
 
 A. — Just so ; we are obliged to keep it down at Patna, because 
 there it is grown and if the price were high, there would be smuggling. 
 
 Q. — Doubling the price makes a difference to the Government, but 
 it makes no difference to the people ? 
 
 A. — Not very great, as the people can still get enough for the 
 purposes they require. 
 
 Q. — You say that the lopponents of the present system would find 
 themselves on the horns of a dilemma ; I suppose you know they would 
 say that if it is bad, it should be done away with ? 
 
 A. — As I said before, I think it would be too dangerous to give up 
 this source of revenue. I do not think any Government of India would 
 care to do away with the production of opium. 
 
 Q. — You also say that any measures of a prohibitory character 
 would be viewed with disfavour by the people ; do you think the people 
 view the restrictive legislation with disfavour ? 
 
 A. — Most distinctly so ; I believe that if they were polled, 
 they would vote for universal production all over the country. We 
 have no such thing in India ias the poor of England. The poor 
 in India, ordinarily, are poor men, but not poor men in the sense 
 
( ) 
 
 of the English poor. They have not much, but the country is one 
 in which they can live in comparative comfort. So that the state of the 
 very poor is different from that of the poor in England. We have not 
 that class of the poor to deal with that we have in England. 
 
 Q. — You refer to the Opium Manual ? 
 
 A. — Yes, it consists of three bulky volumes. 
 
 Q. — If fever is prevalent in a district. Government sends medicine 
 into it ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I think so. 
 
 Q. — Do they also send opium. 
 
 A. — Government does send out medicines, but what I do not know. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — You have a system of druggists’ permits; 
 please explain what the system is ? 
 
 A. — They are allowed to have a small quantity of opium, so much 
 as they may reasonably use in their legitimate business, but not to sell 
 for any but medical purposes. 
 
 Q. — Do they get these licenses at a cheaper rate? 
 
 A. — They are of a form altogether different from the vendors’ licen- 
 ses, and they have no right to vend opium alone. 
 
 ■Q. — And therefore they pay less ? 
 
 A. — Yes, the whole of these satistics will be put before you by the 
 Excise Commissioner. 
 
 Q. — Have you any reason to suppose that the system is abused? 
 
 A. — ^Not at present ; we are restricting it to some extent, but I 
 don’t think it is abused. 
 
 Q. — I suppose these druggists don’t profess to supply all the opium 
 required for medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — Nothing like that, they don’t supply a hundredth part. 
 
 Q. — If you extend the system, there would be some risk of abuse ? 
 
 A. — If you extend the system, every Icobiraj, hakim, and laid, in 
 every village would require licenses. 
 
 Q. — In regard to retail prices, can you give us any details? 
 
 A. — No, it depends very much upon the license fee. 
 
 Q. — The result of the difference between the Government price in 
 Patna and Orissa is that the increased profits go to the person who 
 happens to reside near the manufactory ? 
 
 A. No ; it is sold very cheap in Patna, where the license fee is 
 
 almost nothing, so that the opium is sold at almost the same rate as the 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 Government retails it. You see that only Ks. 538 was obtained in 
 Patna for license fees . 
 
 Q. Practically you find yourself compelled to sell it very cheap in 
 
 the districts where it is grown ? 
 
 A. — Yes, we are compelled to do so. ' 
 
 By Mr. Haridas.— Q.— The crop is a very paying one? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q, The ryots get an advance and get a double profit upon it. 
 
 A. They get the advantage of advances, and during favourable 
 
 years the crop is very paying. But during the last three or four years 
 the crop has been a bad one ; but even in bad years it pays better than 
 the ordinary crops. Opium is essentially a garden crop, grown close to 
 the men’s houses. 
 
 Q. — Is it -not an injustice to the ryots who grow other crops not to 
 get advances? 
 
 A. Any man can get an advance who undertakes to cultivate this 
 
 crop. Advances are made for no other crops. 
 
 Q. — Is it not an injustice to other cultivators ? 
 
 A. — If you will call it so. 
 
 Q. — If poppy is the only crop for which advances are made, it is 
 the only crop on which you fix a price ? 
 
 A. — Yes, the only one. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. — Q. — Does the poppy crop occupy the whole 
 ground ? 
 
 A. — I know no case in which it occupies the whole ground ; only an 
 infinitesimal part. 
 
 By Sir James Lyall. — Q. — The price to the consumer in Chittagong 
 has been raised to fifty Rs. or seventy Rs. ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Will you explain how the price was raised? 
 
 A. — I was Commissioner at the time, and received a strong re- 
 presentation from the Burma Government as to the smuggling of opium 
 from Chittagong into Burma, 114 maunds of opium being consumed 
 in one year in the Cox’s Bazaar sub-division, while the real consumption 
 could not have been over twelve maunds. The only way to stop it was to 
 ‘ raise the license fee, and we made them pay license fees in proportion to 
 the number of seers they took, which raised the price enormously, fixing 
 an almost exceptional rate. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 Q. — In the districts where the Government price is low is the farm- 
 ing system used? 
 
 A. — Yes, the result of this is to raise the price to the consumer. 
 
 Q. — The object of raising the price to the consumer by the two ways 
 mentioned is I understand, to prevent the opium vendor from smuggling ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Have you come across any instances of Government officials 
 being discharged or degraded for the alcoholic habit ? 
 
 A. — More than once ; a good many. When I was Inspector-General 
 of Police, I had to deal with more than one case. 
 
 Q. — Have you also known of any instances of discharge from the 
 opium habit? 
 
 A. — Never, not even a Native. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Do you see any disadvantage in closing chundoo 
 shops ? 
 
 A. — Not further than interfering with the liberties of the subject. 
 In Calcutta I don’t think it can be done, because there are so many 
 Chinese here ; but in the Mofussil, I don’t think it would be a very great 
 hardship. It is the most harmful method of taking opium. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — A number of persons are refused permission 
 to cultivate from time to time? 
 
 A. — Yes, because opium is a garden crop. 
 
 Q. — Also because the Government don’t require so much of it ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 By the Maharajah of Dharbhunga. — Q. — Is the poppy cultivated 
 simply for the sake of the opium manufacture, or is any other use made 
 of it ? 
 
 A. — The lyot, in addition to what he receives from the Government, 
 sells the poppy seed at a high rate. This yields about thirty-six seers per 
 acre, and besides this, the stalks are used as manure. There is one thing 
 I should like to add. I only saw this morning a publication, which has 
 put forward the very strong indictment against the use of the poppy, that 
 no less than 77,378 seers are used in Bengal in the year. I must say 
 these figures look very big ; but reduce them to totals and deal with them 
 in reference to the population, and you will fiind that the yearly consump- 
 tion of the adult male population of Bengal amounts to seven-tenths of a 
 rupee in weight in the year. This is the weight every adult consumes, and 
 I do not think that it is very much. 
 
( ) 
 
 Evidence of Xffr. Sos^ns, examined by Sm James LyaU. 
 
 By the Chairman, — Q. — I believe you are a civilian of 32 years’ 
 standing, and are now Opium Agent at Patna, and have been so for the 
 past six months ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — I don’t propose to take you through the whole or question you in 
 detail as to the Agency System, but are there any points on wliich you 
 specially desire to offer any observation ? 
 
 A. — There is only one point of difference in the Patna Agency as 
 compared with the Benares Agency, and that is that I pay commission 
 to Jamadars, and that the assammari system is not so much in force in 
 Patna as in the Benares Agency. It is a system by which advances are 
 made frequently to cultivators. 
 
 Q. — From what you have seen in your long experience, do you think 
 that the people who take opium habitually, generally end by taking it in 
 excess ? 
 
 A. — I have never come across a case of excess in opium during the 
 whole of my career. 
 
 Q. — Have you known cases in which officials have been dismissed or 
 disgraced in consequence of the alcoholic habit ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say I have, I don’t recollect any. 
 
 Q. — From the opium habit ? 
 
 A.— Ho. 
 
 Q. — Is there in your opinion, any cause for prohibiting the use of 
 opium in these provinces except for medicinal purposes ? 
 
 A. — Ho, certainly not. 
 
 Q. — Can medical use be distinguished from non-medical use ? 
 
 A. — Ho, opium is used medicinally, at first, for insomnia, irritation of 
 the nerves and malaria, I beheve. 
 
 Q. — Do you think any system for the use of opium medicinally 
 only, could be properly worked ? 
 
 A. — I don’t think it could. I do not see how any such provision could 
 be made because the consumption of opium amongst people of over fifty is 
 very considerable. 
 
 Q. — What do the Hatives of these provinces think of prohibition ? 
 
 A. — I do not think that thay think about it at aU ; they have 
 heard of it but they can give no opinion on the subject ; they cannot un- 
 derstand it. They all, I may add, say that opium is of such general use 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 that it woiild be impossible to prohibit its consumption, and that it 
 would be a great hardship to do so. 
 
 Q. — Would the people in your part be willing to bear a part of the 
 cost of prohibition ? 
 
 A. — Certainly not. 
 
 Q. — Is there any- part of your Excise System which ought to be 
 altered on moral grounds. 
 
 A. — I do not consider the opium shops can be altered, and the 
 opium licensee very generally sells as a moodi. The opium vendor in the 
 agricultural tracts generally sells as a moodi, but that is not the case in 
 town. 
 
 Q. — What do you say is generally the size of the circle in which there 
 is an opium shop ? 
 
 A. -I should think about fifty square miles. 
 
 Q. — Do the same classes generally use both opium and alcohol ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — If they use the one, they do not use the other ? 
 
 A. — No, alcohol is used by the lowest classes, opium by the upper 
 classes. Alcohol most considerably by those of the writer class if belong- 
 ing to the better class. 
 
 Q.— If the use of opium was checked would some other stimulant 
 take its place ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. 
 
 Q. — Can you give us any information of the magnitude of the in- 
 terests bound up in opium in your district ? 
 
 A. — For these I refer you to the statement appended to my note. 
 The number of licenses collected in 1882-93 was 637,157 and the sum dis- 
 bursed over eighty lacs. It is impossible to say how the withdrawal of 
 this amoimt would affect the country, but it would mean a very consider- 
 able reduction in rents. Eighty lacs represents to the poor ryots of this 
 country what £4,000,000 would represent to the British labourer and 
 small cultivator. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Pease : — You state in your note that you have met 
 with no case of the use of opium for non-medical purposes. 
 
 A. — I meant to say that it commences with the medical use, and is 
 continued. 
 
 Q. — Do you mean to say that apart from opium altogether, poppy 
 cultivation would pay if there were only the seed ? 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 A. — Yes. The poppy seed is used for the mantifacfure of oil and 
 is largely used for cooking purposes in India. 
 
 Q.— Poppy cultivation would pay if there was no opium grown. 
 
 A. — Yes, every seer of opium produces some two maunds of poppy- 
 seed, and twelve seers of this seed can be sold for Rs. 37/8. 
 
 Q. — So that the money the cultivators would get for opium would 
 be clear gain and profit ? 
 
 A. — Yes, though sometimes there is only two seers of Poppy to the 
 bigha, and then it would not. 
 
 Q. — If a cultivator is refused a license to grow, does he pay less 
 rent? 
 
 A. — It would very much depend upon the crop. 
 
 Q. — The Zemindar would reduce the rent if any other crop was 
 grown ? 
 
 A. — Most probably, but I cannot say for certain. 
 
 Q. — ^We were told by Mr. Rivett Carnac yesterday that the Zemindar 
 has no interest to put pressure upon the ryots 1 
 
 A. — That may be in the U.-W. Provinces but in Behar there is the 
 Permanent Settlement. 
 
 Q. — Can a Zemindar raise or lower rents according to whether a 
 particular cultivator gets permission to grow upon his land ? 
 
 A. — If the assammari ryot sowed poppy upon land the rent would be 
 raised usually a third, if it was not grown I imagine it would be reduced. 
 Poppy lands require four or five years’ cultivation to come into thorough 
 bearing. 
 
 Q. — Do you receive from year to year official intimation as to the 
 amount of land which should be devoted to opium ? 
 
 A. — The quantity of opium to be produced. We are forbidden to 
 exceed the average of the area of the previous five years. I think within 
 the last three or four years there has been a reduction of ten per cent all 
 round. 
 
 Q. — Was there enhancement of rents or not? 
 
 A. — For poppy cultivation ? I do not know. 
 
 Q. — By the Maharaja of Durbhanga : — There is a special rate on 
 poppy lands? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Is it not the customary rule to rent lands according to its qual- 
 ity and not acoording to the crop? 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 A. — It is so. 
 
 Q.— Therefore, if the tenant chooses to grow poppy, the landlord 
 cannot ask for enhanced rent? 
 
 A. — That is a point of law ; I cannot say. Poppy land is already 
 charged high, and poppy and tobacco lands are about the same. 
 
 Q. — If the cultivation of the poppy is stopped, the ryots could ask 
 for a reduction? 
 
 A. — I suppose it depends upon the crop itself. 
 
 There is one point in connection with the opium monopoly which has 
 probably escaped notice, that, it enables cultivators to improve their 
 holdings, in spite of the Zemindar, who, as a rule, opposes all improvement 
 for fear the ryots should be entitled to compensation. 
 
 Q.— By Mr. Fanshawe : — Explain what you mean. 
 
 A. — Improvements are registered under the Bengal Tenancy Act, 
 and if a ryot, who makes these, is ejected, he is entitled to compensation. 
 For instance, we get him to make a well ; the money is advanced without 
 interest, the ryot makes the well. This constitutes an improvement, and 
 if he is ejected, he is entitled to compensation. 
 
 Q.— By Mr. Pease : — During what period are these advances repaid ? 
 
 A. — I am not aware. 
 
 Evidence of Sector Maynard, medical officer in charge of the 
 Fatna Opium Agency. 
 
 Q. — By Sir William Eoberts : — Before you assumed charge of your 
 present office, what services had you in India? 
 
 A. — I was in the Punjab, the FT.-W. P., Behar ; with Native troops 
 of all ranks, over 5000, and of all classes. They were Sikhs, Kajpoots, 
 Dogras, Hindustanis and various Punjabis. 
 
 Q. — In this opium factory, how many are employed ? 
 
 A. — The maximum number employed was 2,758 and the mim'mmr) 
 number 606. 
 
 Q. — Altogether you have had experience of different kinds? 
 
 A. — Between these two services, I was in civil employ, as civil 
 Surgeon of Burdwan and Nuddea. These are particularly malarial dis- 
 tricts, so much so, that, in Nuddea, the population between the two last 
 censuses had decreased over 30 per cent from malaria. 
 
 Q. — Have you had any opportunities of judging how for the opium 
 habit prevails ? 
 
 A. — I think it is always difficult to form an opinion as to how many 
 men take opium, unless some effects are apparent. I know that troops 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 have the reputation of being opium-eaters ; but I know that they don’t 
 exhibit any ill effects from it. 
 
 Q. — Is opium served out to them ? 
 
 A. — On active service, it is ; in cantonments it is not served out. 
 
 Q. — In these regiments did you observe any ill effects from opium ? 
 
 A. — I can only remember one man, a Sikh, who was an opium-eater, 
 to a rather larger extent than usual. He took about thirty grains daily, 
 and mostly he was stupid, so much so, that it was decided to pension 
 him. 
 
 Q. — Can you say, from the looks of the men who took it, that there 
 was anything like disease? 
 
 A. — No ; I have been surprised to find men pointed out as opium- 
 eaters, but I could not say they were so. 
 
 Q. — Hid you see anything in the shape of disease ? 
 
 A. — No, certainly not. 
 
 Q. — In reference to your other experiences of the effects of opium, 
 did you observe a considerable consumption of opium amongst the people? 
 
 A. — No ; certainly not. As far as the factory hands were concern- 
 ed, I don’t believe they consume opium. One sees them all day long, 
 their duties are severe, and one would catch them trip, if they did 
 consume it ; but it is irnknown in fact. I have made very searching 
 enquiries from the officers of the factory, but I could not hear of any 
 case of opium-eating amongst them. 
 
 Q. — There are malarial districts about Birrdwan and Patna ? 
 
 A. — There is a certain amount in Patna, but not so much as in 
 Lower Bengal. 
 
 Q. — Children are subject to malaria ? 
 
 A. — I think they are very subject, and the effects upon them are 
 more disastrous. They have spleens enlarged with malarial cachexia. 
 They may have been born of malarial mothers, but I have not seen 
 any. 
 
 Q. — Ho you think that quinine ought to displace opium for malaria ? 
 
 A. — No ; I do not think so, because, in such districts, other 
 diseases, such as bowel complaints and diabetes, prevail, and then people 
 take to opium. 
 
 Q. — Is it a popular domestic remedy ? 
 
 A. — It is not possible to get medical prescriptions by a great part 
 of the population, and they have to use it. 
 
 Q. — Is not medical advice within their reach ? 
 
( 2J7 ) 
 
 A. — Oil, no ; the dispensary system cannot reach tlie great masses 
 of the population in Nuddea. It has an area of 3304 square miles, 
 ■with a population of two millions. I had an assistant surgeon and 
 several hospital assistants, and there were flve dispensaries scattered 
 over the district, but, in spite of all that, there are large numbers who 
 cannot avail themselves of these. In many villages there are hahims, but 
 their knowledge is small. 
 
 Q. — Is the opium made at the factory, which is used as a domestic 
 remedy? 
 
 A. — It is opium obtained from licensed vendors which is used, and 
 that must have been manufactured at the factory. 
 
 Q. — You have paid some attention to the analysis of the various 
 classes of opium, what are the differences between Persian, Indian and 
 other opium. 
 
 A. — This note has been compiled from the laboratory records, 
 [witness reads out and hands in the statement.] 
 
 Q. — You are aware that opium is an extremely complicated subs- 
 tance, can you tell us whether the effects produced by the Indian drug are 
 the same here as those produced by our medicinal opium in England? 
 
 A. — The distinction is marked. Smyrna opium, the official drug 
 in use in Europe, contains a much larger preparation of morphia and a 
 smaller proportion of narcotine. People who use Indian Opium regularly, 
 are consuming more narcotine. In India we supply two kinds of medical 
 opium, one in cakes and one in powder. 
 
 Q. — Indians use opium much more freely than Europeans do a4 
 home? 
 
 A. — I believe so. 
 
 Q. — The variety of opium sent out for medical use is called Patna 
 garden opium, and it is sent out for general use ? 
 
 A. — It is all garden opium ; there is no special test for medical 
 opium — practically there is no difference. 
 
 Q. — There are no ill effects from the use of opium on the general 
 health of the population? 
 
 A.— No. 
 
 Q. — Have you noticed any in their moral faculties ? 
 
 A. — -I have not seen any. 
 
 Q. — By Mr, Pease: — What is the difference between medical aad 
 •ther opium ? 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 A. — Medical opium is opium of ninety per cent and ten per cent 
 moisture, and the difference between it and ordinary abkari opium is in 
 the degree of consistency arrived at. 
 
 Q. — Wbat is the object of making any difference with process '! 
 
 A. — The result is different ; medical opium to the touch and sight 
 is not the same as Abkari opium. 
 
 % 
 
 Q. — The analysis is the same ? 
 
 A. — Yes, it has the same effects too, I believe. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Wilson. — Medical opium is not in cakes in tlie same 
 way as the other ? 
 
 A. — It is the same opium dried at the steam tables 'until all the the 
 moisture has evaporated. 
 
 Q. — The difference really is one as to moisture ; the chemical com- 
 position is the same? 
 
 A. — Yes, opium for China, seventy-five; medicinal, ninety; abkari, 
 ninety. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Mowbray. — T)o you say that opium is actually served 
 out to the troops upon service ? 
 
 A. — I believe it is, I know that opium is taken on expeditions, and 
 it is taken as a ration in the supplies. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Fanshawe: — What regiments have you served in ? 
 
 A. — The 2nd P. C., the 2nd B. C., ( Sikhs ) 4th Hazara mountain 
 Battery, ( all Sikhs ) the Punjab Garrison Battery, the 1st Silchs, a 
 wing of the 4th, the 4th Sikhs, the 5tli Sikhs, the 4th' P. I. the 5th 
 Shekwarti regiment, the 27th P. I. and also the 2-2rci Ghurldias and 
 a wing of the 2-5 Ghurkhas. Opium Was served out to the Sikhs. 
 
 Q. — To what particular regiments was it served out as a ration ? 
 
 A. — The 4tli Sikhs and 2-5 Ghukhas I refer to. 
 
 Q, — By Mr. Wilson. — Do I understand tliat the Sikhs were 
 8»pplied with opium as a ration ? 
 
 A. — I was not connected with the issue of rations. 
 
 Q. — There was a limit to the quantity ? 
 
 A. — Oh yes, there was a limit, but I do not remember the quantity 
 
 / 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Joseph Culshaw, for the Methodist Publishing House, Calcutta* 
 
77 / 
 
 THE ROYAL COMMISSION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 m\wm TfinFFiG. 
 
 Special Hepori of tie Evidence taken 
 
 in India. 
 
 Part VI. 25th November, 1893. 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY, or ONE ANNA, for each part. 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society fok the Suppression of the Opium Trade, 
 Broadway Chambers, London, S. W. 
 
 Also at the 
 
 Methodist Publishing House, 45, Dharamtala St., Calcutta, 
 
0 
 
 The HopI OamiRission on Opium. 
 
 Surgeon-Colonel Holsert Harvey’s Evidence. 
 
 By Sir William Eoberts. — Q. — Please state your position in the 
 i Medical Service. 
 
 A. — I am at present Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals in Bengal. 
 I am, and have been, in the service for nearly twenty-nine years. 
 
 Q. — Kindly tell us what service you have had. 
 
 A. — I was for more than five years in Rajputana where opium is 
 very largely xised by the people. I have been four years in Malwa, where 
 it is extensively ciiltivated ; I was for five years in the Punjab where 
 it is also largely taken by the Sildis; and twelve years in a large practice in 
 Calcutta. I have been six times on frontier expeditions, some of them 
 involving great hardships. I have had considerable experience of jail 
 management, and during all my service have had large experience of 
 opium-eaters. I also visited China when I was on furlough. 
 
 Q. — When was your attention first drawn to the opium question ? 
 
 A. — My attention was first drawn to the opium question in Lancashire 
 during the time of the cotton famine, and the American war, when I was 
 assistant to the House Surgeon of Stockport Infirmary. Applications 
 used to be frequently made to the infirmary for a supply of opium by 
 people who were then too poor to buy it ; the applications were invariably 
 rejected, and the parties were warned against the danger of using opium. 
 I was much struck with the fact that opium was so commonly used, and 
 habitual smokers of ten or fifteen grains of opium a day seemed to be no 
 worse for it. I would not have believed that such was the case. 
 
 Q. — Do you connect with that the partial famine in Lancashire ? 
 
 A. — They were people who were in the habit of taking opium, and 
 only came to the hospital for it, because they could not buy it for them- 
 selves. It had no connection with the famine. 
 
 Q. — In what form would they take the opium ? 
 
 A. — They took it generally in the shape of piUs, and sometimes in 
 a liquid shape. 
 
 Q. — What has been your experience in Rajputana and Malwa ? 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 A. — In India my experience has been veiy much the same. During 
 the famine of 1868-69 nirmbers of half-starved people, most of them re- 
 fugees from other States, were treated in the hospital at Bhurtpore, and 
 they appeared to have suffered comparatively little. A large number of 
 them were accustomed to take opium in small pills, never exceeding two 
 or three grains, without apparently any effect save to their comfort and 
 enjoyment. In all ordinary cases we had no idea that the patient was an 
 opium-eater until he asked for opium. I know of no criterion by which a 
 moderate opium-eater can be recognised. Many of them acknowledged 
 that they had acquired the habit, and many of them, especially those who 
 were sepoys, and knew that the British officers were apt to look with sus- 
 picion on them, would deny the fact, and only confess it under pressure 
 from medical officers. I have known repeated instances of this. 
 
 Q. — You are now speaking of opium taken in moderation. Were 
 they inclined to increase the dose ? 
 
 A. — In my experience they were not. Many do increase it, but in 
 the average man there is no necessity to increase the dose, and I don’t 
 think they do increase it. I have seen opium taken in excess, by what 
 I call an opium drunkard, which, perhaps, is a misnomer, because in this 
 counti-y opium is more eaten than drunk. 
 
 Q. — What evil results have you observed in the opium drunkard ? 
 
 A. — The regular opium drunkard is a most pitiable object ; he is a 
 lean, emaciated, dried-up, and altogether broken-down, and good-for- 
 nothing wretch ; but I have seen, comparatively speaking, very few of 
 them. I don’t think any organic disease is produced by excess in opium 
 eating ; hut a large number of these who thus suffer take to opium- 
 eating. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that some of them are diseased ? 
 
 A. — Yes, the great majority of them, but I think that in a great 
 majority of cases, the cause of the taking of opium in excess is that they 
 have suffered from some painful or wasting disease which calls for the 
 ease, which opium-eating gives. No doubt some take it for sensual 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Q. — Do you mean by that, enjoyment similar to what many people 
 experience in taking morphia ? 
 
 A. — Except that the feeling which opium produces is probably 
 more marked. Certainly the feeling which opium gives is much more 
 marked than that given by morphia. 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 Q. — Then, may I take it from you that even opium drunkenness, 
 pure and simple, does not, so far as you know, develop aay organic 
 disease ? 
 
 A. — I have never seen a case that I should distinctly put down to 
 the effects of opium. 
 
 Q. — In your experience, the vast majority of Indian opium-eaters 
 take it moderately ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. 
 
 Q. — What would you call the average dose of a moderate opium- 
 eater ? 
 
 A. — I cannot give a numerical unit. A pice worth will last some 
 persons one or two or three days : others take two pice worth a day. In 
 my experience many took a pice worth daily and a good many two pice 
 worth. Again, a very much larger number make it last two, three, or four 
 days. A pice worth means four grains. Two grains are a very fair daily 
 allowance, but a good many take four and eight grains. When you go 
 beyond that, you are getting to exeess. 
 
 Q. — What effect has opium on moderate eaters ? 
 
 A. — It supports and comforts them, especially when under exei^on 
 or exposure. It enables them to do a great deal on what seems to 
 Europeans an insufficient diet. And I believe it acts as a prophylactic, 
 especially against diarrhoea, rheumatism, malai'ial fever, dysentery and I 
 think I might add, diabetes. 
 
 Q. — What, in yonr experience, was the effect of opium upon Sikhs 
 and Eajputs ? 
 
 A. — As a race, the Sikhs and Eajputs are two of the finest 
 races in India, and anybody knowing India would ^ say so ; they are a 
 very martial race, and a very considerable proportion of them take to 
 the opium habit. I cannot give you any numerical proportion, because 
 I have not studied the subject. 
 
 Q. — I understand that opium is served out to the native troops on 
 the march ? 
 
 A. — I have never heard of opium being actually served out, but I 
 think the commissariat takes a supply to sell to the sepoys on the march, 
 in order that there might be no difficulty about the sepoys getting opium 
 when they want it. 
 
 Q. — Have you any experience of China ? 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 A. — I visited it in 1874, and was there for about three weeks. It 
 struck me that the physique of the common people was very good, and I 
 was much struck by two Chinamen who carried me about in Hongkong, 
 and who both said they smoked opium. I have never seen finer men ; 
 they carried me up the steep streets of Hongkong with perfect ease. 
 
 Q. — What is your experience of opium-eaters, who are men of busi- 
 ness in Calcutta ? 
 
 A. — There is a large class of some of the greatest business men in 
 Calcutta who are opium-eaters, bold speculators who can hold their own 
 with anybody. These are the Marwaries who are supposed to come from 
 Marwar, in Rajputana, and I know from long practice among them that 
 many of them take opium. I think that few men, who have once made 
 it a practice to take opium, ever give it up, as few men who smoke or 
 drink in moderation in other countries, give up their drink or tobacco ; 
 bfit they could, if tliey wished, give it up witliout any difficulty or dan- 
 ger. I have never known a Native come to the hospital to be cured of the 
 opium habit. I have never known them give up under advice. I am speak- 
 ing mainly of cases of disease where I have advised them to give it up. 
 For many years I don’t remember ever having interfered with a patient’s 
 opium habit. I treated cases absolutely without reference to that 
 hi»lit. It did not interfere with my treatment in any way, I think that 
 in the case of the opium drunkard, there is great difficulty in giving it up ; 
 he finds it extremely difficulty, to do so. But it is not the opium which 
 he cannot conquer, but the initial weakness of will which led to the ori- 
 ginal excess. He has so little power of self-control that he cannot nerve 
 himself to undergo the amount of discomfort attendant upon the relin- 
 quishment of a habit. 
 
 Q. — Iir Indian jails, opium is not allowed ? 
 
 A. — The rule is that all opium found on a prisoner on admission is 
 to be confiscated, and he is not allowed to get any, and smuggling opium 
 into jail is punishable as a jail offence ; and I believe that, as a rule, the 
 supply of opium is cut off at once and entirely. People say that the men 
 get it by smuggHng. I should be sorry to say that they never do, but 
 I think they must be exceptions. I think our jail discipline is suffi- 
 ciently good to make it difficult for every opium eater to easily supply 
 himself. No doubt it can be done casually. I have known and heard of 
 considerable temporary suffering caused by the stoppage of opium, but it 
 has never led to any dangerous results, and the suffering passes off in a 
 few days ; but in extreme cases they suffer for a long time. Even then 
 they get free in time. I have known a considerable ntimber of bad cases 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 among Europeans and Eurasians, but in only one case did it lead to 
 death, and even in that case it would be hard to say that opium was the 
 cause. In that case the man was overworked and had insufficient food, 
 and was often drenched to the skin every night by heavy dews. Opium 
 might have been a factor in the case, but it was not the only factor. 
 
 Q. — The evidence given before us almost unanimously suggests 
 the fact that opium does not produce any known organic change but it has 
 been stated by several witnesses that the habitual taking of opium makes 
 a person more liable to disease. Is that your opinion ? 
 
 A. — I can understand that in the case of the opium drunkard, al- 
 though it has not been my experience ; but with moderate opium-eaters, 
 I believe the exact contrary to be the truth. In the first Maranzri Ex- 
 pedition in 1891, we marched without trouble through constant rain, and 
 sometimes 20 degrees of frost ; the men were very hard-worked ; there 
 were excessive cold winds and storms, and the men were wet to the skin 
 every day : 40 of them were frost-bitten, yet the death-rate was only 7'3 
 per cent, about half the death-rate of those who were doing nothing in 
 cantonments. 
 
 
 Q. — What has been the effect of opium on the moral character ? 
 
 A. — As far as I know, the moderate use of opium has no effect, 
 on the moral character, and even excess does not lead to the commission 
 of violent crimes. The opium dnmkard only seeks to be let alone. If 
 poor, he may be led to petty thefts to supply himself with opium, and 
 in many instances patients who do not wish to give up the habit bring 
 opium with them, and lie unblushingly about it. It is the same thing 
 in the case of alcohol : they swear that they have not touched a drop 
 of liquor when probably they reek of alcohol. I think that in both 
 these cases, there is a want of moral control ; it is not the alcohol or the ‘4 
 opium ; it is the want of self-control in the patient. The worst result 
 I saw was in the case of a fine young woman who deliberately prostituted i 
 herself during the Lancashire cotton famine, in order to get money to I 
 buy opium. J 
 
 Q. — What do yoxr think generally of the value of dietetic opiu 
 among stimulants ? 
 
 A. — I think it one of the most harmless, useful and ne ^sary 
 blessings that man can have. I think it is God’s best gift, as opium 
 was characterised by Dr. George, x 
 
 m would like to mention ? 
 
 Q.— Is there anything else 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 A. — I believe, although I have no evidence to offer on the point, 
 that if a man accustomed to opium were to be effectively denied it, — of the 
 possibility of which I have great doubts, because it is so easily smug- 
 gled, — he will take to other stimulants, and if he takes to ganja or alcohol, 
 the last stage of that man will be very much worse than the first. 
 Two grains being taken as the amount taken in one day, a year’s 
 supply would fit into a box 2" x 1^" x ; it would take two years’ supply 
 for a man who takes one grain a day, and half a year’s supply for a man 
 takmg a pice worth daily ; and any native could so easily conceal it in 
 his loin cloth or his pugree that you would have to strip him naked before 
 you could find it. It would be almost impossible that you could support 
 a policy of this sort of espionage, and I don’t believe that the people 
 would stand it. 
 
 Q. — Do you, in the course of your duties, mix very largely vrith 
 medical men in the Indian sei-\dce ? 
 
 A. — Not only in the Indian service, but in the medical staff, and 
 with a large number of native medical practitioners, University graduates 
 of sorts. 
 
 Q. — Are the views you express held very generally by the profession 
 in India 7 
 
 A. — By all but an infinitesimal minority ; we medical men who 
 have practical experience in India are practically at one. 
 
 Q. — I suppose you know the suggested reason why natives of India 
 should take to the use of opium, and tolerate it 7 
 
 A. — I think it a race question. Practically, looking all round the 
 world, we find that each nation has its own habits. All mankind want 
 stimulants of some kind. The Northern nations of Europe take to a 
 spirit stimulant. In the south of Europe spirits are much less used, and 
 wine is generally taken as a stimulant ; and northern nations are able to 
 take a quantity of spirits which in the tropics kills them off. Spudts are 
 absolutely unsuited to the tropics. Opium is the best stimulant and 
 the people of this country have found it to be a necessity. In the north, 
 spirits, like everything else, are liable to abuse, but as moderate men and 
 the great majority take it, it not only does no harm, but it is taken with 
 considerable comfort. 
 
 There is also one practical point which has been brought up in 
 evidence by several preceding witnesses ; Everybody admits that opium 
 .must be allowed for medical purposes ; with that reservation, it has been 
 felt possible by some to prohibit the use of opium. The last report of 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 medical institutions points out as a matter of fact that, in a population of 
 over seventy millions, only 2^ per cent, get any benefit from the Govern- 
 ment medical institutions. There are no doubt a certain number of pri- 
 vate hospitals, but the great bulk of the people have no medical advice, 
 unless they go to balds and hakims who have no real qualifications, are 
 not registered, and must be allowed to give certificates for the supply of 
 opium, and there is nothing to prevent any man from setting up for his 
 own bald or hakim and from what I know of the native character anybody 
 who could give four annas could easily get a certificate. In this 
 way, you will not decrease the consumption of opium, but null simply 
 embarrass the Government. 
 
 By the President. — Q. — Have you any particular experience of the 
 use of opium ? 
 
 A. — 1 have myself been an opium-eater in a very strange way, but I 
 trust 1 shall not be considered to be one now. My first experience was 
 during a professional examination I had to undergo when suffeiing from 
 a severe attack of inflnenza cold. Tliirty drops of laudanum taken to in- 
 duce sleep acted as a charm. It removed the stupidity induced by the 
 cold, cleared my brain, and enabled me to go through the examination. 
 Before taking the laudanum my brain was so clouded that I could not 
 bring to mind what I had learned, but the effect of the dose was to bring 
 the whole of my books clearly before me. Again, in 1871-72 when, in 
 charge of the advance hospital in the Lushai expedition, I had nearly 
 2,000 sick and wounded passing through my hands in less than three 
 months. Sometimes there were 400 at a time in hospital, and I had during 
 most of the time only one hospital assistant and no nurse, order- 
 lies or clerks to help me. I began the campaign with a severe attack of 
 fever which kept recurring every few days, and I believe I should have 
 broken down, but for having resorted to opium. I may have taken 
 opium thirty or forty times. I never exceeded a grain of it, never han- 
 kered for more, and had no difficulty in stopping it. It sustained and 
 comforted me. I have taken it some ten times since, always under 
 circumstances of great fatigue and exposure, and always with the same 
 result. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — When suffering from great exertions and 
 resorting to the aid of opium, you resorted to it as a stimulant, and not 
 for any other purpose ? 
 
 A. — As a stimulant. It also arrested waste of tissue and enabled me 
 to do more than I could otherwise have done. 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 Q. — Would not there be a corresponding degree of depression after- 
 wards ? 
 
 A. — I don’t think opium has that effect unless taken in large quan- 
 tities. I found no reaction or depression whatever. 
 
 Q. — Do you find that persons in the habit of taking opium are 
 equally susceptible to the effects of other drugs ? 
 
 A. — I think so. 
 
 Q. — You spoke of opium-eaters as being under the influence of a 
 weak will. Would not the effect of the opium be to weaken the power of 
 the will ? 
 
 A. — I could not give any definite opinion. 
 
 Q. — You made a quotation from Dr. Gregory. Was he not at that 
 time alluding to opium as a medicine, and not when taken as an indul- 
 gence ? 
 
 A. — No doubt. But in many cases the habit has begun for the 
 relief of pain, and people find it so comforting that they go on with it. 
 
 Q. — Are you in favour of reducing the facilities for obtaining 
 opium ? 
 
 A. — I don’t think that at all necessary. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — You refer in the second paragraph of youi’ 
 printed statement to a person in Lancashire who would take four ounces 
 of laudanum daily. W as that the case of the young woman of whom 
 'you spoke ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; she came to ask for opium because she had no means of 
 getting it. 
 
 Q. — Four ounces of laudanum would cost a considerable sum ? 
 
 A. — Yes, but her husband was a well-to-do operative, and she had 
 been able to get it up to the time of the cotton famine ; they were all 
 turned out of the works, and she came to us for opium, but we refused to 
 give it. 
 
 Q. — You referred to the Miranzai expedition, and said that many of 
 the sepoys used opium. You cannot give the proportion ? 
 
 A. — I have never made a numerical calculation, but it was well 
 known that the Sikh sepoys took opium, although many of them would 
 deny it. I ascertained that of the forty men who were frost-bitten none 
 were opium eaters. 
 
 Q. — Opium-eaaters and non-opium-eaters alike stood the hardship 
 of the campaign 7 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 A. — Yes ; I doa’t suggest that the non-opinm-eaters died faster. 
 The real cause of the diminished death-rate is to be found in the admirable 
 arrangements made by the Government for the comfort, feeding, and 
 shelter of the troops. 
 
 Q. — I don’t remember whether you read this passage in yonr state- 
 ment : “ I believe it sharpens the mental faculties, brightens the wits, 
 
 and improves the physical powers. ” Then why don’t you take it your- 
 self? 
 
 A. — I beheve so. I don’t take it because I don’t find it necessary. 
 
 I think my wits are bright enough. Seriously, I think it does have 
 tliat effect, especially under the circumstances under which I have taken 
 it, and should always take it. 
 
 Q. — I wish to know whether you regard it as valuable mainly under 
 peculiar circumstances of distress, or whether you mean to say that it 
 has those effects upon habitual opium-eaters throughout life ? 
 
 A. — I am not in a position to answer that, but I know that it kept 
 my head clear when I thought I might fail in my examination. It 
 cleared my brains in a most wonderful way. 
 
 Q. — I think I may take it that, as a matter of fact, you do not re-’ 
 commend it as a practice to persons who wish to have sharp brains ? 
 
 A. — I would not recommend it. 
 
 Q. — Have you recommended anybody to take it regularly? 
 
 A. — ISTo, certainly not for that purpose. 
 
 Q. — Then in reference to your own experience, when you were suffer- 
 ing from that severe influenza cold, you were taking it as a medicine ? 
 
 A. — Yes, in that case. That showed me the value of it. That was 
 before I had any experience in other places. When I was a student I 
 took it temporarily for a medical purpose. Afterwards I took it as a 
 stimulant. 
 
 Q. — Spealdng generally, I want to know whether the evidence you 
 have been giving is limited especially to eating, drinking, or smoking ? 
 
 A. — I have practically no experience of smoldng, except in the case 
 of the two men at Hongkong to whom I have alluded. The great major- 
 ity of the people of this country take opium as a piU. In Eajputana 
 especially, in a few cases, it is made into a solution and drunk. A certain 
 number of people in the large cities of India, especially where there are 
 Chinese,' learn the habit of smoking, but I have no experience to speak 
 of. My experience is of eating or drinking. 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 Q. — You were fire years in Kajputana. We have had some diffi- 
 culty in ascertaining what proportion of the people who are called Eajputs 
 are really Rajputs ? 
 
 A. — You may practically take the whole population. They are not 
 all pure Rajputs. There are numerous mixed races among them, but as 
 far as my knowledge goes, all of them take opium much in the same pro- 
 portion. I could not reduce it to a nirmerical figure. 
 
 Q. — In consequence of some difficulty which was felt I referred to 
 Hunter s Gazetteer, and he gives the population of Rajputana at ten 
 million odd, and the number of the Rajput class , as half a million or 
 5’5 per cent, of the whole population ? 
 
 A. — My remark refers to the whole population. 
 
 Q. — Do you know the view of the American missionary, Dr. 
 Huntly, who has lived for years in Rajputana ? 
 
 A.— I don’t. 
 
 Q. — Amongst other things he says natives of Rajputana have a 
 practice of drinking milk with opium, perhaps to ward off some of its 
 effects. On the other hand, those who take opium can be detected at a 
 glance. Is that your experience ? 
 
 A. — I believe there are indications when opium is taken in excess 
 but there is not the least indication where opium is moderately used. 
 The average moderate opium-eater is absolutely unrecognisable. 
 
 Q. — Then further on Dr. Huntly says : “During seven years of 
 constant intercourse with them, I have never met a native who considered 
 the drug harmless.” That is no" your opinion? 
 
 A. — Certainly not. 
 
 Q. — He goes on to say that on a careful inquiry of one huirdred 
 cases he found nearly forty per cent, practiced the habit to stimulate the 
 sexual appetite? 
 
 A. — I believe that a certain number of men do take it as an aphrod- 
 isiac under a deluded idea of its effect. I don’t believe it has that pro- 
 perty. Whenever any new aphrodisiac is started, every chemist will tell 
 you that there is a tremendous rush upon it. Natives probably do prac- 
 tice the habit for that purpose ; I have not made any particular enquiiy. 
 
 Q.— —Do you know a work by Dr. Russell on malaria and the en- 
 largement of the spleen ? Is it not a work of considerable authority on 
 the point ? 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 A. — I have glanced through the book. It was many years ago. 
 I don’t think it has had any large circulation, but I have no doubt from 
 what I know of Dr. Eussell that the work ought to be valuable. 
 
 Q. — You have used the expression that it is very much a race ques- 
 tion. Can yon apply such a term to India? 
 
 A. — Perhaps “climatic question” would have been better. The 
 races in India are very numerous. It is clear from the illustration I gave 
 that I meant climatic question. 
 
 By Mr. Haridas Veharidas. — Q. — Do you ever take alcohol? 
 
 A. — I take alcohol, but in strict moderation. 
 
 Q. — You say you have taken opium forty or fifty times. Why did 
 not you take alcohol ? 
 
 A. — I did not take alcohol, because I could not get it. I should 
 have taken if I could have got it. 
 
 Q. — Have you given up taking opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes, afterwards I gave it up. 
 
 Q. — Since giving up taking opium, have you taken more alcohol 
 than usual? 
 
 A. — Ho, no more than usual. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. — Did I understand you to say that in your ex- 
 perience opium was largely used as an aphrodisiac ? 
 
 A. — I have no experience. There is nothing in opium which can 
 have that effect. 
 
 Q. — Do you know the dose people take as an aphrodisiac ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say. 
 
 Q. — Can you give any intimation as to the age, speaking generally, 
 at which the classes of Eajputs and Sikhs begin to take opium ? 
 
 A. — In Eajputana it is generally begun with children ; sometimes 
 it is continued in boyhood, but sometimes it is given up; sometimes 
 mothers give it to their infants to keep them quiet, while they themselves 
 are at work. I have seen children of three or four years take opium in 
 Eajputana and the Punjab, but they give it up at intervals. 
 
 Q. — You said that there were some of the finest races of men in 
 Eajputana. In using that expression you are referring to the Eajput 
 proper ? 
 
 A. — I am referring to the whole population of Eajputana. There 
 are a number of fine men among races which are not related to the Eaj- 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 puts — ^the Jats and Dobras for instance ; and there are people of very 
 mixed blood who are as fine and plucky men as you could wish to see. 
 
 Q. — Then the opium habit is equally common among Eajputs 
 proper, and other classes of men in Rajputana? 
 
 A. — I think so. 
 
 Evidence of Surgeon Lientenant-Colonel A. Orombie, M.D. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q. — Will you state your position? 
 
 A. — I am Superintendent of the Presidency General Hospital, and 
 have had a long Indian service and practice in my profession. 
 
 Q. — What means have you had of becoming acquainted with the 
 opium habit in India ? 
 
 A. — I have been a hospital physician and surgeon for nearly the 
 whole of my service in India. I have served in the Medical College in 
 Calcutta, and also in Rangoon and Dacca. I was for a long time Civil 
 Surgeon of Dacca, but for only seven years of that period did I actually 
 reside in Dacca. Besides hospital experience I have also been medical 
 officer of two large jails, and have repeatedly had medical charge of one 
 of those jails, and I have also had charge of a Lunatic Asylum in Dacca, 
 where there were 220 lunatics, for seven years, and have also had consi- 
 derable experience of the large province of Bengal generally, and have 
 been often consulted by the Government of Bengal. 
 
 Q. — I understand you have paid much sjiecial attention to the opium 
 question. Will you give us your experience of the consumption of opium 
 in Bengal? 
 
 A. — I have made a number of calculations with regard to the con- 
 sumption of opium in India and especially in Bengal. At page nmety- 
 nine of the collection of papers on the consumption of opium in India 
 published on the 9th January, 1892, the consumption is stated to be 
 sufficient to furnish a daily dole of a quarter of an ounce to about 
 4,00,000 people ; that comes to twenty-two and a half grains per 1,000 of 
 the population of Bengal, or eight grains per head of the population for 
 the whole of India, men, women, and children, and the cost of this would 
 be four pice per annum. The cost of drinks consumed in England is 
 £3 15s. per head of the population per annum. With regard to the 
 proportion of opium to each opium-eater, no estimate can be made, but, 
 taking a low estimate, it would give about 400 grains per annum to each 
 opium-eater, or a little more than a grain a day. That would make 
 opium-eaters about twenty per cent of the adult male population. In the 
 Lower Provinces of Bengal, 1,942 maunds of opium are supplied for con- 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 sumption. That makes fifteen and a half grains per head of the population, 
 or according to the same calculation, 300 grains per annum for each con- 
 sumer, or a little below the daily average for each opium-eater. The 
 amounts varies in different parts of Lower Bengal. A gentleman. Baboo 
 Bejoy Madhub Mukerjee, Sub-Divisional Officer of Soopore, in Bhagul- 
 pore, furnished me the other day with some information. He stated that 
 the quantity obtained from the treasury there was three maunds for a 
 population of 600,000, which amounts to twelve and a half grains per annum 
 per head of the population, or fifty grains to each consumer per annum. 
 He mentioned in explanation of the little opium used there that a large 
 quantity of alcohol was consumed by the population, and he considered 
 that the two intoxicants were used in inverse proportion. In the Sub- 
 division of Ranaghat, which is close to Calcutta, where alcohol is used in- 
 small quantities, twenty-five to thirty grains per head of the population, or 
 about 600 grains per annum is used by each consumer, which is nearly 
 two grains a day. With regard to this there are two or three explana- 
 tions. The amount is very much smaller than is actually taken by the 
 average consumer and it may be that only a portion of the consumers 
 use it daily, leaving a considerably larger quantity for the others, or there 
 may be a considerable quantity of illicit opium in constant use. My 
 evidence with regard to the evil effects of opium upon the consumer in 
 India, with every opportunity of observing its full effects, is almost 
 absolutely in the negative. 
 
 Q- — But you have recognised that cases of the excessive use of 
 opium occur? 
 
 A.— Yes, I have frequently met with natives who take opium in 
 excess. I have not often noticed that an excessive quantity produced any 
 deleterious effect. In one or two or perhaps three instances I have seen 
 its deleterious effects in the course of my experience of twenty years, 
 effects which I trace directly to opium unaccompanied by any pre-existing 
 disease. 
 
 Q- — Does your memory carry you sufficiently far back to remem- 
 ber what was the condition of people who took opium to excess without 
 any disease? 
 
 is rather difficult to find a case exactly fulfilling this con- 
 dition. The first case brought prominently to my notice was that of a 
 prisoner who was in the Rangoon Jail. He died in hospital from 
 chronic diarrhcea. and the conclusion I came to, whether rightly or wrongly 
 ly was that the death was due to excess of opium. Diarrhoea and 
 dysentery are very common diseases in India. Death might have been 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 due to other causes, but the impression in my mind at the time was that 
 death was due to opium. That was tlie only case which showed the evil 
 effects of opium. 
 
 Q. — You have had considerable experience, having been in charge of 
 hospitals and jails and lunatic asylums. Can you tell us Avhether the 
 opium habit has been the cause of lunacy or the cause of crime ? 
 
 A. — I have made a report on that point, whicli was publislied in a 
 supplement to the Indian Medical Gazette, which I now formally present to 
 the Commission. In that I have given my experience with regard to illness 
 caused by the opium habit. The figures upon which my opinion was partly 
 based wiU be found at page twenty-seven of that supplement. The statistics 
 . of the Bengal lunatic asylums are there given for ten years. The number 
 ' of admissions during tliose ten years was 2,202 ; of that number 641 
 were ganja smokers or consumers oi g an j a \\\ some form; 117 were drink- 
 ers of alcohol, and only eight were opium-eaters. 
 
 Q. — Those were alleged causes, so that a good many more of those 
 may have been opium-eaters ? 
 
 A. — In each case in which a patient was entered as taking ganja or 
 opium or alcohol it was put down to that cause. With regard to ganja 
 tliere is no question in my mind that ganja is the cause in a veiy large 
 proportion of cases in which it is put down as the alleged cause. With 
 regard to spirits, my experience is the same as the experience of asylums in 
 England— twenty or twenty-five per cent. With regard to opium-eating 
 I am of opinion that it is never the cause of insanity. What is put down 
 in the paper meant that those eight patients were lunatics who were 
 accustomed to take opium. I have also collected statistics for Bombay, 
 Eangoon, and Madras, but they are not complete. I can only give the 
 statistics for Bombay for three years, and for the Bangoon asylum for six 
 years. In Bombay there are also very few opium-eaters detained as luna- 
 tics, wliile the number of spirit-drinkers has very considerably increased in 
 the Colaba asylum, that is to say, a very considerably larger proportion of 
 spirit-drinkers are admitted there than in any other lunatic asylum. 
 
 Q. — Will you give us the impression produced in your mind by study-, 
 ing this question ? 
 
 A. — In the first place, opium-eating is essentially a habit acquired in 
 the beginning of advanced life, while alcohol and ganja are intoxicants 
 chiefly used below the age of thirty or thirty-five. 
 
 Q. — What do you consider the beginning of advanced life? 
 
 A. — Forty years, speaking of natives of India. 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 Q. — Do j"ou think the people of India have a peculiar tolerance for 
 opium ? 
 
 A. — I have reason for believing that there is such tolerance, and I 
 believe that a great deal of the agitation on the subject of opium is due to 
 the difference in the effect of alcohol and especially morphia in European 
 countries. Tlie effect is much greater among people who use alcohol in 
 India. It is also perfectly certain that all animals are not equally affected 
 by opium. I have made a number of experiments wdth ducks and fowls. 
 
 I have given the enormous quantity of thirty grains to a duck weighing 2^ ♦“ 
 pounds, and in another of the same weight I have injected three grains of 
 morphia. That would mean to a man of ten stone, 15 x l-tO grains to a dose, 
 or 1^ grains of morphia to every pound weight of Ins body; 1^ x 140 equals 
 210 grains for one injection. Beyond giving rise to a certain amount of nausea 
 in all animals it seems to have no effect ; during the first two days they 
 are quite the same, inquisitive as ducks always are, and eat their food as 
 usual. Fowls after two or three days eat very little, and are evidently 
 affected by the dose. I made these experiments to satisfy myself that the 
 statements made in the books are true, and I am now able to confirm 
 them. Then as to the natives of India having some peculiarity in their 
 constitution. With regard to bodily temperature I made some experi- 
 ments in 1872-73-74 as to the normal temperature of the bodies of natives 
 as well as of Europeans. I have drawn up the differences diagrammatical- 
 ly ; the three last figures show the average temperature of men in Eng- 
 land. The difference in temperature indicature indicates the difference iiX 
 tlie tolerance of opmm. The figures show that the average temperature of I 
 the population here is nearly half a degree higher than in England, and/ 
 nearly a degree higher tlian that of Europeans linng in Asia. 
 
 Q. — Have you any distinct evidence of the difference of tolerance of 
 Europeans and natives ? -y- 
 
 A. — We can give larger doses here than in England. In aerrte '' 
 diarrhoea I never give less than one drachm of laudanum to a native ; 
 that is three times as much as I give in England. The laudanum procu- 
 rable is mostly obtained from England and made from Turkey opium. 
 
 I give a drachm dose freely without any hesitation to adults, but I think 
 the difference of constitution is to be chiefly noticed in reference to chil- 
 dren in England. The practice there is that opium should not be given 
 at all to English children under five years of age, and only then under 
 great precautions ; but Iiere in India we give it with liardly any precau- 
 tions, even in cliildren of a year old, in free doses. We give it also to 
 Et\g)iah t'.bildri'n, But I um now I'efprHirgto native nliildrnii, 
 
 f 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 Q. — And do you observe any difference of doses in the two 
 cases ? 
 
 A. — We give it more freely to native children than to English chil- 
 dren. Native mothers constantly give opium to their babies a day or 
 two old, and the practice is continued up to the age of about four year.?. 
 Most of the ayahs or nurses when they find a peevish, fretful child give 
 it the same dose as they are accustomed to give to their own children, and 
 the children die. Such cases have fallen under my own experience. I have 
 *' never treated a native child for opium poisoning during twenty years’ ser- 
 vice ; one has never been brought to hospital. I think this tolerance 
 of opium in the native is the product of all the influences brought to bear 
 I on the Native in the course of ages. Living in a hot climate and on a 
 ' vegetable diet and abstinence from alcohol are the chief conditions. 
 
 Q — Do you include the malarial constitution ? 
 
 A. — I am not sure that that gives tolerance. 
 
 Q. — You are aware of certain diseases, like diabetes, that give toler- 
 ance ? 
 
 A. — Yes, but I have not observed tolerance from malaria : though 
 most of the people, I think, have more or less a malaria taint. Another 
 proof of the difference of constitutions is to be found in the immunity of the 
 Natives of India from typhoid fever. Dr. Harvey tells me that be has seen 
 typhoid fever in natives, the diagnosis being confirmed by the post mortem, 
 but he refers to a time long past. Typhoid fever in a Native is extremely 
 rare. A Native medical student may go through the whole of his curri- 
 culum -without ever seeing a case of typhoid fever. Dr. Gibbons, who has 
 been Pathologist in the Medical College for the last seven or eight years 
 has never seen the evidence of typhoid fever in a native in a post mortem 
 examination, whereas in the General Hospital, which is open to Europeans 
 and Eurasians, there are from ten to twenty cases in a year. I have never 
 treated a Native for typhoid fever. 
 
 Q. — Do you say the same in regard to scarlet fever ? 
 
 A. — Yes, but that exemption applies also to Europeans. I have seen 
 only one unquestionable case of scarlet fever in a European in India. 
 
 Q. — Have you made a special study of the effects of smoking 
 opium ? 
 
 A. I have made it a special study. The evil effects are considera- 
 
 bly greater than anything that can be attributed to eating opium. This 
 is due chiefly to the conditions under which it is smoked. It is smoked 
 in clubs or, till recently, in opium dens. It is a social vice, like drinking 
 alcohol, and the consequence is that opium-smoking is a vice of younger 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 people. I believe that ?nrtf7aI'-siTioking’ is move deleterious than chundu 
 smoking. I have visited several shops of both kinds during the last 
 three or four years, and have come to the conclusion that madah 
 smoking does lead to greater evils than chundu smoking. I have 
 made six or eight visits to them at different times. The taking of 
 opium does deteriorate the morals of those who indulge in it; but on pub- 
 lic morality the effect is absolutely ml ; it gives rise to no violent 
 crimes. You may live within a short distance of an opium den without 
 knowing that it is there. I lived in Dacca seven years, and did not 
 know of the existence of a smoking den there. 
 
 Q. — Smoking in India is a habit of the lower classes? 
 
 A. — It is decidedly so. I don’t know any well-to-do or respectable 
 men who smoke opium ; but they eat opium constantly. I am speaking 
 of Hindus and Mahommedans, inhabitants of Bengal. 
 
 Q. — You have no experience of the Chinese as opium smokers ? 
 
 A. — Not of any value. 
 
 Q. — What do you think is the reason why the people take opium 
 in this countiy ? 
 
 A. — The majority do not begin till their vital powers are failing— 
 say between the ages of forty and fifty ; and tlien it is usually on tfie ad- 
 vice of their elders who recommend them to take it to improve their 
 health. I know of a native patient who is suffering from heart-disease, 
 and was constantly urged by inembers of liis family to adopt the habit ; 
 they tell him to take it for his stomach’s sake and for his often infirmities. 
 
 Q. — But among the poorer classes ? 
 
 A. — They take it as a protection against chills, and it is taken also 
 as a preventive of diarrhoea and dysentery, the result of chills ; also in 
 large doses in the treatment of diarrhoea and dysentery ; and it is very 
 fi-equently used in asthma and diabetes ; also as a prophylactic, and in 
 the treatment of malarial fever. 
 
 Q. — Do you agree with the opinion that the excessive use of opium 
 is apt to reduce the fertility of the villagers ? 
 
 A. — I am unable to give an independent opinion on that point, but 
 there is evidence in support of that view, especially that of Dr. Vincent 
 Richards. I ought to say something more about malaria. The first point 
 which struck me in India was the rooted and unreasonable objection which 
 natives have to be treated with quinine ; even now one has to prescribe 
 quinine under a synonym. Often one finds out that the objection is not 
 unreasonable, that the majority of cases of fever in Lower Bengal are of a 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 kind which is not only not benefited by quinine, but aggravated by it ; 
 and we are able clinically to distinguish those cases which are aggravated 
 in this way. This is the common experience of all medical men in 
 India. 
 
 Q. — A solution of quinine would not replace opium ? 
 
 A. — ^Ho, not at all ; but opium gives considerable relief. Dr. Birch, 
 late Principal of the Medical College, who suffered considerably from 
 fever, got such relief from opium as he never got from any other drug. 
 Brunton, a great authority on therapeutics, mentions the case and gives 
 reasons for it, and so does Garrod ; they both mention cases in which the 
 treatment of malaria with opium is beneficial. The same opinion prevails 
 in the fen country in England where people use large quantities of opium 
 both for the prevention and treatment of malaria. 
 
 Q, — Now, as to opium being a cause of crime, what is your opinion 
 on that point ? 
 
 A. — My opinion is that it is not the cause of violent cifime or brutal- 
 ity. Alcohol is a cause of brutality ; and ganja of sudden and uncontrol- 
 led violence. Chevers gives one case of amok, which was attributed to 
 opium. In all my experience as a Jail Officer and Superintendent of 
 a Lunatic Asylum, and as an expert relating to criminal lunatics, I have 
 never known a case of running amok caused by the effects of taking opium. 
 In my experience it is uniformly caused by ganja. I know a case of a 
 young Bengali who indulged in a single ganja debauch, and, when he re- 
 turned home that night, slew seven of his own relatives. Cases of killing 
 three or four neighbours under the influence of ganja are quite common, 
 but they are invariably produced by ganja, and not by opium. 
 
 „ Q. — Whatido you say of the practicability of limiting the use of 
 
 opium to purely medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — I believe those who make a suggestion of that kind are not 
 acquainted with the lives and habits of the people. It presupposes 
 that there are places scattered all over the country where opium can be 
 obtained under medical advice, and that there are medical men available 
 everywhere who are capable of giving that advice with discretion ; also 
 that there are means of communication available at all places. I think 
 it is desirable that the Commission should know something of the condi- 
 tions of life obtaining in parts such as that I have lived in during the 
 greater part of my service — I mean Eastern Bengal. There, when a 
 man wants to build a house, he first digs a tank, and with the earth he 
 raises a mound, and on the top of that mound places his house. The 
 elevation of the mound depends upon tfie height to which the annual 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 floods rise, which they do with fair regularity, but sonietiures they 
 rise two or three inches higher than the average, and then the 
 inmates have to live on rafts ; they paddle about on rafts made of plan- 
 tain stems. Some of the dwellings are extremely isolated, having no 
 other habitations within four or five miles, and no native doctors within 
 miles, and to deprive these people of the ability to get opium except 
 under medical advice would cause a terrible amount of sufiering. It is 
 the only medicine available to them of any value, and I should not like 
 to be the person who would deprive them of it. In most cases the 
 only practitioner available is the Civil Hospital Assistant, educated in 
 one of our Vernacular schools, but his advice is of no value as to the 
 giving of opium on purely medical grounds ; they are very poor, and to 
 them a matter of four or eight annas or a rupee would be sufficient to 
 enable any man to obtain opium. Again, here in Calcutta, which swarms 
 with practitioners, with hospitals in every direction where the people can 
 obtain fair medical advice, it is a fact that fifty per cent, of the popula- 
 tion do without any medical attendance whatever ; statistics to this 
 effect were obtained by the Health Office of Calcutta in 1891, and will 
 be found at page five of his report. If it is fifty per cent, in Calcutta, 
 it is seventy-five per cent, in country districts, and instead of restricting 
 the use of opium more than it is already, I think every household in this 
 part of the world ought to have opium for use in cases of emergency. I 
 myself never travel without opium and, even whan I came out from 
 England this time, my wife provided me with laudanum before I started, 
 though I did not have occasion to use it. I wish to add that I am 
 Consulting Physician to the E. I. Kailway Company, and I have 
 obtained figures of the number of their native employes. The number of 
 employes is 850 Europeans, 525 East Indians, and 39,750 natives. I 
 have been Consulting Physician for five years, and aU the reports from 
 the different medical officers of the districts are submitted to me half- 
 yearly. During these years the name of opium-eater does not appear 
 in any report, and I find that opium does not come before them, either 
 professionally or officially, though the line passes through opium-growing 
 dictricts. No mention whatever is made upon the point, with the excep- 
 tion that several native doctors had sometimes pointed out to them 
 patients who were opium-eaters, though they were unable to discover the 
 fact. 
 
 Q. — From your own knowledge do you know whether railway 
 servants have been dismissed owing to the habit 7 
 
 * 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 A. — I asked Mr. WagstafE, who has been in the head office for 
 twenty-eight years, and the reply he gave was this : — “During the twenty- 
 eight years I have been in the office here, I don’t remember a single case 
 being, reported of a Native of any grade being unfit for his duty 
 owing ;;rto the use of opium.” I am also, in another capacity. 
 Surgeon to three of the Emigration Agencies wliich send coolies to 
 the-jWest Indies, the majority of whom are recruited from the N.-W. P., 
 and a j;jconsiderable proportion from Behar. During the last six years 
 48,170 coolies have been despatched to the West Indies. The projjortioii 
 sent is, 100 males, 42 women and 55 children, which leaves 32,000 
 men or adults. During these five or six years, it has only come 
 to my knowledge, two or three times, that the man I was examining 
 was an opium-eater. It has not been because I discovered it myself, 
 but because he asked for opium, and then it was discovered he 
 was an eater ; as regards his physical condition, he was not to be 
 distinguished from the other coolies. I may mention that every coolie 
 sent is examined by medical men up-country, then by the ship Surgeon,, 
 and Inspector of Emigration, all of whom have been medical men. Yet 
 we send a considerable number of opium-eaters to the West Indies. It is 
 against the rules to send opium-eaters, and yet we are utterly unable to 
 detect opium-eaters when we send them. I have made enquiries in refer- 
 ence to the opium question. I have had a great deal of conversation 
 with opium-eaters, smokers, and people who are neither, and I think there 
 is a consensus of 02 )inion amongst all these, including the opium-smokers 
 themselves, that chundu and madah manufactories should be abolished. I 
 distinguish between that and the abolition of the opium trade. I think 
 that measure is absolutely futile, and that it will have no effect whatever 
 upon the consumption of madak and chundu. There is as much ojjium 
 consumed in Calcutta now as before the opium dens were closed. There 
 would be a little discontent amongst Chinamen, but they are a small 
 number, and what would happen would be that the majority of those who 
 now smoke would eat it. There is no question, I think, that they would 
 avail themselves of this comparatively harmless way of irsing opium. As 
 regards the trade with China what people ask is. What benefit there 
 Avould be by such prohibition ? and I believe there is a universal belief 
 that the prohibition of opium except for medical use would lead to the 
 increased irse both of alcohol and ganja. There is a suspicion, which I 
 know to be absolutely unfounded, that tlie whole of the agitation against 
 opium has been got up in the interest of the English liquor traffic. That 
 I have heard repeatedly, and there is no doubt that the belief is very 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 widespread. I may mention that this very morning I received a letter 
 from a missionary whom I have known for a considerable number of years, 
 which I should like to read in confirmation of that opinion. He is’ a 
 resident of this part of India. He says : — “I have seen no convincing 
 evidence why the Government should deprive the people of opium. I have 
 seen the ill-effects of ganja and alcohol both here and in Calcutta, and I 
 have faded to discover the ill-effects of opium. I believe any attempt to 
 deprive the people of this country of that stimulant would prove as abortive 
 as any attempt to deprive the people at home of their beer and their pipe. 
 It was said in a tram-car yesterday that the Government was trying to 
 make the people give up opium for alcohol, that the Government was 
 trying to make the people here what the English people are. ‘What is 
 that ?’ I asked. Quick as lightning, the reply came, ‘Drunkards'’ ” 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Do you receive any complaints from the West 
 Indies with regard to the inefficiency of the opium-eating coolies ? 
 
 A. — It is made a matter of complaint by the Colonial Government, 
 but I don’t know then' reasons. 
 
 Q. — Do you infer that, in consequence of this habit, they are ineffi- 
 cient labourers ? 
 
 A. — That is the evidently the opinion held in the West Indies. 
 
 Q. — Does the moderate use of the drug impair a man’s capacity for 
 labour ? 
 
 A. — The moderate use certainly does not. 
 
 Q. — Do you make a special recommendation that the preparation of 
 madak and cliundu should be forbidden ?. 
 
 A. — I should not be sorry to see that done. I should go further, 
 and say it would be a good thing for the people who indulge in smoking 
 opium, if this were put a stop to with a high hand. 
 
 Q. — Is the manufacture carried on under Government licenses? 
 
 A. — It is ; smoking opium is now carried on privately in clubs. 
 
 Q. — You think these licenses should not be given ? 
 
 A. — I should be glad to think they were stopped. 
 
 By Sir William Eoberts. — Q . — Cliundu could be introduced from 
 China ? 
 
 A. — It could, and it can be made in India, but it is rather difficult to 
 make ; it is made in quantities, and only people able to afford to buy a 
 large quantity at a time could make it. The possession of a large quantity, 
 
 I believe, is illegal. 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q.— You have expressed your opinion as to the 
 difference between madah and chundu : please state them more fully ? 
 
 A. — I think that the class of people who smoke madak are of a 
 lower moral standard and general physique than those who smoke chun- 
 du. I have seen more madak smokers, with deteriorated health without 
 apparent cause, than I have seen chundu smokers. Yet, I have seen 
 madak smokers who have smoked for twenty years retain a good physi- 
 que ; but still, a very considerable proportion are men of poor physique 
 and a very low moral standard. I am unable to explain why madak should 
 be more deleterious than chundu. Nevertheless, whether it is from some 
 difference in the preparation, or whether it is because it is smoked in 
 dreadfully hot places I think I could recognise a habitual smoker without 
 difficulty. I could not detect an opium-eater. 1 don’t think I could 
 detect a chundu, smoker ; but I think I could easily tell a madak smoker. 
 
 Q. — Do chundu smokers belong to the same race ? 
 
 A. — They are of the same, both Hindus and Mahommedans ; but 
 I think the madak smoker is of lower social grade. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that opium has less effect upon people here than 
 in England 7 
 
 A. — I am not quite sure of that ; but my impression is that we give 
 more opium here than in England. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — You said you always take opium with you 
 when you travel ; is that for malarial fever ? 
 
 A. — I had diarrhoea and cholera chiefly in my mind. 
 
 Q. — In reference to the coolies you send to the West Indies, many of 
 them are from the N.-W. Provinces ? 
 
 A. — A large proportion come from there. 
 
 Q. — Who pays for their passage ? 
 
 A. — There are local agents, who are supplied with money, and who 
 send them down. 
 
 Q. — If an opium-eater were sent down, who would lose upon him ? 
 
 A. — The agent here would lose. 
 
 Q. — I have a statement here from a medical practitioner at Sohag- 
 pur, an M.R.C.P., a Parsee, who says that, in his opinion, as many 
 as fifty per cent, of deaths among native children arise from eating opium ? 
 
 A.—I can say notliing about what happens in the Central Provinces 
 I have only experience of Lower Bengal and Burma. 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 Q._Will yon state a little more about the opium dens you visited. 
 
 A. —Perhaps I may read to you an account of one of these visits, 
 which has been condensed in the Indian Medical Gazette. I had a 
 companion with me to verify its accuracy, so that it may be taken as an 
 absolutely accurate account of that visit ; “I visited the same opium 
 den on the evening of Sunday, the 1st May, 1892. I had visited it the 
 previous evening in company with the Assistant Commissioner of Police, 
 and a European constable. I have to make a confession, which is, that 
 I had read such a terrible amount of opium essays that I considered it 
 unsafe to go alone ; and went there under the protection of the police. 
 
 I found that that was altogether unnecessary. I was accompanied by 
 Dr. Walsh, the Resident Surgeon of the European General Hospital. 
 The big shop where there was opium smoking was not so occupied as on 
 the previous evening. The further end was occupied, and only three 
 opium lamps were burning, and round these were grouped fifteen men ; 
 one, it was evident, was smoking a hookah of tobacco ; only three men 
 men were smoking opium, sitting and talking. I may say it is some- 
 what exceptional to find men in the habit of taking opium asleep in the 
 opium den. I found, however, two or three men asleep, all, with one 
 exception, Mahommedans, the exception being a Hindu Twelve out 
 of the fifteen men were strong muscular men. One man of sixty-four, 
 when the subject was broached, was loud in his denunciation of the 
 opium habit. He had smoked for thirty-two years, and when it was 
 pointed out to him that he was in very fair condition, he explained that 
 that was due to his having always plenty to eat. There was a very 
 general consensus of opinion that, under some circumstances, the opium / 
 habit was very pernicious, but when there was ability to take nourishing ) 
 food, the habit was harmless enough. Another was a man of fifty-six 
 or sixty who had been smoking for thirty years. He was a thatcher, 
 and after his day’s work came there. He had been there for three years, 
 and he appeared intelligent, truthful, and bright. A deafmute, though not 
 in the same rude health as others, was still in fairly good condition ; one 
 individual looked much below the others, but that seemed to be due to 
 his not having had much to eat. They said, “ Look at us, you find us 
 here after twelve years’ opium-smoking ; if we had been drinking like 
 the sahibs, we should have been quarrelling and fighting.” We went 
 behind the counter and took a pipe, but without any result whatever. 
 Whilst we were behind the counter. Dr. W alsh told us that some twelve 
 persons had come to purchase chundu. It was sold to them at the usual 
 cost of three annas.” 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 Q. — Was the consumption prohibited at the time ? 
 
 A. — Not at that time. I visited the same place on Thursday 
 evening with yourself and we saw the sale of clmndu going on 
 verv actively. We asked to be shown the process of smoking it. 
 There was one man asleep, but we were assured that he was not 
 an opium-smoker, and another man lying in bed, but he was suffering 
 from colic. In the premises behind, this description was not applicable. 
 It was divided into rooms, and in each room there were one or two 
 divans. There were three or four of these rooms wliich were each capable 
 of accommodating four or five men, but there was nobody in them . 
 When questioned, the Chinaman said it was reserved for their own 
 employees. There were four Chinamen behind the counter ; there was 
 one taking the cash, another collecting, and about three or four employed 
 in making cJiundu. The room was about fourteen feet by fifteen feet. 
 There were three or four servants, one of them smoking, in which he was 
 assisted by one of the others. There was one woman, who was asleep. 
 One of the men frequenting the place was in extreme bad health. He 
 was a wreck ; but I had no opportunity of examining whether he was an 
 opium wreck. Clmndu must be apparently smoked by three or four peo- 
 ple. A clmndu pipe, when new, costs one rupee, but when it is old and 
 seasoned, it costs from four to six rupees. They smoke, not only for the 
 effects of the opium, birt also for flavour ; and that might be tbeir reason 
 for clubbing together to smoke through only one pipe. They stated that 
 they purcliased the opium at the shop close by. The occupier, of the club 
 stated that he made his profit entirely out of the refuse which was obtain- 
 ed from the pipes, and gained nothing from the smokers. The contents 
 of the pipes were gathered, and he sold it to the clmndu makers, as it 
 seems to be necessary that, to make chundu, the refuse should be used. 
 We had a conversation with several of the people, many of whom were 
 opium smokers, and many of whom were not, and the general feeling was 
 in condemnation of the habit in question. Even opium smokers admitted 
 this, and would give it up if they could do so. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that an opium smoker would be employed in a 
 position of responsibility ? 
 
 A. I think he would be so employed ; it would be no bar. The 
 
 most intelligent servants in India are, many of them, opium-eaters ; 
 men who do the work in big offices, three out of four of them are opium- 
 eaters. 
 
 Q, In reference to the death of children, does the system of registra- 
 
 tion of deaths enable you to ascertain the causes of death ? 
 
( zl ) 
 
 A. — There are no means of getting at the truth. I used to"^make 
 it a point to go round the villages in my tours, and enquire at each 
 village ; I used to take notes, go to the police office, and compare them 
 vrith the registers kept there, and found that they did not tally. The 
 system in Calcutta is explained in the report of the Health Officer. The 
 returns I referred to were taken at the burning ghats by agents of the 
 Municipahty and at police stations. I may add that fifty per cent, of the 
 people die without any medical attendance whatever. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that the people of Bengal would ask to be supphed 
 with opium as a remedy against fever ? 
 
 A. — They never ask me for it, because it is available to them 
 without asking. 
 
 Q. — Would you prefer it to quinine in malaria ? 
 
 A. — I have never prescribed it in malaria. If I were staging in a 
 malarious district I vrould take with me quinine, but I would also take 
 opium. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray : — Q. — In regard to opium-eating coolies, I under- 
 stand the restriction is imposed by the Colonial Government ? 
 
 A. — Yes, that is one of the conditions under which w'c work. 
 
 Q. — I also understand that if the matter was within your discretion, 
 you would not impose any such restriction ? 
 
 A. — I would not. If I employed coolies, I would not enquire into 
 the subject of their being opium-eaters. 
 
 Q, — Eeferring to your visit to the chundu shop ; there is no special 
 exception in favour of chundu shops for Chinamen in Calcutta ? 
 
 A. — Hot as to shops ; this was spoken of as their private residence. 
 
 Q. — The manufacture of chundu can only lie carried on under a 
 license ? 
 
 A. — I believe so ; when you have to make a small quantity, it is 
 open to any one to make it ; but it is difficult to make it except in large 
 quantities. 
 
 Q. If you prohibit the license, you would prohibit the manufacture 
 
 of chundu, too ? 
 
 A. — That is my belief. 
 
 Q, At present they manufacture under a license, whether for sale 
 
 or domestic use ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
( ) 
 
 -^Therefor#, by refusing to grant licenses, you would make the 
 Mtmufacture illegal ? 
 
 A. — Yes, 
 
 Q. — Yon are disposed to recommend it ? 
 
 A. — Yes, in regard to cJmndu and madalc. 
 
 Q. — -Yon say you -were two years in Rangoon, have yon formed any 
 opinion as to the case in regard to Burma, as compared with your ex- 
 perience in India ? 
 
 A. — I have not had sufficient experience of Burma to make it of any 
 value. 
 
 By iMr. Faushawe. — Q. — You state the opium-eating habit is a 
 liabit which is taken up in advanced life ; this remark applies to Eastern 
 Bengal and Calcutta ? 
 
 A, — Yes, Eastern Bengal and Calcutta. 
 
 Q_ —From the result of your experience, opium is common in most 
 houses as a domestic remedy ? 
 
 A I would not say it was common, for I believe if a great many 
 
 houses were searched, no opium Avould be found. If repressive measures 
 were used, they would very soon become oppressive ; so that people requir- 
 ing opium for legitimate purposes, for disease as well as for old age, would 
 be unable to get it. 
 
 Q_ It is commonly used as a domestic remedy in Eastern Bengal ? 
 
 A. — I believe it is. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson ; — Q. — What was the nationality of most of the 
 people in the opium dens ? 
 
 A. They were Mahommedans unquestionably ; I did not take any 
 
 note of their nationality. I saw no Chinamen inside the clubs. I think 
 that nine out of the ten present were Mahommedans. 
 
 Q_ The Chinamen you saw said that the platform or divans were 
 
 for the benefit of those employed there. Were you convinced of the 
 accuracy of that statement ? 
 
 A. I only saw a certain number of men there, but I don’t know 
 
 how many men were employed. 
 
 Q, It was an explanation given to you of what was, primd facie, 
 
 an illegal position ? 
 
 A. I have no groimd for saying that it was illegal at all. 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 Evidence of Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel J. O’Srien, 
 
 Professor of Surgery and Descriptive Anjitomy 
 at the Calcutta Medical College Hospital. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q. — You have had many opportunities 
 habit ? 
 
 A. — I have had fair opportunities of doing so, especially when ser- 
 ving as Civil Surgeon in large districts in Bengal, I was Civil Surgeon 
 in Burdwan for three or four years and served at Shahabad for eighteen 
 months. 
 
 Q. — Did you see a good deal of the opium habit? 
 
 A. — I had numerous opportunities of observing it, as I lived amongst 
 the opium-eating races in a greater or less degree. It is somewhat more 
 in Behar than in Lower Bengal, but the frequency of this habit was 
 obtruded on my notice. Amongst moderate eaters, in my opinion, it 
 would be impossible to recognise it. You may as well expect to recognise 
 whether a man drank tea or coSee. When opium is taken in moderation, 
 it has no ill effects upon the constitution. 
 
 Q. — When an excess is taken ? 
 
 A. — I must premise by saying that all I was referring to was the 
 eating of opium ; I have had no experience of smoking, because I am 
 not aware that it is smoked at all in the towns in which I have served. 
 I was consulted most extensively by Natives, and I know that they eat 
 opium. I attended dispensaries every day, at which an average of three 
 hundred patients were treated. I know a considerable number ate opium, 
 but it was exaggerated. The number of adult males who use opium in 
 a malarial district like Burdwan don’t exceed five per cent of the total 
 population. I never knew a young opium-eater. 
 
 Q. — Do you agree with in the evidence given by Drs. Harvey and 
 Crombie ? 
 
 A. — I substantially agree with all that -lias been said by Dr. Harvey, 
 because his experience was limited to opium-eating. Dr. Crombie gave a 
 good deal about smoking about which I know nothing. There is another 
 point upon which Dr. Harvey gave his opinion, that the people use opium 
 in larger doses generally in this country. I have had no such experi- 
 ence. I have confined my doses to doses according to those administered 
 at home. Of late days, as my experience has enlarged in tlie treatment 
 of fever, I have come to recognise what Dr. Crombie has stated of 
 its advantages over quinine in many cases, and the remarkable ben*_ 
 fits derived from the use of opium. In 1882, whea rntdariid fmx 
 
( 80 ) 
 
 was preyalent in tlie last quarter of the jear, it decimated the peo- 
 ple, who died at tjie rate of twelve per cent, as well as I remember. 
 Every single Earo[)ean was laid down. At the time, I liad as my assistant 
 a medical practitioner of great intellectual powers and high professional 
 ability. He was a very weakly man, tall and tliin, with a little, poor 
 physique. This man escaped through all this illness. I asked him how it 
 was he had escaped, and he said he took three or four grains of opium 
 a day. I have also known an opium-eater who had eaten over a hundred 
 grains of opium, daily, for twenty-four years. Another man, a respect- 
 able gentleman, connected with the Burdwan Raj, holding a high posi- 
 Ition in the Raj, who died lately at the age of seventy-five, used to take 
 'over 100 grains daily. He was well-nourished, active, rarely ill, and 
 escaped from the malaria so much prevalent. He did not suffer in any 
 degree from malaria. As I look bade upon twenty-three years’ sein icc, 1 
 can only recollect about three or four cases of pronounced opium cachexia. 
 
 By Lord Brassey. — Q.— From your experience, can you say that the 
 consumers of opium in moderation were many and the immoderate eaters 
 few. 
 
 A. — Moderate consumers form the vast majority. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson.— Q. — In Bengal, opium is a domestic remedy : do 
 people keep it in their houses ? 
 
 A. — I think they purchase it when they want it. 
 
 Q. — You are tlie medical adviser to an insurance association, 
 what is your opinion as to accepting the lives of opium-eaters? 
 
 A, — My experience in connection with the association is, that very 
 few acknowledge the opium habit, and I have no means of detecting it. 
 There is no evidence of it upon the pliysique. One question is. Do you 
 smoke ganja or opium ? and eveiybody says, “ No,” but, perhaps, one in a 
 hundred would acknowledge it. T)ie sub-ageuts would never bring in 
 a case of a pronounced opium-eater, he would be stopped before he came 
 to me. 
 
 Q. — Practically, except for the question being in the proposal form, 
 you cannot recognise the effects in reference to insurance companies. 
 
 A — I don’t recognise it, because I don’t see it. 
 
 Q. — The point is, whether tlie company would equally accept a man 
 for insurance if lie took opium. 
 
 A. — For my part, if I was told that a man was a moderate eater 
 I would feel inclined to pass him. No such case has really come before 
 me. If a man took four grains, I would not cons'ider that to be much. 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 Q. — Speaking of your practice in Burdwan, did you give opium to 
 people for fever ? 
 
 A. — We don’t give opium for fever, unless insomnia occurs. 
 
 Q. — Did you recommend it to those under your charge as a prophy- 
 lactic ? 
 
 A. — I never did so; but I know it was greatly used as a prophylactic. 
 
 Q. — Do people in Burdwan employ it to cure fever ? 
 
 A. — They employ it as a prophylactic. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — You agree with the last two witnesses, not 
 only as to the effects of opium, but as to their impracticability of limiting 
 the sale to what is a recognised medical purpose? 
 
 A. — I think it would be absolutely impossible, and it would give rise 
 to smuggling and difficulties of all sorts. 
 
 Evidence of Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel J. F F. McConnell, 
 Professor of Materia Medica in the Medical College 
 Hospital, Calcutta- 
 
 Q. — By Sir W. Eoberts : — You have had opportunities of observing 
 opium consumption in India? 
 
 A. — My opportunities have been practically confined to Calcutta, 
 where I have served dirring the whole time. 
 
 Q. — Has your experience been confined to any class or grade in 
 society? 
 
 A. — It has extended to all grades. I have been connected with 
 one of the largest Native hospitals here, and my practice, as a consultant, 
 has been one of the largest amongst Natives. 
 
 Q. — Tell us how far the habit in Calcutta prevails? 
 
 A.— I have never inquired info the matter particularly, but I should 
 say, roughly speaking, about one per cent, of adults, not more than that, 
 I mean there is not more than one person out of every hundred who takes 
 opium, rich or poor. 
 
 Q. — In the cases you have observed, when opium was used habitually 
 what was the result? 
 
 A. — Where it is used habitually and where the use was moderate 
 it resulted in no harm, moral or physical. 
 
 Q. — Have you seen opium used in excess ; what effect has excess 
 upon health? 
 
 A. — I have seen it useddn excess in a few cases, only three or four, 
 and in those cases it has been first used in consequence of disease, and 
 where it has been so used at first the habit has grown. 
 
( 82 ) 
 
 Q. — Do you agree until large amounts have been taken generally 
 with the conclusions arrived at by Doctors Harvey and Crombie ? 
 
 A. — Yes, as far as opium-eating is concerned ; I liave had no 
 experience of smoking. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Pease : — In the paper you have put in, you advocate 
 restrictions upon tlie abuse of opiirm ; have you any suggestions in 
 regard to restricting the sale of opium? 
 
 A. — I don’t know how it will be carried out, but I think it will be 
 desirable, 
 
 Q. — You say it is necessary to prevent the occurrence of suicide ? 
 
 A. — The number of cases of suicide by opium is very great. The 
 drug can be easily purchased. There is some sort of restriction on the 
 sale of opium. I understand that a person could not buy more than a 
 rupee’s worth of opium at a shop, but it is very easy for a person to go 
 to half-a-dozen shops and purchase a rupee’s worth of opium at each 
 shop. A rupee’s worth of opium would be about two hundred and 
 fifty to two liundred and sixty grains. About eight or ten grains 
 of opium is sufficient to kill a person. A man who takes opium 
 in moderation would require a larger dose to kill him than a man 
 who did not take opium. Last year I find that I had in my wards 
 fifty-two cases of opium poisoning out of ninety-two. 
 
 The President here intimated that there was no use questioning the 
 witness further upon this point, as the Government had agreed to present 
 certain statistics on tire matter. 
 
 Evidence of Snrgreon Lieutenant-Colonel E 0- Sanders, Professor 
 of Opthalmic Sdedicine and Surgrery in the Calcutta 3dedical Collegre, 
 and Superintendent of the Idayo Hospital- 
 
 Q. — By Sir William Roberts : Have you paid special attention to 
 the opium habit ? 
 
 A. — I have noticed peoide pretty carefully, in the North West 
 Provinces, who admitted having taken opium, but I never noticed any 
 ill effects. These were moderate consumers. 
 
 Q. — Did you see many cases of disease, where the dose was increased? 
 
 A.- — I think, as people get a little older, they take slightly increased 
 doses, but . they don’t increase it to a very large extent. It is quite an 
 exception to see a man taking large doses. ^ 
 
 Q. Have you seen any injurious effects following in excess of the 
 
 habit ? 
 
( »* ) 
 
 A. — I have never seen any cases of decided excess. 
 
 Q._Do yon agree in the conclusions arrived at by Doctors Harvey 
 and McConnell ? 
 
 A. — I agree with their evidence in their entirety, thoiigh I don’t 
 knoAv much about smoking. Dr. Crombie brought forward the common 
 opinion amongst people, that the Opium Commission has to do with dis- 
 tilleries in Europe. Within the last three days, in five different places, 
 
 I have heard it said that tlie whole question has been brought up to get 
 more spirits imported into this country. I have tried my best to deny it 
 absolutely, but tliere is that opinion, and I have no doubt that that 
 opinion ’ivill increase. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. Q.— I think you are the author of a book on 
 malaria ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — I have a copy of that before me published in 1880. Do you 
 adliere to the views therein expressed or have you modified them materi- 
 ally since you wrote that book ? 
 
 A. — I have to some extent modified them. I have had 13 years’ 
 more experience. 
 
 Q. — Yon say in the second chapter : — “ The opium-eater enjoys con- ^ 
 siderable immunity from malarial affections, in the early stage. The first 
 few years of indulgence in the habit, before organic visceral changes are 
 set up to the general shattering of constitution results, which premature- 
 ly break down the consumer of opium to render him an easy prey to dis- 
 eases of every kind.” And futher on there is something of the same Idndi 
 as to the opinion of other surgeons, which would look as if you though* 
 that it did some good at the beginning, but ultimately destroyed thp 
 man ? ( 
 
 A. — The mischievous effects of it are confined to the opium sot, the 
 drankard, the excessive habitual user. 
 
 Q. — You refer to the “ opium-eater” which would hardly convey the 
 impression of an opium sot ? 
 
 A. — It is to be taken with that meaning, as you will see if you look 
 at the context. I desme it to be so taken. 
 
 Q. — Further on you say — “ The prevalence of this habit is the curse 
 of our jail populations in Lower Assam. No work can be got orrt of the 
 long-confirmed opium-eater.” That does not seem to convey to an ordi- 
 nary lay reader the idea that you speak of an opium sot ? 
 
seen 
 
 C 34 ) 
 
 A. — It is the opium sot that I am speaking of, as will be' 
 from the context in the next few pages. 
 
 Q. — Further on you say — “The observations of severarsurgeons, of 
 extensive experience in opium-eating regions, confirms tire popular belief 
 that the opium-eater in the early stages of tlie habit, while as yet not con- 
 stitutionally broken by its long continuances does as a matter of fact, 
 enjoy considerable immunity from malarial affections.” I think you will 
 agree tliat the term “long continuance” is hardly the same as excessive 
 use ? 
 
 A. — It means excessive and long continued use. 
 
 Q. — You quote apparently with approval to Dr. Garrod in his 
 “ Materia Medica ” that “ there are other remedies wliich possess greater 
 anti-periodic powers without the narcotic properties.” You agree with 
 that probably 7 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Evidence of Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel J. Purvis. 
 
 Examined by Sir W. Eoberts. — Q. — You liave had considerable 
 opportunities of observing the effects of the ojjium habit ? 
 
 A. — I have, during my service and practice of twenty-eight years in 
 different parts of India. I was a short time in the N.-W. P., tliree 
 years in Assam, and the rest of* my serruce has been in Bengal. 
 
 Q. — Do you consider the moderate use to liave any ill effects upon 
 health . Do people in malai’ial districts look upon it as at a prophylactic? 
 
 A. — That is my opinion, from the experience I have had of malaria. 
 A great many of the people take opium to relieve themselves of fever and 
 complications connected with malaria. 
 
 (^. — Wliat was your experience in Assam ? 
 
 A. — When I was there first I was prejudiced against the use of 
 opium, and I thought the cases admitted into hospital were from opium, 
 but from more experience I learnt that the peo})le really took it to free 
 tliemselves from malaria, to prolong tlieir lives and to relieve their suffering. 
 
 Q. — You have not seen any really bad effects of it upon health 7 
 
 A. — I have not seen a case in which death was due to t)23ium except 
 when coupled with disease. Tire moderate use is rather beneficial than 
 otherwise, and if they were deterred from opium tliey would take to drink 
 or ganja to a greater extent than at present. 
 
 Q. — Have you any other particulars to give 7 
 
 A. — The great difficulty is to find orrt the signs of the opium habit. 
 A great number of respectable inhabitants among the middle classes of 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 natives take it to a considerable extent and yet cany on their duties. 
 Only a few days ago I met a native gentleman who said most of his 
 friends took opium more or less, and that they had been driven to it by 
 disease and were now doing their work in a way they never did before. I 
 was surprised to find that all my best servants were opium eaters, where I 
 had never suspected it. In regard to opium being a very common form of 
 suicide, I quite agree with Dr. Harvey. No doubt in different parts of 
 India there are different methods. The other day I asked a native 
 gentleman his opinion whether the prohibition of opium would prevent 
 suicide. He said the clothing would also have to be put down because 
 there were more suicides from the ropes into which the cloth could be 
 twisted. Out of 335 cases sent in by the police this year, there were two 
 from drowning ; six from opium ; and twenty-seven from hanging. To 
 stop the growth and sale of opium would be almost impossible, smuggling 
 woirld go on. 
 
 Evidence of Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel EusseU- - 
 
 Examined by Sir W. Koberts. — Q. — You have had opportunities of 
 studying the effects of opium ? 
 
 A. — Considerable. I have been seven years in Lower Assam, since 
 then in Lower Bengal, in the twenty-four Purgunnahs, Hughli, Eajshaye, 
 Nuddea and Patna. 
 
 Q. — In your note you say that five per cent of the people are proba- 
 bly opium eaters ? 
 
 A. — That applies to the province of Bengal. 
 
 Q. — As the total of the population or adult males ? 
 
 A. — Adult males. 
 
 Q* — Have you observed any racial difference in the susceptibility to 
 opium of the different races ? 
 
 A. — No, I cannot say I have. 
 
 Q- — What is your experience of its effects on the mass of the people ? 
 
 A. — I don’t think the habit is confined to any special social status. 
 
 Q- — What ai'e the effects upon the health of the consumer % 
 
 A. — I think that in the malarial districts its effects are decidedly 
 beneficial, and lead to active habits. 
 
 Q- — You don’t know of any disease pi'oduced by opium? 
 
 A. - No, I do not think that any susceptibility to disease is produced 
 by the habitual and moderate use of opium. 
 
 Q- — 1^0 the experiences of Drs. Harvey and Crombie coincide with 
 your own ? 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 A. — Yes, practically. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything to add ?, 
 
 A. — I shoiild like to continii what others liave said, about the opinion 
 wliich is extending of the connexion witli the opium agitation with the 
 distilleries at home. 
 
 Evidence of Snrgeon-Major E. CoIjIs. 
 
 By Sir W. Eoberts.— Q. — How long have you been in the service ? 
 
 A. — Seventeen years, and the greater part of that time as Civil 
 Surgeon in Lower and Eastern Bengal. I have been in charge of many 
 hospitals, and of the Central and District Jails, and am at present in 
 charge of the Dacca Lunatic Asylum and the Mitford Hospital at Dacca. 
 I have practice among the Europeans and Natives there, where I am Civil 
 Surgeon. 
 
 Q. — How far does the opium habit extend ? 
 
 A. — I estimate 3 to 5 per eent of the Hindus of Dacca as addicted to 
 the habit out of tlie whole population. It is very common. The Ma- 
 hommedans of the country take it to a greater extent than the Hindus. 
 It is taken by rich and poor. 
 
 Q. — Is there any stigma attached to the habit ? 
 
 A. — Not to the moderate use ; only to opium smoking. 
 
 Q. — It is not fashionable? 
 
 A. — The poorer classes may smoke it to some large extent. 
 
 Q. — Smoking in an ordinary pipe? 
 
 A — There is so little going on that one does not come across it. 
 
 Q. — You have heard the evidence already given ; what fe your opinion 
 upon it ; is the habit innocuous ? 
 
 A. — I believe the moderate use of opium to be quite innocuous ? 
 
 Q. — In your district does it do- good on the whole or harm ? 
 
 A. — I think in a large number of cases it is essential. 
 
 Q. — You think the people’s health would suffer without it ? 
 
 A. — It would deteriorate if they did not get it. 
 
 Q. — -What are the ill effects if taken in excess ? 
 
 ^ A. — I have never been able to distinguish them from the ill-effects of 
 the special disease for which the opium was taken. Men admitted to jail 
 who are excessive eaters beg for opium ; but I have always found these 
 were suffering from some other chronic disease. 
 
 Q. — Have they ever been in hospital from the effects of opium eat- 
 ing? 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 A : — Never, I have never had application made for treatment for the 
 habit. Ill nearly all oases the supply of opium to eaters of it is cut 
 off when they are admitted to jail. There are a few cases in which I 
 consider it wise to continue the habit, at any rate for a time. In the case 
 of a moderate eater I stop it at once. The common practice is to stop it 
 at once. 
 
 Q.— One of the witnesses said that the woi'k done in jails by opium- 
 eaters would be apt to fall short if the opium was withheld ? 
 
 A. — I have not noticed tliat except in those race cases. I think 
 stress has not been laid upon the fact that use of moderate doses as a 
 dietetic. Poor Natives are largely in the habit of eating rice in Eastern 
 Bengal, and as a man advances in age digestion fails to some extent, and 
 the food is hurried through the intestines. Opium prevents this, and is 
 largely used among the poor. 
 
 Q. — Have you noticed constipation in opium-eaters? 
 
 A. — Not in moderate users. In advanced life it helps them to 
 digest their food. I do not think any restrictions should be placed upon it 
 on the contrary I think it should be got at more readily. I. know very 
 little about opium smoking. 
 
 E-yi&ence of Siire:eozi Captain J.H. T. Walsh. 
 
 Examined by Sir W. Roberts. — Q. — Your experience has been con- 
 fined to the Lower Provinces ? 
 
 A. — Almost entirely, as Civil Surgeon of Puri and Health Officer 
 and I am Medical Officer of the Presidency Jail here, and in charge of the 
 Jail at Puri. That is where my experience has been, apart from regiment- 
 al use and use amongst transport coolies. 
 
 Q. — Your experience is that opium is largely cbnsumed ? 
 
 A. — I believe the consumption to be very considerable. I have seen 
 in Puri several lacs of people, during the pilgrim season going to the 
 temples there, and amongst them opium is freely used. They are Ooriyas, 
 the inhabitants of Orissa, and others. 
 
 Q.— .^Have you seen any ill effects ? 
 
 A. — From the moderate use I have not seen any. 
 
 Q. — What have you observed in regard to excess in its use ? 
 
 A. — It has been stated to me that certain persons in jail were in- 
 veterate eaters ; but I am utterly unable to say from the symptoms that 
 they Were suffering from the effects of opium rather than from starvation. 
 
 Q.— Have you eVer made a post mortem of an excessive opium eater? 
 
( '^8 ) 
 
 A. — I have made several of those iS'ho were said to have been opium 
 eaters. There is a great difference between opium and alcohol. Opium 
 does not cause the degeneration of one single organ in the body. There is 
 a certain amount of congestion of the vessels of the brain, bnt that is from 
 poisonous doses, and that was only a temporary, not a permanent, lesion . 
 The use began partly from the tradition that it was useful in disease, 
 and partly from the social habits of the people, who taking opium find 
 soothing effects from it and come to use it, such as wine does among other 
 people. In India the standard of health was always low, and it was 
 used medicinally as a boon in disease. In diabetes it was used. 
 
 Q. — Have you noticed opium given to infants? 
 
 A. — Upon that point I can only refer to the general opinion as to 
 the general custom. I have no instances to bring forward. It is gener- 
 ally stated that it is a common practice for mothers ; and I agree with Ur. 
 Crombie that the practice extends to Europeans, objectionable as it is. 
 Certainly I think large doses would be injurious to European children. 
 
 Q. — Have you had much experience of the effects of the malarial 
 diseases? 
 
 A. — In Orissa, yes. There is a large native hospital at Puri and 
 smaller dispensaries throughout the district. Enlarged spleen is common. 
 I have not seen infants, but I have seen young children wdth these enlarged 
 spleens. 
 
 Q. — Uo you agree with the evidence given by Drs. Harvey and 
 Crombie ? 
 
 A. — Generally I do. If you cut off the supply you will do more 
 harm than good. I have one or two more points to urge. I agree 
 entirely with Dr. Crombie as to the proper use of opium. A native 
 diet is most indigestible, and taking opium prevents their suffering 
 from diarrhoea. Another point is this. Every Civil Surgeon has sent 
 to him by the Magistrate, opium which has been certificated. It is not 
 easy to say whether it is fit for human consumption or not. It is gene- 
 rally adulterated with sugar or lime. It is perfectly easy to obtain opium 
 and any attempt to prevent smuggling would be mere waste of time. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Wilson: — You consider Orissa malarious? 
 
 A. — Yes, in parts ; but parts are extremely healthy. 
 
 Q. — Do you agree with the opinion that where people are very poor 
 opium helps them. 
 
 , A. — It helps them to bear up ; one must admit that it would be far 
 
 I better if they would buy more food and less opium ; but we know what 
 
( ) 
 
 human nature is. I think opium does help them over their difficulties, 
 both as regards disease and the indigestibility of their food, 
 
 Q. — You referred to Puri ? 
 
 A. — Yes, one of the most sacred cities in India, containing certainly 
 the largest temple, that of Juggernath. 
 
 Q. — Is it healthy ? 
 
 A. — The town itself is particularly unhealtliy. It is kept away from 
 the sea-breeze by high sandbanks, and on the other part there is a large 
 swamp. The people are not very poor, especially in Puri. The pilgrims 
 are very poor. 
 
 STirg.-Lt.-Col. Orcmbie, M.D., made the follcwirg eurpleirentary 
 statement 
 
 I wish to explain what I meant when I alluded to the stopping 
 of the manufacture of chandu and madah. I was asked if I would advocate 
 the stopping of the manufacture of madaJ: and chandu. I wish to say 
 I am not here to advocate any policy. I merely express an opinion as to 
 the comparative deleteriousness of certain ways of using opium. When 
 I expressed an opinion as to the closing of those places -of manufacture, 
 it had reference to the one thing which is constantly in my mind, that is, 
 that the subject of opium is inextricably mixed up with that of alcohol. 
 If you can close a number of chandu shops without increasing the con- 
 sumption of alcohol, I would do so : Init if there is a doubt that they 
 would take to alcohol instead of opium, I would say leave them alone. 
 
 Mr. Alexander made the following statement : — 1 observe, from 
 tlie evidence given this morning by Dr. Harvey, that, in my cross- 
 examination, I failed to note an important distinction between the 
 suggestions jiut to me by Sir James Lyall and those put fonrard by 
 our Society in paragraph nine of its general memorial to Lord Kimberley 
 and thus appeared to accept Sir James Lyall’s view as to our proposals. 
 We have never urged that opium should be sold only on medical certificate 
 which would be going much beyond the law at present in force in the 
 United Kingdom. Our proposal is that the sale of the drug should in 
 India, as in England, be entrusted to responsible and qualified persons, 
 with the additional provision that these persons should have no interest 
 in the sale of the drug. 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Joseph Culshaw, for the Methodist Pdblishino House, Calcutta. 
 

 ■ f *' 'T 
 
 i > 
 
 
 
 ■ 'f , :. ' ? hf/[ I‘'Ti'H)l'''i ifoY — .p I 
 
 ■' ' -' ' ' ■ • • ' '^T k ^ 
 
 
 i', . ^ .f/ ' : ,r ;r f>-r.'> 1' 
 
 emlr^l' tiJT .lfn^[ .if hjmo \ ioo<{ 
 
 ' ‘r ' . " ' ' ■ ' , ' .-Ift'dif TI'>7 r,-; ■ ‘ 
 
 ;r frr.> .If) - | 
 
 1 ^!.^ }39 
 
 r., 
 
 '■" [ 
 
 
 'm 
 
 ;5 
 
 ;, . ■• iiv'.s .-.i. V 
 
 i. .'■• ■ 
 
 . r;; ' 
 
 . .1. ',-.,;r' fi, rtf'J I'' .r’'iri'.ir ')tlt 1'I ■,)i:(r;'in5 . 
 
 ■,■"•• 1 .'r 'Uu- ' '! ,l^^r:<■:•lV': V y /i 'i.'t.iinri' ii'tS' I ^ 
 
 „.; ■'. IIVIM ■'Lii (f ^ 2 ''^; 
 
 :u ‘ t 0 -! : ■ if: (- '•i(.j,y(| 
 
 ..fliffy /fiiy-'v: fI{v'^^•^^' ■''r<') 9 ^v>'i‘yn 
 
 joiI„- [•'".) :(r!fY f[ir j':'[;;t”rf«’.rt'-f-: )' ■ nihj-i fo il/i'fin '*«' 
 
 -Jfivi 'f'.f ' ' it-,. - 
 
 '■v!^ ■ ■ ''' '■' ' I ■• '• ' . ■ I ■ 
 
 f'Vf , u; 
 
 :r 7 «S 
 
 ^ ' ■ A ; . 
 
 
 ■M 
 
 ) t r ' . * 
 
 ■■!'.* *' ' 
 
 -•ii.v.-) .-(IIS Itf 'if;'), , ■;' T 
 
 7.1 f.’ij: Mff 111 *^) 10111 -If!?:.: I^: 7 .f VjP'nT, -iin 'V'i '■' ! fl 
 
 ' 'll#”-'-) H'lff: I’’ 'll ■ lif'-T-i. ' 7 -■ ‘ /'I'' 
 
 lU* - ... (..'» f,l . I'.fMi ■ v.r: ■,VJ-li. 7 
 
 X i 'iii IV ...y I'f i f' :/in 
 
 J ' I 
 
 i/i^ ' ' ' ifif I ' ' ' ■■■•■..';».• l; .' ' I' 1 ' .' i? 
 
 • . _ ‘ .-..ifiMlr-luofir-' - ■' 
 
 • ' ■' . 1 ' •'"■ ■ ' 
 
 ■ - 1 ■ 'WT 
 
 ■ ' ' • .?]' '■ 'I'.’li ’ioi-', t*’ 'n.T'- ■ 
 
 ■ ■ . '■■ ' ■ ■'■■■ • - . 
 
 ;. ' . i! ■ V' . 'f 
 
 
a. 
 
 THE ^OYAL COMMISSION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 TO^FFIG:. 
 
 Special Heport of tlie Evidence taken 
 
 in India. 
 
 Part VIII. 29th November, 1893. 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY, or ONE ANNA, for each part. 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society for the Suppression op the Opium Trade, 
 Broadway Chamrers, London, S. W. 
 
 Also at the 
 
 \ 
 
 Methodist Publishing House, 45, Dharamtala St., Calcutta. 
 
IbB Qojjal OoinmissiDn on Opium. 
 
 Eyldence of Donald lilorison, M.D. 
 
 In reply to the President, Dr. Morison said : — I have been a Medical 
 Missionary in the town of Rampore Beauleah for about sixteen years. I 
 have taken a deep interest in the social, moral, temporal and spiritual 
 condition of the people. I was for years a member of the Municipality 
 and District Board. I mention this to show that I was not indifferent 
 to their temporal welfare ; and I endeavoured to aid the Government and 
 local bodies in every attempt made to improve the condition of the people, 
 or alleviate their sufferings. 
 
 I have had two dispensaries under my charge for nearly all these 
 years. I also itinerated all over the District of Rajshaye twice a year: in 
 the rainy season, and dmdng the cold weather, and visited the adjoining 
 Districts of Maldah and Pubna occasionally. During the rainy season 
 when the rivers were in flood and the rice fields inundated, I itinerated 
 among the villages. I may say that I have during those itinerations 
 visited more than once most parts of the District. In my double capa- 
 city as Physician and Missionary, I have been brought into the closest 
 contact with all classes of the people, especially the poor. 
 
 During those years from six to ten thousand patients annually were 
 treated by me. 
 
 Rajshaye District is everywhere malarious, in some parts intensely 
 so. When fever is very severe as during September, October, and Novem- 
 ber, I have found sixty to eighty per cent of my patients suffering from 
 malarious fevers or their complications. The use of opium is by no means 
 common among the ryots of Rajshaye, I should say it is quite exceptional 
 to find an agricultural labourer an opium eater. In the towns, smoking 
 opium is prevalent among day labourers and other workmen who are dis- 
 reputable, and, some of them are very young men. Opium is not used 
 by the people of Rajshaye either as a prophylactic or for the cure of fever. 
 My former remark applies to the districts of Maldah, Pubna, and, indeed. I 
 may say to all Lower Bengal. The malarial theoiy so diligently put for- 
 ward to account for the prevalence of the habit of opium eating is not 
 founded in my opinion on actual ascertained facts. I am absolutely sure 
 that it is purely mythical as regards Lower Bengal. 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 Q. — Have you an ything to say as regards the view which is taken 
 among the people with whom you have been in contact in Lower Bengal 
 as to the opium habit. Is it regarded as a disgraceful habit ? 
 
 A. — The habit of using opium in young people is always considered 
 a disg raceful thing : in elderly people it is excused on the general ground 
 of failing natural powers. 
 
 Q. — Would ymr say that the use of opium was common ? 
 
 A. — It is by no means true to say that as a rule elderly people 
 take to opium. Among Mahommedans, a few headmen in villages, a 
 few shop keepers, tailors, merchants, and house-servants generally in 
 European employ, take to the habit ; and among Hindoos a few elderly 
 people. That it is considered disreputable in most cases, is manifest from 
 the secrecy with which they eat it, and the fear they have of being 
 branded as “ opium-eaters.” 
 
 Q. — Have you any explanation as to when the habit is first con- 
 tracted ? 
 
 A. — Young men begin it from vicious habits, or from seeing others 
 take it. Old men or middle-aged men from forty to fifty years begin 
 tlie habit by taking it to restore or revive the failing natural powers. 
 
 Q. — Is opium used as a domestic remedy ? 
 
 A. — It is used very little, if at all as a domestic remedy in Eajshaye; 
 but I have seen men who began it on account of chronic rheumatic 
 pains — pains of various kinds common to the labouring classes in all 
 countries. Some begin it for pleasure, some for pain, others from curi- 
 osity, most from the contagion of bad example ; but I never heard of 
 it being recommended by any doctor, European or Native, either to ward 
 off or cure malaria ; and, as I have stated above, the people themselves 
 never take to it as a ‘ prophylactic.’ 
 
 Q. — Ho you consider as a medical man that the use of opium is 
 generally injurious ? 
 
 A. — I consider that no one can take to eating it without increasing 
 the dose, and suffering deterioration of bodily vigour. The progress 
 may be slow, and undoubtedly is so in some cases, but in the majority 
 of cases emaciation is speedily manifested, and the bodily vigour deterio- 
 rates. The opium-smoker is so demoralised that his very surroundings 
 suggest how low he has fallen ; but the opium-eater with ample means 
 keeps up a fair exterior for years. The poor man cannot afford suitable 
 food to counteract the injurious effects of the opium, but must encroach 
 upon his already too scanty meal to supply his unnatural craving. 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 Q. — Have yon anything further to say with reference to the nse of 
 opium from a medical point of view ? 
 
 A.— I should like say something in regard to the tolerance created 
 by the drug in the system when taken in the form of smoking or eating, 
 and with regard to the opium given by Dr. Russell, who has been a 
 witness before the Commission, in his book on Malaria, which was 
 written about thirteen years ago. 
 
 [ Some discussion ensued as to the desirability of quoting a passage 
 from a work by a medical man, who had himself given evidence before 
 the Commission. Dr. Morison was, however, allowed to continue, and 
 read ^.passage from Russell on Malaria, page thirty-eight, as to the 
 action of opiuni on the habituated healthy organism in producing toler- 
 ance of the drug. He also asked leave to read a passage from Sir William 
 Roberts’ book on Dietetics, page sixty-eight, as explaining why people 
 say with such unanimity that opium-eaters must take milk if they are to 
 resist the debilitating effect of opium. The witness was, however, not 
 permitted to read the passage on the ground that Sir W. Roberts, being 
 a member of the Commission, could explain what his meaning was. ] 
 
 Q. — Have you anything to say as to the influence of opium-eating 
 upon the physical energy ? 
 
 A. — There is a common fallacy as to the stimulating effect of opium. 
 It is not analogous to liquor as a stimulant. It is said that an opium- 
 eater can do a great deal of work under the influence of opium. Among 
 the many labourers I employed there were a great many opium-eaters, 
 and I put the following question to two gentlemen who were in a position 
 to form an opinion : — given two men of equal physique, one an opium- 
 eater, the other not ; would you find in your experience that the opium- 
 eater would do more work and’ endure for longer hours than the other? 
 One of these men was the captain of a ship, the other the Agent of a 
 steamer going through in Orissa. They both said they could not say so, 
 and the captain’s distinct opinion was that opium-eaters were not able to 
 perform the same tasks as the others. 
 
 Q. — Have you any remark to make with reference to the difficulty 
 of giving up the habit when once acquired ? 
 
 A. — The difficulty of giving up the habit is very great, and to a 
 Native of Bengal almost insuperable, but some have given it up. I have 
 experience of attempts that are made by many opium-eaters, and I find in 
 my notes of a native Christian suffering from disease of the bones of the 
 leg (Tibia) who was recommended to abandon opium-eating by a doctor 
 
( « ) 
 
 in Calcutta ; he would not give up the habit, and died a confirmed opium- 
 eater. The second case was that of a young man in my service as a dis- 
 penser ; as long as he could get opium, he would do his work, but not 
 satisfactorily ; and when urged to give up the habit he said he would 
 rather give up work than undergo the agony. While I was in Orissa, 
 I heard of an opium-eater of the name of Eundoo, a native Christian in 
 Cuttack, forty or forty-live years of age. He was a day labourer, but he 
 became feeble, and could no longer work. When he could no longer get 
 opium, he committed suicide by hanging himself. The fourth case was a 
 case in Glasgow, of a man who consulted Dr. Garrow Leeds, who told me 
 the incident ; the man endeavoured again and a gain to give up the habit, 
 but failed, and then delivered himself up to Dr. Garrow Leeds. He con- 
 fined him in a padded room like a lunatic, took away his opium, and cured 
 him in eight or ten days. 
 
 Q. — Have you any experience as to the effects of opium on children? 
 
 A. — I was lately told of a case in which an officer of the Bengal 
 Medical Service gave a child an overdose of opium, and he died. I think 
 that we medical men ought not to depart from the instructions we have 
 received from our Professors of Materia Medica, that the result of giving 
 opium to children is always risky and dangerous. No doubt some 
 do give it in very minute doses, but tliat heroic treatment cannot be cal- 
 culated upon with safety, without one day regretting that they began 
 it. There is another case in which opium was given to a child four or 
 five years of age ; the ayah gave it opium in minute doses, the child 
 withered away and when it was on the point of death the medical officer 
 discovered that its condition was due to taking opium. The ayah was 
 charged before the Magistrate with poisoning the child, but I understand 
 that had it been her own child, she would have gone without punishment, 
 because it would not have been known that she had done it. I think 
 there should be some control exercised over the sale of opium so that wo- 
 men could not possibly obtain it to drug their children. I learn that in 
 other parts of India there is a heavy mortality from this habit. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything to say with reference to the facilities which 
 now exist as to the system of licenses for the sale of opium ? 
 
 A. — The facility with which opium can be purchased places great 
 temptation before morally weak people ; hence a great number of suicides. 
 Only a few months ago the little town wlierc I labour was thrown into it 
 state of excitement by the news that a boy, sixteen years of age, had poi- 
 soned himself because he was unable to pass an examination ; and quite 
 recently, a young widow of eighteen or twenty took opium, with fatal re- 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 suit, on account of some domestic trouble ; the third was a case which 
 occurred only a few months previously of a woman who quarrelled with 
 her husband and took opium, and died. I think that the sale of opium 
 should be more restricted, so that it could not be purchased by ordinary 
 persons. 
 
 Q. — You have said all that you had to say in your evidence-in-chief 
 on the subject in its general aspects. I understand that you have recently 
 visited Orissa, how long were you there? 
 
 A. — I was in Cuttack for about one whole day. 
 
 Q. — You visited Cuttack with the view of obtaining information, as 
 far as the length of time admitted, with reference to the subject which has 
 been referred to this Commission ? 
 
 A. — Yes, that was my object. 
 
 Q. — And you desire to make a statement to us which which will re- 
 present the result of the enquiries you made at Cuttack. 
 
 A — Yes, I would like to give the evidence given to me by natives as 
 well as Europeans both private and official in Cuttack. 
 
 [After some discussion as to the admissibility of the statement, which 
 was objected to as being only hearsay evidence, Dr. Morison was permitted 
 to read the following statement : — 
 
 On my way to Orissa by steamer, on the 15th November, I met on board 
 a number of native gentlemen (Hindoos) returning to Orissa. All except one 
 were connected with the G-oVernment. They were all men of intelligence and 
 education. Two of them were M. A’s and two had read up to-the B. A. of the 
 Calcutta University. I explained to them in a few words my object in going 
 to Orissa. Their answers to the following questions are as follows. 
 
 Q. — Is opium generally believed to be protective against fever ? 
 
 A. — No. We never heard of this before. We have overselves used tea, 
 and quinine for fever in Bengal, but we never heard of opium being used for 
 this purpose either in Orissa or in Bengal. 
 
 Q. — Is it in fact protective against malarial fevers? 
 
 A. — ^No. We have never heard of any one being advised by any medical 
 man or native Kobiraj to take opium to prevent fever. 
 
 Q. — Is it specially useful in malaiious districts, or believed to be so ? 
 
 A. — No. We never heard of it being so used ; and Orissa, we consider, 
 is pecularly free from malaria as compared with Calcutta, Burdwan, Nuddea, 
 and other parts of lower Bengal with which we are acquainted; 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 Q. — Is it necessary or believed to be necessary to enable working people 
 to get through their daily toil ? 
 
 A. — No, unless the labourer is in the liabit of using opium, either eating or 
 smoking it. If an opium-eater, he cannot work without it : but if not addict- 
 ed to opium be can work, we consider, better without it. 
 
 Q. — Is the habit of taking opium looked upon as disgraceful ? 
 
 A. — Smoking in old or young is always considered in Bengal and Orissa 
 as disgraceful. The habit of eating opium by old men is not considered to 
 be disgraceful as it is believed to be taken by them as a medicine to invigorate 
 their bodies or to relieve pain. 
 
 Q. — What motives induce people to form the habit ? 
 
 ■ A. — Sexual debility, and general failure of bodily vigour induce men at 
 the age of forty-five to fifty years to begin the habit. Young people take to it 
 from the contagion of bad example. 
 
 Q. — What ai-e the results of the habit physically, mentally, morally ? 
 
 A. — (1) Emaciation of body is rapid if not counteracted by rich food, 
 milk, ghee and sweetmeats. (2) Mentally — Sleepiness and dullness generally. 
 (3) Morally — Smoking, utterly debasing, but eating less so ; probably as 
 the eater is older in years. The use of opium we have heard leads to impo- 
 tency in smokers in three to four years, in eaters five to six years. 
 
 Q — Is there a general tendency to increase the dose ? 
 
 A. — Yes, generally. 
 
 Q. — Is the habit easily relinquished either at once or gradually ? 
 
 A. — No. It is very rarely relinquished ; almost never in our experience. 
 
 These gentlemen signed the following statement. 
 
 “We deliberately state that our experience of Cuttack, and generally over 
 most parts of Orissa, has led us to consider Orissa peculiarly free from malaria 
 with spleen and fevers, as compared with Calcutta, Burdwan, Nuddea, and other 
 parts of lower Bengal, with which we are acquainted. We even know some 
 friends of ours who have settled in Cuttack, Orissa on account of its freedom 
 from malaria. We know that in Angul, and other parts there is fever, probab- 
 ly malarious, but Orissa generally is not considered by us to be malarious. 
 We are decidedly of opinion that the habit of taking opium in Orissa is not 
 due to malaria as tbe people themselves do not attribute the habit to that 
 cause.” 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 This statement w as signed in the presence of Babu Hari Dass Bannei-jee, 
 of Calcutta, a Zamindar having estates in Oiissa. 
 
 Another gentleman, a Government Official, a European, made the 
 following statement : — 
 
 “ I have been all over Orissa, visited most parts and had occasion to 
 travel in unhealthy parts. I have resided in Balasore and Cuttack (not in 
 Puri). It is my deliberate opinion that the excessive use of opium by the 
 people of Orissa is not due to malaria but to one learning the habit from 
 another. I recently had a conversation with a Deputy Collector on this 
 point and he too was of opinion that the excessive use of opium was due to bad 
 habit contracted by seeing others use it. I have heard it stated by the people 
 that opium was long ago cultivated in Orissa, especially in the Balasore District. 
 
 I have known gangs of workmen under me of which at the beginning only one 
 took opium but in a few months most of the others also became opium eaters . 
 from the bad example of the first victim.” 
 
 Again, on the Kendrapara Canal, a Hindoo gentleman, manager of 
 a large state in Orissa come to me of his own accord and said “ I hear 
 you are taking evidence in connection with the opium commission.” 
 ‘‘ No,” I said, “ I am not connected with the opium commission, but I 
 am collecting facts regarding the opium habit of Orissa.” He made the 
 following statements in answer to my questions : — 
 
 “ I am a native of Orissa. I am manager of a large estate. I am also a 
 zamindar — I have estates of my own as well — not large. I have observed the 
 opium habit from my youth. The habit is formed more by example than from 
 any other cause — seeing others use it, they are led to begin it. Sometimes among 
 the poor the habit begins in infancy. Aged people begin the habit when they 
 feel the natural vigour abating.” 
 
 Q. — “ Do you mean the sexual function or the body generally.” 
 
 A. — (Hesitatingly) '‘The body generally.” 
 
 Q. — “Explain this.” 
 
 A. — “ I mean that among us Hindoos it is considered not so disgraceful 
 for old people to take opium.” 
 
 Q. — “ Do you encourage opium eating in your family or among your 
 servants ?” 
 
 A. — “ Oh no. We take care that none of our family or servants take 
 to opium if we can prevent them. An opium eater must have his opium 
 if not able to buy it he will steal petty things to get pice to buy it when 
 nourishing food is taken, milk, ghee, sweetmeats &c. it wards off its evil effects 
 for sometime.” 
 
 Q. — “ Is opium generally believed to be protective against malaria fever ?’’ 
 
 A.— “ I have never heard of it being used for that purpose ; but quinine 
 and cinchona are used for that purpose.” 
 
 Q. — “Is it protective against malaria ?” 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 A. — “ No. For opium eatera get fever like others : but Cuttack is not 
 malarial.” 
 
 Q. — “ Is it necessary to enable working people to get through their daily 
 toil ?” 
 
 A. — “ I do believe it helps men to do hard work if they are opium eaters not 
 otherwise.” 
 
 Q. — “Is the habit of using opium considered as disgraceful ?” 
 
 A. — “Yes; except in old men who take it for failing health or for some 
 ailment.” 
 
 Q. — “ Is it desirable to prohibit the sale of opium except for medecinal 
 purposes ?” 
 
 A.— “Yes.” 
 
 Q.— “How ?” 
 
 A. — “ By increasing the cost to the consumer.” 
 
 Q. — “Is the habit easily relinquished either at once or gradually ?” 
 
 A. — “No, not easily ; but I have heard of some who have given it up ” 
 
 III Cuttack, on the 7th November, I was taken to see a retired 
 Deputy Collector who is interested in this question. He said in answer 
 to my questions : — 
 
 “ I am a Hindu, a Native of Orissa. I have been for many years Deputy 
 Collector and have had occasion to reside in Balasore and Cuttack. I never 
 heard of opium being given to cure or ward off malaria, for here in Cuttack we 
 have little or none. I have known families come to Cuttack from Bengal with 
 their members suffering from spleen and fever and after residing here for 
 some time without taking medicine they have been cured of their malarial ail- 
 ments.” 
 
 Q. — “Were you aware that opium was cultivated in Balasore or in any part 
 in Orissa in the time of Waiven Hastings?” “No, I was not aware of that, that 
 may account for the prevalence of the habit. At Balasore a friend of mine, 
 a Government official, complained to me that he could not get his clerks to work 
 after 5 p.m. however great the pressure of work. He said all his clerks took 
 opium, and as that was the hour when they took their opium they could not 
 go on without it.” 
 
 “Had you any experience of the Orissa famine (of 1866?)” “Yes. I was 
 on relief works and gave the starving food.” 
 
 Q. — “Did you ever hear the starving people ask for opium to alay the 
 pangs of hunger?” 
 
 A. — (Laughing) “No, I never heard of that ; their one cry was “Eice! 
 Rice ! ” But I have seen many of the starving who had come in to the sudder 
 station from the interior after they had been fed spread their cloth on the 
 road side and lie down and die quietly. That astonished me very much ; but 
 I enquired of the doctor why it was, and he (Dr. Jackson I think) said it was 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 because of their having taken too much food. The people he said should have 
 heen gradually fed.” 
 
 Q. — “So, you do not think the people could buyiopium (a dearer article than 
 rice) when they had no money to buy rice?” 
 
 A. — “Certainly not. He then asked me if I had seen his note on opium 
 
 which he gave to Mr. A. C. Das.” 
 
 I quote from that note, as follows : — 
 
 “ I know of many instances in which heirs to large estates brought ruin 
 upon themselves by smoking and eating opium : not that the expenditure at- 
 tending the habit was great enough to cause the ruin : but that the vice made 
 the man on the one hand so lethargic, and weakened their intellects so much 
 that they almost entirely neglected the management of their estates, leaving them 
 in the hands of their servants, who robbed them right and left ; and on the 
 other hand they were made exceedingly fond of carnal pleasures of all sorts, 
 in which they indulged freely and most extravagantly. I have known the 
 want of means to buy the drug turn men into thieves and burglars in numerous 
 cases which came before me officially. People have let their wives and children 
 starve rather than do without the drug. 
 
 “The diug is used by men of all classes everywhere in Orissa: that is to say, 
 the use is not confined to any particular race, class or district. It is regarded as a 
 curse hy all, except of course those who are eaters or smokers of the drug. Anytliing 
 short of total prolfibition of the cultivation of the poppy, except for medicinal 
 purposes, would be a partial measure ill calculated to save the country from the 
 destructive effects of opium. As regards the Native states, those in Orissa 
 draw their supplies from the Government stores ; in none of these States is 
 the poppy grown or opium manufactured. I tliink the sympathies of the 
 rulers of these states could easily be enlisted in the noble cause of abstinence 
 from this drug. There need be no special police force to detect smuggling in 
 the case of opium in this part of the country. It would not be easy 
 to grow the poppy or manufacture opium without being noticed hy the ordi- 
 nary police. The existing police force considered sufficient to prevent illicit 
 preparation of the drug in districts under the Government would prevent its 
 being smuggled into them from Native states where it is freely grown with- 
 out any restrictions. Should the rulers of these states be induced as they easily 
 could be to proliibit its growth in their territories the need for providing against 
 smuggling would be reduced. Tue prohibitive measures recommended are not 
 therefore likely to increase the charges on account of a detective force as far 
 at least as Orissa is concerned. 
 
 “One of the grounds of objection is the loss of revenue to Government 
 which would certainly result from it, supposing that such measures are enforced. 
 I would simply answer that where body and soul are at stake, as they undoubt- 
 edly are in the case under notice, no precuniary consideration should stand in the 
 way of reform. If opium eating and smoking is a vice, as it is on all nands ad- 
 mitted to be, the traffic in the drug cannot but be considered immoral. This 
 being so, there can be no justification whatever for the Government continu- 
 ing the trade for the sake of filthy lucre. The revenue derived from it every 
 righteous man would look upon as ill-gotten money ; as the gain from gamb- 
 ling houses and those worse than these would be. It is for the statesmen who 
 are at the helm of Government to devise means by which the charges of 
 governing the country could he met from legitimate sources, without having 
 recourse to measures so immoral and so unrighteous as the opium traffic. 
 
 “ JoGON Mohon Roy. Late Deputy Collector." 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 My next visit in company with Mr. A. C. Das was to Babu 
 
 in Government Service. He stated : 
 
 “I am a Hindoo. I have been nine years a Deputy Inspector of 
 schools. I am a Native of Orissa and have lived all my life in 
 Orissa. I have visited most parts of Orissa. I have had occasion to 
 visit the malarious tracts of Orissa : hut never felt any necessity to take 
 opium. I consider the habit of opium-eating injurious. It is (more pi'evalent 
 in Balasore than in Puri or Cuttack. In Balasore it is given to children up to 
 the age of ten years. I have had one such boy in my school ; their parents 
 cause the children to break off the habit ^ nine or ten years of age. The 
 habit is not easily given up ; I only know of tw'o or three instances where men 
 addicted to the habit have given it up of their own accord. Excessive con- 
 sumers become rapidly emaciated if unable to get milk, ghee and sweetmeats. 
 |A smoker may and often does consume one-half his earnings in opium, moder- 
 ate eaters one eighth or one-tenth of their income, if poor. There is a constant 
 Tendency to increase the dose. I have known men who began with one pice 
 worth of opium per day and who in ten years or fifteen years increased it to ten 
 pice per day. I consider the habit of smoking opium morally degrading ; eating 
 it makes the consumer indolent, sleepy, unreliable. I do not believe opium to be 
 a protective against fever, nor is it ever given here for that puipose. I have 
 resided in feverish tracts in Orissa ; but never took opium. I also know a 
 friend of mine who is frequently in these tracts, and he does not get fever and 
 is not an opium eater. The habit of eating opium is invariably looked upon 
 with aversion by respectable people ; but smoking is always considered dis- 
 graceful. You may use my name in this matter as I am only telling the 
 truth, and I am not afi-aid to tell the truth.”- 
 
 Dr. Morisoii also read a letter from Sir Romesb Chunder Mitter’ 
 retired Judge of the High Court of Calcutta, to Mr. Alexander, stating 
 that he and other members of his family had more than once visited Cut- 
 tack as a health resort, that the climate had never disappointed him, that 
 Cuttack was much drier than Bengal and in his belief from free malaria. 
 
 Q.— In what way do you connect this letter with the enquiry of the 
 Commission. 
 
 A. — As corroborative evidence that Orissa generally is not malarious, 
 whereas it has been asserted again and again that it is extensively 
 malarious. I have also the evidence of Mr. McMillan, who was for over 
 thirty years executive engineer in Orissa. He says : “ I was executive 
 
 engineer for over thirty years, but have now retired and live in Cuttack. 
 I have travelled over every part of Orissa, at all seasons, and along 
 the low-lying coast-line as well as in the higher plains towards the hills. 
 I had charge of all the Public Works in the District, and and many of 
 the roads and bridges were designed and executed by me. I constructed 
 that large breakwater you Saw on the river as you approached Cuttack 
 in the Steamer. I liave come to know the people and their habits well. 
 I know the malarious parts, but Orissa is not considered malarious by 
 
( IS ) 
 
 those who live here. During all these forty years I have never had fever 
 except once, and that not very severe. In all my intercourse with the 
 people I have never heard them say that they took opium as a prophy- 
 lactic, and I am sure they do not use it either to cure or to ward off 
 fever. I have heard some say they began it for rheumatism. The 
 habit liere is merely a vice. I can remember two instances where the 
 habit, after long continuance, was abandoned. One a good workman, 
 a mechanic who was called '“pagol” or fool, by the others on account of the 
 effect of opium upon him. He was unreliable although naturally a good, 
 workman. He dreamt a dream, and on that account, so he said, he gave 
 up the habit. Soon after leaving off the liabit he became a steadyviand 
 industrious workman, and began to look quite different in appearance — 
 even the very colour of his face was changed — he looked fairer and become 
 sensible and reliable. The second man a merchant and was was also called 
 “pagol ” or fool an account of his manner from excessive opium-eating. 
 He had neglected his business and things were going to the had, but he 
 left it off and became a competent and prosperous man.” 
 
 While I was in Cuttack there was a meeting of the Total Abstinence 
 Society at which I asked to speak a few words, and I put the following 
 resolution to a crowded meeting of between 800 and 900 people. It is a 
 society for the total abstinence from drugs and alcohol as well. The fol- 
 lowing is the resolution; — 
 
 Resolved, “At a pubUc meeting of the Total Abstinence Society of 
 Cuttack convened on the subject of total abstinence from intoxicating 
 liquors and drugs, we hear with surprise that the cause of opium-eating 
 and smoking so prevalent in Orissa is due to malaria. We believe the 
 habit to be due to bad example, so contagious an evil, and we have never 
 heard of opium being used either to prevent tlie influence of malaria or to 
 cure an attack of malarious fever in Orissa. 
 
 (Signed) A. H. Young, Chairman. 
 
 (Signed) A. C. Dass, Secretary. 
 
 A meeting of the Baptist Missionary Conference happened to be 
 held at the time of my visit, at which I was present, when the following- 
 resolution was passed: — “We, the Baptist Missionaries from various parts 
 of Orissa at present in Conference assembled, hereby affirm what we liave 
 hitherto acted upon, that opium-eaters or smokers are not eligible for 
 baptism or admission into church fellowship in any of our cluirches 
 scattered throughout Orissa.” — Alex. H. Young, Chairman. Cuttack, 
 18th November, 1893. 
 
( ) 
 
 The Conference represented a Christian community of from 2000 to 
 3000 members. 
 
 Q. — Having dealt with the general question and your experience in 
 Lower Bengal as well as your visit to Orissa, is there any other point on 
 which you would like to speak ? 
 
 A. — I should like to have discussed the question whether malaria is 
 the real cause of the excessive consumption of opium in Orissa. That this 
 theory has been accepted by the Government of India will be proved from 
 the following extract from the Blue Book on the consumption of opium in 
 India presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1892. In their despatch 
 the following sentence occurs, “We reserve our remarks on this question, 
 that is the question of the closure of shops for consumption on the prem- 
 ises, till the concluding paragraph of this despatch, and it is only neces- 
 sary to say that we regard the effects in Bengal as on the whole satisfac- 
 tory. When the enormous area and population are considered, and 
 further it is recognised how large a proportion of that area consists of 
 alluvial malarious tracts in which the use of opium by the people is not a 
 vice or even a luxury, but to some extent a necessity of hfe.” 
 
 I had occasion to bring this matter before the Anti-Opium Society 
 in London when a discussion was held on the 31st May, 1892, on the medi- 
 cal aspects of the opium question. I stated in that discussion that the 
 assertion that the use of opium as a prophylactic accounts for the exces- 
 sive consumption of opium in Assam and Orissa, and is due to the fact 
 that those tracts are more malarious than other parts of India, and that 
 it is taken as a prophylactic by the ryots is incorrect. And I further 
 stated that there are three outstanding facts which showithat that the above 
 theory is not the true one. First, that there are many districts in Bengal 
 which are as malarious as Orissa and Assam, and which did not con- 
 sume opium in anything like the proportion of those oft-quoted districts. 
 I instance the district of Rajshaye which I know well, and some parts of 
 which have been depopulated by malaria, yet opium is not consumed there 
 by the people as a whole. Secondly, that malaria is not confined to 
 malarious tracts, which it would be if the malarial theory was true, either 
 as regards India or China. In both these countries people who live in 
 parts comparatively free from malaria are excessive consumers of opium. 
 Thirdly, high above the malarial zone, where malaria is endemically un- 
 known, opium is consumed to excess. In such places as Simla, the high- 
 est town in the Himalaya Range, we find the habit established, and the 
 drug consumed to excess. It seems clear from these facts, that, whatever 
 causes have brought about the excessive consumption of opium in Assam 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 and Orissa, it is not malaria alone. We must find causes equally applic- 
 able to other parts of India, very different in climate, race, social habits, 
 and religious restrictions. 
 
 Dr. Watts, in his article which has been handed in to the Commis- 
 sion, mentions that the cultivation of the poppy at one time existed in 
 Orissa, and that the “ East India Company ordered that its cultivation 
 should be restricted to Patna and Benares. ” The evidence I have obtain- 
 ed from Orissa enables me to say that the following points as far as 
 Orissa is concerned have been proved. First, that Orissa, instead of- being 
 a malarial district as generally believed, is a sanitarium for Bengal, and 
 that persons afflicted with bad health go there for im|)rovement ; secondly, 
 that opium is not taken as a prophylactic, and that the people do not 
 entertain that view in Orissa ; thirdly, that it is not taken by people as a 
 cure for fever ; fourthly, that opium-eaters are at least as liable to malarial 
 fever as non-opium-eaters ; fifthly, that it is considered to be a curse by all 
 intelligent natives who have the welfare of the people at heart ; and sixth- 
 ly, that the Balasore district where opium was cultivated, as might be ex- 
 pected, is most deeply tainted with the vice. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — Are you acquainted with a book on Malaria 
 by Dr. Eussell, which has been mentioned '! 
 
 A. — I am. 
 
 Q. — Is there anything in that book which confirms or contradicts 
 your views ? 
 
 A. — I think there are things in that book which confirm my views. 
 
 Q. — Will you refer to them? 
 
 A. — Speaking of opium-eaters, he says: “The opium-eater obtains 
 considerable immunity from malarious affections in the early stages. The 
 first few years of indulgence in the habit, before the organic visceral 
 changes are set up, and the general shattering of constitution results, 
 which prematurely break down the consumer of opium, and render 
 him an easy prey to diseases of every kind.” He then goes on to 
 say: “ In the plains of Assam this habit is almost universal. In this 
 district the writer has made a series of exact observations on the prevalence 
 of this habit among the large circulating population of the jail. He finds 
 that nearly four-fifths of the men of the plains who enter jail are more or 
 less addicted to this habit, consuming from five grains to three drams of 
 
 the drug daily The prevalence of this habit is the curse of 
 
 our jail population in Lower Assam. No work can be got out of the 
 long-confirmed opium-eater. He can digest nothing but light food, milk; 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 or soups. On ordinary diet he suffers from diarrhoea, tending to rapidly 
 run to dysentery. His system has very slight heat-making power. He 
 is extremely susceptible to any changes of temperature, and cannot stand 
 cold he is thus specially liable to chest and bowel disorders. Again and 
 again he may be nursed, by a system of milk diet, gradually on to ordinary 
 food ; again and again he recurs to hospital, suffering from diarrhoea, 
 dysentery, or dyspepsia. The emaciation of the opium-eater is character- 
 istic and extreme. Eventually, after having been a source of infinite care, 
 after having caused large expenditure in sick diet, extras, &c , he perishes, 
 usually of a chest or bowel disorder, or perhaps from practical starvation 
 from eventual inability to digest any kind of food, even the lightest and 
 most delicate. On post mortem examination, all the viscera are usually 
 found wasted and anaemic except the liver, which is commonly large, pale, 
 and very fatty. ” 
 
 Q. — Have you anything more to say on that particular point in 
 reference to that view ? 
 
 A. — There are other passages whieh I might qiiote to support my 
 view of the matter. 
 
 Q. — Were you present when Dr. Russell gave his evidence here? 
 
 A. — I was. 
 
 Q. — Did you hear his explanation ? 
 
 A. — I heard him state that it referred to the opium sot, but the 
 words here are “ opium-eater,” and four-fifths of the jail population could 
 hardly have been opium sots. 
 
 Q. — Is there anything in the context or connection in that book 
 which would lead the ordinary reader to suppose that it alludes to the 
 opium sot? 
 
 A. — I think not, because he calls the opium-eater the curse of the 
 Assam jails. 
 
 Q. — You have given us several statements and conversations you 
 had on a recent occasion on the way to Orissa and back in reference 
 to the opium habit. Did you hear any evidence of a contradictory 
 character ? 
 
 A. — I did not. I heard expressions from the Europeans on the 
 Steamer that the revenue difficulty was the great question, and that they 
 they had no sympathy whatever with this agitation against the opium 
 habit. 
 
 Q. — You have been combating the doctrine of the connection of 
 malaria and the consumption of opium ? 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 A. — I hare. 
 
 Q. — Can you give us any information as to when this doctrine first 
 arose ? 
 
 A. — I cannot exactly state who first started the theory, but it is only 
 within recent years that it has come before the public. I think it was 
 coincident with the agitation against opium. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray : — Q. — With regard to your personal experience 
 in Rampore Beaideah, how long were you there ? 
 
 A. — I was there sixteen years, excluding two visits to England. 
 
 Q — What is the population ? 
 
 A. — It is a town of 20,000 inhabitants. It is the administrative 
 head-quarters of the district of Rajshaye. 
 
 Q. — What would be the population of the surrounding district ? 
 
 A. — The whole district of Rajshaye has about 1,500,000 souls. 
 
 Q. — It is somewhere in the same locality as Moorshedabad ? 
 
 A. — It is on the opposite side of the river Ganges. 
 
 Q. — And since you have been there, you have devoted your attention 
 largely to the subject of opium ? 
 
 A. — Only within the last four years. 
 
 Q. Then the evidence you have given from personal knowledge is 
 
 based on four years’ experience ? 
 
 A. No ; my experience and a large medical practice in Rajshaye 
 
 for sixteen years. My attention was specially directed to the opium ques- 
 tion about four years ago. 
 
 Q You remember Mr. Donald Matheson, chairman of Committees 
 
 of the Anti-Opium Association, writing to the Times a letter in which he 
 referred to some letters he had from you. I think he says “ I wrote to 
 Dr. Morison, the excellent medical missionary in charge of the station 
 for the last ten years”; and that is why you say that it was only about 
 four years, ago that you began to make enquiries. 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. You said also that some control should be exercised over the 
 
 sale of opium. In what direction could that control be exercised ? 
 
 A. It would be for the interests of the community at large that the 
 
 quantity of opium procurable by one person should be reduced very much. 
 I should say to non-poisonous doses. 
 
 Q, —What would you call a iiou-poisoaous dose ? 
 
( 18 > 
 
 A. — Under four grains. 
 
 Q. — What is the present quantity anybody can purchase in Rampore 
 Beauleah ? 
 
 A. — I believe it is five tolas. 
 
 Q. — AUere you not aware tliat ivithin the last twelve months the 
 quantity can be purchased at any one time by any person has been reduced 
 from five tolas to one tola. 
 
 A. — I am not aware of it. I would make it difiicult for any one 
 person to obtain'opium except for very necessary purposes. 
 
 Q. — How would you define very necessary purposes ? 
 
 A, — I mean medicinal purposes — opium taken for the alleviation of 
 bodily suffering. 
 
 Q. — We have been told by many witnesses that a large number of 
 people take opium, as a domestic remedy for the alleviation of pain. 
 Is that the taldng of opium for medicinal purposes ? 
 
 . A. — It is, and I would not interfere with it. I would simply guard 
 against the abuse of it. 
 
 Q. — You are aware also that the quantity taken by the people 
 medicinally in that sense of the word is far larger than two grains ? 
 
 A. — Yes, because they become accustomed to it. 
 
 Q. — For medical purposes that is a large quantity to be taken as a 
 domestic remedy ? 
 
 A. — Yes, it is a large quantity to begin with. I should say half 
 or a quarter of a grain. 
 
 Q. — I am speaking of the maximum limit you would impose on the 
 restriction of sale ? 
 
 A. — I would guard it in this way, that those eating it at present 
 should not be deprived of it ; and in order that they should receive what 
 they consider necessary for themselves, they should be allowed to have larger 
 quantities. But it should be known by those in charge of the shop that 
 they were habitual consumers of opium, and for those people there should 
 be an exception made certainly. 
 
 Q. — Do you think from your practical experience that it would be 
 possible to rest that discretional power in persons selliiig opium ? 
 
 A. — I think it would be quite possible. I see no difficulty ; I 
 think the Government could do it easily. 
 
 Q. — In order to apportion the amoimt of opium which any person 
 is entitled to buy you would have to keep an account of the quantity he 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 was in the habit of consuming. You Avould require a veiy large number of 
 persons for the distribution ? 
 
 A. — I think not. 
 
 Q.— Would it be possible for a small number of people to know the 
 habits of a great number of people ? 
 
 A. — Yes, in a very short time. Certain shops are placed in 
 certain places and the shopmen will soon be able to know who are his 
 regular customers. 
 
 Q. — How many shops are thei’e in Rampore Beauleah ? 
 
 A. — I think three or four. 
 
 Q. — Do you think it would be possible for three or four shopkeepers 
 to know that this man should get one grain and that man two grains, 
 without risk of serious abuse ? 
 
 A. — I am not prepared to go into details, but I think in some parts 
 of India a register of opium consumers would be necessary. 
 
 Q. — Is it not necessary for those who say generally that sales should 
 be restricted, or that more control should be exercised, to think out the 
 details by which that control would be exercised ? 
 
 A. — Generally speaking, undoubtedly one should think out as many 
 of the details as he can, and I have thought of some of these ; but I 
 don’t think that stage has arrived. Generally, however, I think there 
 would be no difficulty in manipulating the details in Lower Bengal. 
 
 Q. — Your view is that the maximum limit for one person should 
 be reduced to a very small quantity ? 
 
 A. — I mean for any person not accustomed to take opium, and a 
 discretionary power should be rested on the distributors of opium who 
 should know who are habitual consumers and therefore entitled to have 
 larger doses. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. — Q. — Speaking from your personal experience 
 you said you had no knowledge of the use of opium in Rajshaye as a 
 prophylactic ? 
 
 A. — None whatever. 
 
 Q. — You also said it is known as a domestic remedy ? 
 
 A. — It is. 
 
 Q. — Is it not known in connection with fever of enabling a person 
 to withstand chills or pains caused by chills ? 
 
 A. — I have not heard of that, but I have heard it used for rheuma- 
 tism and other pains. Not in connection with chills. 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 Q. — You Iiare not heard of the use of opium in connection rvith 
 fever ? , 
 
 A. — I have not. 
 
 Q. — You said, that eating opium is always considered disgraceful. 
 Is it even so considered even among elderly men ? 
 
 A. — It does not apply to elderly men, because public opinion among 
 Hindoos and Mahommedans admits that elderly people who are failing 
 in health from numeroirs causes may take opium without being considered 
 to be addicted to a very demoralising habit. 
 
 Q. — You also mentioned that the habit of eating opium existed 
 among young men in the Rajshaye district ? 
 
 A. — I think it is very unusual. I meant that remark rather in 
 regard to smoking. There are three madak shops in Eampore Beauleah, 
 I am not aware whether there are any chandu shops. 
 
 Q. — You stated that in opium-eaters there was a tendency to in- 
 crease the dose ? 
 
 A. — That is my deliberate conviction. 
 
 Q. — Is it not the case tliat some persons who begin the habit at an 
 early age use the same dose wlien they come to old age 7 
 
 A — I think that when opium is not taken for pains of any kind, the 
 tendency is to keep to the original quantity, but when it is taken to alle- 
 viate pain, they have to increase the dose. 
 
 Q. — In such cases the quantity taken is not so inordinate as to in- 
 terfere with health ? 
 
 A. — I would not say that it does not interfere with health. I believe 
 it does exercise a certain amount of influence on health, but not very 
 marked in some cases. In young men, who are confirmed opium-eaters 
 it does exercise such an influence upon health as to make it noticeable. 
 
 Q. — It is a question of quantity to the individual ? 
 
 A. — In my experience it does rrsually go to excess ultimately. It 
 usually goes to five or six grains a day. 
 
 Q. — I mean excess with regard to each individual’s health ; they are 
 generally long-lived men 7 » 
 
 A. — A man cannot be an opium-eater without suffering in health, 
 be he young or old. 
 
 Q. Do you think it would make any difference in the number of 
 
 suicides if opium was not easily obtainable 7 
 
 A. — I think it would. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 Q. — You are aware that suicide is common in the country and that 
 there are many other means ordinarily used besides taking opium ? For 
 instance, if a man is a cutler by trade, and left his razors knocking 
 about, and his children took them up and cut their throats ? 
 
 A. — I think that man ought to remove the razors from the reach of 
 his children. Opium has been such a prolific cause of suicide that the 
 Government should remove it from the reach of the people. 
 
 Q. — Are you speaking of the Eajshaye district? 
 
 A. — I am speaking of India generally. I have heard that it is a 
 prolific cause of suicide in Calcutta as well as in Gya and other opium pro- 
 ducing districts. 
 
 Q. — In the report on opium of last year in the Lower Provinces it 
 is stated that in the district of Nuddea, 142 women commited suicide 
 and that they did it in every case by hanging ; what would you say to 
 that ? 
 
 A. — I would say that opium was not at hand, or they would pro- 
 bably not have hung themselves. 
 
 Q. — I mean that there are always means of putting an end to one’s 
 
 life? 
 
 A.— It is my opinion and the opinion of the native public generally 
 that opium should not»be so easily obtained for suicidal purposes. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — Mr. Mowbray asked you what was a poison- 
 ous dose of opium ; what did you say ? 
 
 A. — Four grains is the usual dose put down in text books as a fatal 
 dose. I have no doubt that there are persons who take a great deal 
 more. 
 
 Evidence of Dr. E. Ferris. ‘ 
 
 I am a member of the Eoyal College of Surgeons of England, and 
 have been in India forty years. From early in the year 185G, I have been 
 in private practice in Calcutta as medical officer connected with the dis- 
 pensary known as Messrs. E. Scott Thomson and Co. I have, therefore, 
 had nearly thirty-eight years of experience in this country. During the 
 whole of this period I have had daily to attend to the ailments and 
 prescribe for all classes of patients, Europeans, Eurasians, and natives 
 from all the Indian provinces, as Burmese, Bengalees, upcountry men, 
 Punjabis, Afghans, Goorkhas, Sikhs, and indeed men of all castes, 
 races, and religions. This large practice has made me familiar with 
 Indian diseases and the habits and customs of the people and among 
 Other things, has drawn my attention to the habit of opium-eating. I 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 have had no experience of opium-smoking except that many years ago I 
 visited an opium den. In that den I found a mixed lot of men, but 
 they were all orderly, respectful, and in possession of all their faculties. 
 Very early in my practice, I noticed that many patients were opium- 
 eaters. My attention was first called, early in 1854, to this habit when, 
 as Sui'geon in tlie Honourable East India Company’s Bengal Marine, I 
 had medical charge of troops and followers being transported between 
 Calcutta and Burma. On a voyage in the Honorable Company’s S.S. 
 Tenasserim, carrying a large number of Sikhs who exhibited a special 
 immunity from sea-sickness ; this appeared, considering the weather, so 
 unusual and so peculiar, that I made enquiries, and to my astonishment I 
 found that these men, who I also noticed took but very small quantities of 
 food, were all opium-eaters. From that time I have never ceased, in the 
 course of my practice, to investigate, so far as my opportunities allowed* 
 the opium habit and the effect of opium on those who use it. 
 
 Before going further, I may say I have never known Turkey opium 
 to be used by an opium-eater, and I should regard four grains of such 
 opium as a dangerous dose, that is, pure Turkey opium. The opium whicli 
 * I have known to be eaten by my patients is Bengal opium, and as to tliis 
 class of the drug, I sliould consider pure opium in eight grains to be dan- 
 gerous, that is, eight grains in one dose. When the habit is commenced, 
 usually one pice worth of opium is purchased. This is about four grains, 
 and I may mention tliat this rate of sale has, so far as I know, not varied 
 in all my experience. x\t the beginning, the opium-eater will divide his 
 one pice worth in various ways, taking the dose morning and evening; the 
 maximum dose being taken in the evening. After a time he may increase 
 the quantity to six grains, and even eight grains, but I have noticed that a 
 man will continue to take the same quantity daily for a very long time. 
 There are cases where the quantity taken may be as much as twelve, and 
 even sixteen, grains per day, but this I regard as extreme, and connected 
 with some special disease — it may be diabetes — against which the patient 
 is combating. In one case, which has recently been before me, a Native, 
 remarkable for his intelligence and physique, but suffering from diabetes, 
 actually got up to forty-five grains of extract of opium per day. The 
 effect he desired having been produced, he is reducing the quantity. No 
 one would be able to tell from that man’s appearance, from his conversa- 
 tion, or his business aptitude, that lie was an extreme opium-eater. 
 
 It is a common rule with me to ask my Native patients if they take 
 opium, and in this way I have become acquainted with a great many 
 circumstances not ordinarily known to medical men in connection with 
 
( 2S ) 
 
 the opium habits and with its effect upon diseases. Generally, I may say 
 that it has never made any difference in my treatment, wliether the patient 
 took opium or not. 
 
 I have not found opium deleterious in the use, or interfere with the 
 exhibition of any other drug. I have not found opium taken as a habit 
 productive of any disease. I have not found it induce emaciation or 
 dulling of the mental faculties, or a withering of the tissues, or of the 
 patient’s physical strength. I do not know of an instance of what may 
 be called an opium drunkard from the eating of opium, though there 
 may be opium drunkenness as the result of excessive smoking, especially 
 if the opium be adulterated, but no such case has come under my observa- 
 tion. 
 
 My experience of chandu and hhang is so small that I must refrain 
 from expressing any opinion as to their effects As a rule, the opium 
 habit is not common to young men, but I have to point out that, when, 
 for any cause whatever, young men have taken to opium, they become 
 in a marked and peculiar manner pi'otected, so to speak, against diabetes 
 and dysentery, that is, against two diseases which are, so far as my ex- 
 perience goes, the most fearful scourges and the most feared and dreaded 
 by all Natives of this province, and indeed by all natives of India with 
 whom I have been brought into contact. I have noted that a great deal 
 is due to the food common to the people of India, the Hindoos particular- 
 ly, whose main food is inch in starch. The Mahommedans, who take 
 more animal food, are not so prone to diabetes as tlieir Hindoo neighbours, 
 but all Natives suffer enormously from the effect of poor food, damp, 
 cold, and the exposure inevitable from their ordinary avocations. It is 
 very remarkable amongst the poorer classes, as proof that opium prevents 
 a waste of tissues — that an opium-eater can do with much less food than 
 a man not given to the habit, and, this being so, it may possibly be that 
 the poverty of the man may maintain the habit at a given minimum as 
 to quantity, say four grains per day. 
 
 Besides dy sentry. Natives suffer if rom a variety of intestinal complaints 
 and from the results of malarial poisoning. I have noticed that in such 
 cases the patient invariably seeks relief from opium, and I have also 
 noticed that when opium-eaters are subjected to the same malarial influen- 
 ces as non-opium-eaters in cases where such remedies as quinine and 
 arsenic and other preparations would be useless, the opium-eaters enjoy 
 an immunity which is remarkable when contrasted with the condition of 
 non-opium-eaters in exactly the same circumstances. I have never hesi- 
 tated in cases coming before me to recommend my patients to continue it, 
 
( ) 
 
 and I have found that where Natives have come to me suffering atrocious- 
 ly fi'om the effects of alcohol, and I have been able to substitute opium for 
 the alcoholic habit, the patient has recovered his status in society exactly 
 in the same proportion as the substitution of opium for alcohol has been 
 less or more complete. This I consider a very note-worthy fact to the 
 credit of the opium habit. So far as I can judge, crime is very rarely 
 met with amongst opium-eaters. I can never tell an opium-eater by 
 casually looking at him ; his habits and his appearance will not guide 
 me. Of course, I should know if I examined for this particular matter. 
 I find that opium-eaters are healthy men, that their muscular development 
 is good, and that mentally and bodily they contrast favourably with non- 
 opium-eaters. The conclusion I have been obliged to come to is that, 
 in a country like India, having regard to the habits of the people, the 
 character of their avocations, the peculiarities of the climate, and the 
 particular character of their food, opium is distinctly beneficial, that it is 
 not harmful, that it is not a vice, that it does not promote in any way 
 immorality, that it does not increase but distinctly decreases mortality, 
 and that without it the vital returns of many parts of the country 
 would be simply appalling. 
 
 My experience is that men, as a rule, with rare exceptions, will re- 
 sort to either a stimulant or sedative, and as far as Europeans are con- 
 cerned, the majority use a stimulant ; natives are so consituted that, 
 when they resort to stimulants, they do so to a degree' almost incredible to 
 ordinary European experience, and the extreme way in which they indulge 
 renders them, as Native reformers continually urge, pests of society, and 
 dangerous to themselves and all about them. Opium, on the other hand, 
 because it is a sedative, absolutely prevents them from becoming obnox- 
 ious in any way, I am convinced that the Native will have one or the 
 other, the sedative or the stimulant. If the Government prevents the 
 resort to the sedative, then we mnst expect to find the wealthier classes 
 giving themselves up to the more refined forms of alcohol produced by 
 Europe ; while the poorer classes will develop a very wide use of native 
 rum arrack, and spirits, and the result will be widespead vice, misery, 
 crime, and increased mortality, at the very idea of which I, as a medical 
 man, stand aghast. No doubt distillers here and in Europe would look 
 not to the effects to he produced, but to the profits which such a tremen- 
 dous demand would yield ; but I doubt if Government can take this view, 
 and as a man who knows something of India and its people, and who has 
 learned to take a strong interest in their welfare, who has at stake the 
 prosperity of the country, deprecate such wholesale degradation as this 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 would be ; and as I cannot imagine a cheap, a good, and a harmless 
 subsitute for opium, I am as convinced, as any one can be, that it should 
 be let alone, and that it has been not only a necessity, but I would even 
 go to the length of saying, a blessing to the people. 
 
 By Lord Brassey : — Q. — I gather from your statement that you are 
 in private practice ? 
 
 A. — I have been so for thirty-eight years ; I have been in practice 
 in India for forty years, without leaving the country for one day. I 
 ceased Government employ in March 1856, when I joined my partner in 
 private practice. 
 
 Q. — So that your testimony is given as that of as independent prac- 
 titioner. 
 
 A. — Perfectly so. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts : — Q — You have given a very full account 
 of your opinion in i-egard to the opium habit ; have you endeavoured to 
 divide the effects of opium into what is medicinal and what are its other 
 effects ? ' 
 
 A. — No, I have not gone into separating the effects ; I have taken 
 them generally, as the effects of opium upon eaters, because 1 sometime 
 ago gave it as a hypnotic. I am speaking of the use of it amongst 
 Native eatei's. 
 
 Q. — How do you explain the effects of toleration; does an eater 
 continue in good health ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Is it of medical service as an anodyne ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — What has been your experience in regard to increased doses ? — 
 we have been told that the general tendency has been to increase the dose. 
 
 A. — I have known opium-eaters for twenty years, and they now take 
 the same doses. It may be they began taking it as an inducement to fur- 
 ther efforts, not for any ailment. This man went from the first dose 
 gradually up to six or eight grains, which I look upon, in the majority of 
 cases, to be the maximum. ' 
 
 Q.-^This is the limit to toleration? 
 
 A. — They take it witlr perfect impunity ; if a man goes on with very 
 large doses, he becomes tolerant of larger ones. 
 
 Q. — There is a great difference of degree, as regards individuals, in 
 the toleration ? 
 
( 26 > 
 
 A — Yes. 
 
 Q. — ^Is the habit common among Europeans in Calcutta? 
 
 A. — Very rare. 
 
 Q. — There is a marked difference between the eating habit amongst 
 Europeans and amongst natives of Calcutta ; what is the cause of that? 
 
 A. — Europeans, as a rule, are considered wealthy. They have the 
 means, and can afford to buy stimulants — alchohol ; natives are so poor 
 that they can not spend more than one pice upon a dose or two of opium. 
 He cannot afford alcohol, so he takes to a sedative. 
 
 Q. — The practice is amongst the ricli as well as the poor? 
 
 A. — I am of opinion that opium was eaten hei’e long before any al- 
 coholic stimulants were known to the natives. 
 
 Q. — How do Marwaris become opium-eaters ? . 
 
 A. — They take to opium, but they are a peculiarly satisfied, docile, 
 harmless race of men. 
 
 Q. — I want to know about the fact that Europeans don’t, except in 
 rare cases, become eaters, and here in India the people very frequently be- 
 come so ; what is the reason ? 
 
 A. — Europeans have some means at their disposal ; if he has any 
 ailment he will consult a European doctor who does not make an opium- 
 eater of him. Very few Natives can afford to get a prescription, and his 
 kohiraj friends recommend opium. 
 
 Q. — There is a difference of toleration, dependent upon race or cli- 
 mate or food, between the Europeans on the one hand and natives on the 
 other ? 
 
 A. — No ; I have seen greater excess, where it has been rarely taken 
 by Europeans. The maximum I have seen has been taken by Europeans. 
 
 Q. — To the injury of health? 
 
 A. — I cannot say. 
 
 Q. — You merely consider it from a speculative point of view? 
 
 A. — I have not seen any injury to health from opitrm. 
 
 Q. — Have you had experience amongst poor Natives, or rather the 
 better class ? 
 
 A. — Any member of the Commission would be astonished, if un- 
 known to me, he sat down and saw the classes of people for whom I pre- 
 scribe daily. The very poorest, the middle classes, and the richest I see 
 every day. I sit down for six or seven honrs daily, receiving people. 
 Persons are treated as they come in in their turn. You would be aston- 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 ished at the multifarious classes of people, Bengalees, from the highest 
 Kulin to the Mehtur, Afghans, up-country men, Sikhs, poor unfortunate 
 women, who sell their last piece of jewellery to come — all these I treat. 
 This happens day after day, month after month, year after year. 
 
 Q. — From your experience you don’t know any mischief to health 
 produced by opium? 
 
 A. — I do not. 
 
 By Mr. Pease : — Q. — You state, “ I am unable to tell an opium- 
 eater from casually looking at him, but I can do so by examining him ; ” 
 in what way do you examine him ? 
 
 A. — If you examine him, you will find the iris dilated, wliich makes 
 the pupils contract. This shows a hhang or opium-eater. I have trav- 
 elled outside Calcutta in the country districts, Dacca and Syhlet, and 
 saw the people there. I have had people constantly coming and troubling 
 me, saying that quinine does nothing. I have proved that. I liave given 
 arsenic, and it has acted. If it were not for opium, the death-rate 
 without doubt, would be tenfold. For instance, we will say a man earns 
 an anna a day ; he will spend one pice upon opium and three upon food; 
 He neither loses weight, and will come out well. This opinion regarding 
 times of famine is very generally known. 
 
 Q. — The consumers would be about two per cent ? 
 
 xk. — I should think it is far greater amongst my patients, it is 
 certainly not less than thirty per cent., and I cannot say how much more. 
 Yesterday, a gentleman, a wealthy zemindar, came to me, and I asked 
 him whether he took opium, and how much. He said he took a two- 
 anna dose, that is, sixteen grains, daily. This man was fifty-five years of 
 age, and a powerful man. I did not consider it necessary to stop it. This 
 thirty per cent is exclusive of Eurasians and Europeans. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson : — Q. — You have used the expression “ made 
 people peaceable.” I have heard it said it makes people cowardly ? 
 
 A. — I have not seen that ; The Sikhs and Eohillas are the most 
 fearless men we have in India. 
 
 Q. — Are you a member of the Calcutta Medical Society ? 
 
 A. — Ho ; my time is so fully occupied that I really have no time. " 
 
 Q.— In reference to your dispensary, Messrs. Scott Thomson and 
 Co., you admit all classes ? 
 
 A. — I make no distinction ; any man can obtain medical advice, 
 I receive no fees from rich or poor. 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 Q. — Are medicines also supplied? 
 
 A. — No ; my prescriptions are made up in the dispensary. 
 
 Q. — Speaking generally, are you in favour of increasing the facilities 
 Stur getting opium ? 
 
 A. — I think the supply and demand, after this Commission, will be 
 greatly increased. 
 
 Q. — Would you do anything to further the increased consumption ? 
 
 A. — No, I think people would take it themselves. 
 
 Q. — We had a witness yesterday who wanted further facilities ? 
 
 A. — My view is that it is so beneficial that I would prefer an 
 mcreased consumption to a decrease. 
 
 Q. — Are you in favour of increased facilities for consumption ? 
 
 A. — I am. 
 
 Q. — I notice in your statement that you find the Sikhs have a 
 special immunity from disease? 
 
 A. — Yes, I bring that forward as the starting point of my enquiries 
 which induced me to continue. 
 
 Q. — Do you occasionally recommend alcohol ? 
 
 A. — In certain cases, of course. To a healthy man I would not 
 say he must take it. I prescribe it medicinally. 
 
 Q. Do you prescribe alcohol for daily dietetic use ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q, Would you do the same as regards opium ? 
 
 A. — In disease only. 
 
 Q_ Do you prescribe it in the same way as alcohol, — daily dietetic 
 
 iise ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q You would not look at '.opium as of the same dietetic value as 
 
 aJcohol ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. So far as the people of this counti7 are concerned, you would 
 
 say the same ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q I suppose I may take it, that you think there is a marked 
 
 difference between the two ? 
 
 A. — Europeans and Natives, yes. 
 
 Q. — Between alcohol and opium? 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 A, — Very marked. 
 
 Q. — Suppose you heard a medical man recommending opium for 
 -daily dietetic use ; would you think he was doing a safe thing or a 
 dangerous thing? 
 
 A. — Before answering this question I should wish to know what 
 the medical man had in view before he prescribed it for dietetic use. 
 
 Q. — Did you ever hear a medical man prescribe it so ? 
 
 A. — Simply as an article of diet, no. 
 
 Q. — By Sir James Roberts. — Did j^u ever hear a medical man pres- 
 ribe tobacco as a dietetic habit 
 
 A. — As a medical man, I have known it used in chest affections. 
 
 Q. — And the habit also applies to tobacco ? 
 
 A. — They are very different, opium and tobacco. 
 
 Q. — You were asked whether you ever knew a medical man who 
 advised a man talcing opium as a dietetic habit ; does that apply to 
 tobacco ? 
 
 A. — Certainly not. 
 
 I Evidence of Sohiraj &nnga Frosad Sen Snpta : 
 
 1. Opium is considered to be a beneficial medical ingredient, 
 especially for the poor classes of the various districts in this province. It 
 has been generally found to do good in bowel-complaints, asthma, rheu- 
 matism, &c., which require a costly treatment ; but opium alone, when 
 used in such cases, proves a specific remedy for those who can ill-afford 
 to meet the expenses of the generally costly medical treatment. The use 
 of opium also enables persons to give up drinking liquor. 
 
 The moderate use of opium increases appetite, power of digestion, 
 energy, and enables persons to adopt a practice of hard working. It also 
 prevents people becoming old before their time, and increases vital power. 
 From time immemorial the native physicians have been using this article 
 with other ingredients in innumerable cases, with great success. Both 
 higher and lower classes, under these circumstances, use opium. 
 
 I do not think the use of opium degenerates the moral and physical 
 condition of the people, though excessive use sometimes brings drow- 
 siness, but such cases are rare, and found to exist in the lower classes 
 only. 
 
 2. (a) Generally no one uses opium unless suffering from such 
 disease, where its effects are marvellous, although some take it to keep up 
 health. 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 In my opinion no one views it as a hated practice, as the nse of other 
 intoxicating things is regarded. 
 
 2. (b) The expense of using this article is generally met by the 
 
 consumers themselves. This being a poor counti-y, the prohibition or 
 restriction of the traffic in opium by the introduction of a heavy duty will 
 be keenly felt by the poorer classes of Her Majesty’s subjects, and make 
 them starve. 
 
 :k As opium is very extensively used in this province, and it is very 
 difficult to give it up when once practised, it is difficult to prohibit the 
 growth of the poppy and manufacture and sale of opium, and it is impos- 
 sible to do so. 
 
 d. Ho change short of prohibition in the existing arrangements for 
 regulating and restricting the opium traffic in Eengal need be done, but 
 some measures should be adopted to discourage the manufacture and use 
 of cJiandu and goolee whicli are made of opium, and doing injury among 
 the poorer classes to a great extent. 
 
 By the President : — Q. — I notice that you recommend that some 
 measures shoud be adopted to prohibit the manufacture and use of chandu 
 and goalee, which are made of ophim, and Avhich are doing injury ; can 
 you suggest any practical measures for carrying out tliese representations ? 
 
 A. — The habit which people contract by smoking is bad and intoler-- 
 able. The shops in which they smoke have company which induces smok- 
 ers to spend more time there ; hence these shops ought to be closed. 
 For anybody who has contracted the habit, ]i:> should be allowed to smoke- 
 in his own house, but not in places where there will be a congregation of 
 opium-smokers. 
 
 Q. — You desire to see the abolition of smoking shopis? 
 
 A. — Yes. [There were three other kobirajes present, who agreed in 
 what the witness said.] All three were in favour of the abolition of 
 licenses for smoking opium and chandu upon the premises. 
 
 By the Maharajah of Durbhungah:— Q. — Would you object to people 
 clubbing together to form a club to smoke opium ? 
 
 A. — I object to people smoking together, but when people take opium 
 in their own homes, no law should be passed to restrict them. The rules 
 regarding the sale of opium, now in existence, should not be changed, but 
 should any change be made, I would suggest the change should apply 
 ^»nly to public smoking of madak and chandu, where there are temptations. 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Joseph Culshaw, for the Methodist Publishing House, Calcutta. 
 
h 
 
 
 % 
 
 ' 
 
 1 
 
 * 
 
 'f 
 
 .jL 
 
 
 
 
 ■ >; ■ . , ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■V, 
 
 
 
 
7^7 
 
 Pa.> > Ulr-iAjSi 
 
 •[) jL^ 
 
 THE ^OYAL COMMISSION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 0f>IUJn TflUFFie, 
 
 SpBGial Heport of tie EiiidonGB takBii 
 
 in India. 
 
 Part IX. 30th November, 1893. 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY, or ONE ANNA, for each part 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, 
 Broadway Chambers, London, S. W.i 
 Also at the 
 
 Methodist Publishing House, 45, Dhaeamtala St,, Calcutta. 
 
' M0I38IMM0D JAYOH aHT 
 
 a-.BY’ > ■ / 
 
 I mi’lRH’T JHUW i 
 
 naifit sanaiiid aili lo lioqaH laiaaiiB 
 
 ' / ' ■ . 
 
 .eiiinl ni 
 
 1 
 
 CQBT /lodmavoW diOS -JCi 
 
 
 ;hKq floEo io) ,AI1I1A ,3110 10 .(YMHBS 3^0 30lfl3 
 
 tV 
 
 
 -A 
 
 vil/ Y,(f L'jJiiWwl 
 
 .iUI/.«r MUl'lO' aHT •■»'> Hilt JIUI Vl'HiUOB,, 
 
 ■ ,'/'/ ,8 .(iooJioJ .aaHa'wAH'J ?AV/'iAuad ., 
 
 I '>i(i iJj; u'A A . , ■ . 
 
 iTf'/S.tAO ..'r8 AJikTii •Oi’ .aaouid rJ-iifiaun'/I iaiaoiii’sf/l 
 
IliB l|opI Oomniiesion on Opium. 
 
 Evidence of Sudam Chunder ITaik- 
 
 Examined by Mr. Fanshawe. — Q. — To what district do you belong? 
 
 A. — Cuttack, South Balasore district. 
 
 Q. — How long have you been there ? ^ 
 
 A. — Twenty-two years. 
 
 Q. — You are in Government employ ? 
 
 A. — Yes, for seventeen or eighteen years. 
 
 Q. — You have experience not only of the Cuttack district, but of the 
 Tributary States, also Balasore and Puri ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — What do you know about opium-eating amongst these people ; 
 first as to the hill tribes ? 
 
 A. — 'I have come from Orissa, and I may say that both as a Government 
 officer and as a resident of that province, I possess some knowledge of the 
 nature and habits of the people, not only of Orissa proper, but of its 
 hm tracts known as the Gurjat or the Tributary Mehals. So far as 
 my knowledge extends, I can say that the consumption of opium 
 by the people of my province has had no bad effect on them 
 either morally or physically. On the contrary, I know people taking 
 opium for twenty years or more to have kept very good health. They | 
 never use opium for non-medical purposes. At least I have no knowl- | 
 edge of this, though opium-smoking is resorted to by some for plea- 
 sure or for other purposes, an excessive indulgence of which leads to some 
 mischief. But such cases are few and far between. 
 
 Q. — Is the habit common among the people ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say it is common. 
 
 Q. — What opinion can you give, say about what ? 
 
 A. — The percentage is five to ten per cent. 
 
 Q. — Amongst the Hill population ? 
 
 A. — About five to ten per cent. 
 
 Q. — At what age do people take to this habit ? 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 A. — They take to it at forty, there are some also who take it at 
 twenty. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell us the amount people generally eat ? 
 
 A. — I know people taking more than two grains daily on the 
 average, there are others who take it in excess. 
 
 Q. — In the morning or in the evening ? 
 
 A. — Both morning and evening. 
 
 Q. — They take it during the day also ? 
 
 A. — As a rule in the morning and evening. 
 
 Q. — Is there any tendency to increase the dose ? 
 
 A.— No. 
 
 Q. — Do you consider that it has any bad effect upon their health and 
 morals ? 
 
 A.— No. 
 
 Q. — You have some remarks upon the classes of people called the 
 Pans — what would you say about them 7 
 
 A. — Of a class of people called Pans, known as the criminal class in 
 some of the hill states, I can say that seldom a Pan takes opium, and 
 I never saw one who committed any crime, the cause of which could be 
 attributed to his habit of opium-eating, I may here state that opium has, 
 on the other hand, a very deterrent effect on crime. Of all people, opium- 
 
 I eaters and opium-smokers have a terrible dread of jail, which deprives 
 them of the free and timely use of the drug, and it is an intoxication 
 which brooks no delay. 
 
 Q. — Do all these tribes eat opium ? 
 
 A. — Very few. 
 
 Q. — Do they indulge in country liquor 7 
 A. — They do. 
 
 Q. — For what reason do the people take to opium 7 
 A. — For medicinal purposes, for bowel complaints, for fever, and for 
 the disease known as elephantiasis and sympathetic fever, which it brings 
 on, and for dysentery. 
 
 Q. — Is elephantiasis common 7 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q, How is the habit regarded in Cuttack and the Mehali — disgrace- 
 
 ful ? 
 
 A . — It is not disgracefully regarded. 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 Q. — In what light do people look upon it ? 
 
 A. — They are in a manner indifferent. They don’t think ill of one 
 who takes opium, nor is it a disgrace — unless a man here and there is 
 known to have taken it to excess. 
 
 Q. — Does the habit extend to women as well as men ? 
 
 A. — Women form the exception, very rare. 
 
 Q. — What would be the general feeling there as to the prohibition of 
 opium? 
 
 A. — With every deference to the Commission, I should say that it 
 will not only be highly impolitic, but extremely unwise to introduce any 
 prohibitive measure for the suppression of consumption either entirely 
 or to a hmited extent. People of my country are not and will not be 
 prepared to bear in whole or in part the loss of revenue that would 
 inevitably be the result of such a measure giving thereby rise to wide- 
 spread discontent. 
 
 Q. — Have you any remarks upon the licensing system ? 
 
 A. — The existing system I consider in no way bad, because the 
 Government has already devised good measures for licensing the sale of 
 opium. 
 
 Q. — Can you teU us anything about opium-smoking ? 
 
 A. — It is not common, but there are people who do smoke it. 
 
 Q. — What do they smoke ? 
 
 A. — Only opium, it is called gooli, and madak. Chandu is-not 
 common in my part. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything else to say ? 
 
 A. — I ask permission to say this : — I heard it yesterday stated by 
 Dr. Morison that Cuttack was not a malarious district. He, I think, 
 meant the town proper, as I would say the district was malarious. 
 Cuttack is not malarious within a radius of seven or eight miles, but the 
 greater part, not the whole tract, is malarious. The western part of the 
 district is regarded as malarious. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray : — Q. — You say that the people in Orissa use 
 opium for non-medical purposes ; will you explain what you mean by 
 non-medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — I mean that after a certain age, people of my country take 
 it for the sake of their health. For medical purposes I mean for com- 
 plaints, such as bowel complaints, fever, rheumatism, dysentery, or 
 something of that sort. 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 Q. — About what number of European medical men are there in 
 Orissa ? 
 
 A. — The number will not be very large, not more than half a dozen. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell how many opium shops there are in Orissa ? 
 
 A. — I cannot exactly say that. 
 
 Q. — What is the price of opium in Orissa now ? 
 
 A. — The Government upset price is Rs. 32 per seer, and it is sold 
 at from ten to twelve tolas, which is equal to 180 grains for a rupee. 
 
 Q. — Do you think if the number of shops were further reduced, 
 that the people would be able to get opium if they wanted it for medi- 
 cinal purposes ? 
 
 A. — No, I do not think so, because the Government provides shops 
 according to the number of people for local wants and increases or 
 diminishes them accordingly. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — What are your duties as Assistant Superin- 
 tendent ? 
 
 A. — I assist the Superintendent of the Mehals in all executive 
 work and correspondence work. I am a Deputy Magistrate and try 
 criminal cases and boundary disputes, and I have to assist the Sessions 
 Judge. 
 
 Q. — Are you aware whether anyone has objected to or challenged 
 the use of opium for medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — The question we are discussing is chiefly the dietetic use ; you 
 said that smoking is not respectable ; do they respect people who smoke ? 
 
 A. — Smoking is not considered respectable. 
 
 Q. — What is the general opinion in respect to smoking chanclu? 
 
 A. — Chandu smoMng is not prevalent. 
 
 Q. — In reference to smoking gooli ? 
 
 A. — The opinion is not good. 
 
 Q. — Do they approve of opium-eating ? 
 
 A. — I don’t think they approve of it, but they are indifferent. If 
 anybody takes to opium, they don’t think ill of him. 
 
 Q. — Which parts of the district are most malarious ? 
 
 A. — The Western parts and Eastern parts of the Cuttack District? 
 the North-Eastern part of the Balasore District, and certain parts of 
 the Puri District. 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 Q. — What is the consumption of opium in these different districts ? 
 
 A, — I cannot say. 
 
 Q. — In which district is the sale of opium the largest? 
 
 A. — The Balasore district ; and in Puri and the Tributary Mehals, 
 
 less, 
 
 Q. — Is there any relation between the consumption of opium and the 
 prevalence of malaria ? 
 
 A. — I think there is, because the population being less, opium is 
 consumed more largely. 
 
 Q. — Do European Medical officers recommend people to take opium 
 regularly ? 
 
 A, — I am not aware. 
 
 Q. — Do the Natives ? 
 
 A. — Yes, they do. 
 
 Q. — Do Native doctors recommend it to prevent attacks of fever ? 
 
 A. — Not only fever but also other diseases. 
 
 Q, — I want to know, not whether they give it as a remedy, but do 
 they recommend it to be taken regularly ? 
 
 A. — Yes, they do. 
 
 Q. — Who are the Pans? 
 
 A. —They are a tribe, and they also form a caste. They are a 
 criminal tribe. 
 
 Q. — In what respect are they especially criminal? 
 
 A. — They are robbers and thieves. 
 
 Q. — May I take it that the population of the district take it for 
 medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — Yes, but others take it for pleasure. A large proportion take 
 it for medical purposes. 
 
 By Lord Brassey. — Q. — You refer to cases of excess, are they 
 numerous ? 
 
 A. — No ; they are few and far between. 
 
 Evidence of &auri Sanlsar E07. 
 
 Examined by Mr. Fanshawe. — Q. — Are you a resident of Cuttack 
 and have you Hved there all your life? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Are you connected with the Government ? 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 
 t| 
 
 A. — I was formerly a translator in the Judge’s Court, but I am 
 now on pension. 
 
 Q. — Has your experience been entirely in the Cuttack District? 
 
 A. — Entirely. 
 
 Q. — What do you know of the opium habit ; is it common in 
 that district ? 
 
 A. — Opium is largely consumed in the District of Cuttack, of which 
 I am an inhabitant, but I have not noticed any marked ill-effect on the phy- 
 sical or moral condition of those who use it. The generahty of opium-eaters 
 take it moderately, and they not only keep good health and enjoy long 
 life, but are as sober and well-behaved as those who do not take it. I 
 have seen some of my friends restored to good health after long suffering 
 by taking opium. There is no doubt some persons abuse it by indulging 
 in excessive smoking for pleasure or immoral purposes, and suffer in 
 consequence in health and reputation I have seen some persons give 
 up drink by taking opium. • 
 
 Q. — What quantity is taken ? 
 
 A. — Those who use it moderately, take about half a pice or one 
 pice worth daily, but most of the people take less than one pice. 
 
 Q. — When do they take it ? 
 
 A. — In the morning, some twice. 
 
 Q. — What is the general practice ? 
 
 A. — Some in the evenings and some both in the morning and 
 evening. 
 
 Q. — At what age is the habit generally acquired ? 
 
 A. — Some take it after twenty, and many after thirty-five and 
 forty. 
 
 Q. — Have you any knowledge of women using opium ? 
 
 A. — Very few. 
 
 Q. — These would be amongst the cultivating classes ? 
 
 A. — Not the cultivating classes, only artisans. 
 
 Q. — I am speaking of women now ? 
 
 A. — The women of the town only. 
 
 Q. — Are cases of taking in excess common ? 
 
 A. — It is difficult to make out an excessive opium-eater. I know 
 some persons who take two annas’ worth daily ; they take it to excess. 
 
 Q. — Does it do them harm ? 
 
(.9 ) 
 
 A. — I have never seen opium-eaters suffer in health. 
 
 Q. — How is this habit generally regarded ? 
 
 A. — Opium-eating is generally excused. People don’t think much 
 of it. Taking an intoxicant is regarded as bad, but they tolerate opium, 
 
 Q. — Is there any tendency to increase the dose? 
 
 A. — In very exceptional cases. 
 
 Q. — For what purpose do they take it? 
 
 A. — Mostly for the sake of health. The prevalent opinion is that 
 opium-eating conduces to good health. After forty years, if a man 
 takes to opium he keeps good health. I have seen some persons suffer- 
 ing from sickness, who have tried all sorts of medicines and not get well, 
 take to opium and get right again, and continue so for ten years. 
 
 Q. — Is it used amongst the people as a domestic remedy? 
 
 A. — Yes ; both for use and as an external application. 
 
 Q. — For what class of disease do they use it? 
 
 A. — Bowel complaints and a fever called baghdal, and elephantiasis. 
 This is a very common disease. 
 
 Q. — Is there any belief amongst the people that it protects them 
 from fever ? 
 
 A. — It is a very common belief. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything further to say ? 
 
 A. — At one time, there was much tendency to use opium for non- 
 medical purposes. It is not so now ; and I attribute this to the benefic- 
 ial measures taken by Government to check its consumption, especially 
 the prohibition of smoking in licesed shops. No more prohibitory mea- 
 sures are called for, 
 
 Q. — What do you mean by the abuse of opium for non-medical pur- 
 poses ? 
 
 A. — For luxury, 
 
 Q. — Is it used as a stimulant ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Amongst the poorer classes or wealthier classes? 
 
 A. — Amongst the better off as well as the artisan classes. After 
 finishing their day’s work, they come to the shops and smoke. 
 
 Q. — Are you referring to smoking, or only eating? 
 
 A. — To both. 
 
 Q. — You say it is used as a luxury or indulgence ? 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 A. — I am referring to that. 
 
 Q- If opium was prohibited in Cuttack, do you think people could 
 get it for a domestic remedy ? 
 
 A. — If it were prohibited how could they? 
 
 Q. — If it was prohibited except for medical purposes, would there be 
 any difficulty in gettmg it ? 
 
 A. — If they could get it for medical purposes nobody would mind 
 prohibition. 
 
 Q.— If it were prohibited except for medical use, how would the peo- 
 ple in the villages get it ? 
 
 A. — I do not know. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Wilson : — I don’t understand your opinion about 
 smoking. You say that you would like to see further restrictive mea- 
 sures ? 
 
 A. — I mean to say that there has been one beneficent measure, the pro- 
 hibition of opium smoking in licensed shops ; but since that prohibition, 
 people gather in private houses and smoke, and this should be stopped. 
 
 Q. — You would like to see more prohibition? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Why then do you say no more prohibition is necessary? 
 
 A. — I meant, as regards the sale in licensed shops. 
 
 Q. — You say cultivators don’t take much ? 
 
 A. — No. I have been in the interior of the district, surrounded by 
 cultivators, and they don’t take it much : the artisan class take most. 
 
 Q. — Do they live in malarial districts ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Women don’t take much opium ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — Are they less liable to malaria than men ? 
 
 A. — Not that I know. 
 
 Q. — You say that people would object to the additional burden of 
 taxation, if prohibition was enforced ; who has made this suggestion ? 
 
 A. — It is talked about in the place, that opium will be abolished and 
 people will have to pay taxes. 
 
 Q. — Would it be possible in the villages of your district to get 
 suitable persons appointed to sell opium, without getting any profit, as 
 a medicine and not as an intoxicant ? 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 A. — It would be very difficult to get such men. 
 
 Q, — It would be impossible ? 
 
 A. — How can such a man be found in villages ? 
 
 Q. — Do any doctors, either Europeans or natives recommend opium 
 to be taken regularly as a preventive for fever ? 
 
 A. — I am not aware of doctors giving it. 
 
 Evidence of Elins'vran Chnnder Das. 
 
 Examined by Mr. Faushawe. — Q. — State who you are and what you 
 know of the opium habit. 
 
 A. — I am a resideut of Orissa, and am a genuine Uria myself. I 
 also belong to a family of old landholders. I possess, therefore, some ^ 
 knowledge of the people of my country. I am of opium that the con- j 
 sumption of opium has not resulted in any bad effect on the moral or t 
 physical condition o*f my people. They use it for medicine and to avoid 
 other climatic influences, as I know people of Balasore use it. It 
 unfortunately sometimes happens that excessive use of it, not in its raw 
 state, but when converted into some other preparations, such as madak » 
 or chundu, leads to some mischievous results. But from wliat I know, 
 such cases are proportionately very few. 
 
 Q. — What restriction would you suggest ? 
 
 X. — The stoppage of the public sale of madak and chundu. 
 
 Q.— How do you compare the effects of the use of opium with 
 alcoliol ? 
 
 A. — It is not such a deleterious drug as alcohol. 
 
 Q. — Do you consider that the use of opium leads to crime ? 
 
 A. — Opium eating is not so bad as drinking wine. 
 
 Q. — What do you say as to the proposal to prohibit the use of 
 opium for other than medical purposes ? • 
 
 A. — Opium is always used in my country for medical purposes. I 
 should not recommend its prohibition, and it is certain that its prohibi- 
 tion would lead to difficulties. The people of my country are poor and 
 should not be burdened with further taxes. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Wilson : — Would you prohibit the use of alcohol? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q.— By Mr. Faushawe : —You have experience of the Balasore dis- 
 trict, is -there a large consumption of opium there? 
 
 a!— Y es. 
 
 Q. — There are no large towns in Balasore? 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 A. — lialasore is not so largo a town as Cuttack, and its population 
 is almost entirely cultivators and dshermen. 
 
 Q.— The cultivating classes use opium? 
 
 A. — Yes, rheumatic pains are prevalent here. 
 
 Q. — 'For what diseases is opium taken ? 
 
 A. — Rheumatism, elephantiasis, inflammatory fever, bowel com- 
 plaints, and dysentery. 
 
 Q. — Is elephantiasis very common? 
 
 A. — Yes, a quarter of the population suffer from it. 
 
 Q. — Rice is the ordinary staple of the country? 
 
 A. —Yes. 
 
 Q. — Dr. Walsh told us the other day that some forms of rice are 
 bad, that it causes diarrhoea, but poor people are obliged to eat it. 
 
 A. — That may be, but I don’t know it from my own experience. 
 
 Q. — Some parts of the district are healthy, and others not? 
 
 A. — The northern part of Balasore is malarious and the other parts 
 are healthy. 
 
 Q. — Is opium eating more common in the parts where there is fever 
 or malaria? 
 
 A. — Opium is taken generally by those who suffer from rheumatic 
 pains. 
 
 Q. — You have no knowledge that it is taken more in the malarious 
 parts than others? 
 
 A.— No. 
 
 Q. — Is it taken in the mornings or evening? 
 
 A. — Some take it both in the mornings and evenings and some in 
 the evenings only. Many take it in the evenings. 
 
 Q. By Sir James Lyall : — Do they take it more in the cold or in 
 
 the hot weather? 
 
 A. — All the year round. 
 
 Q_ _Is alcohol taken habitually by all classes? 
 
 A. No ; there are no habitual drunkards. Some palm cultivators 
 
 take alcohol and some opium. Those habituated to alcohol give it up by 
 taking opium. 
 
 Q By Mr. Wilson : — Can you give us any idea of the proportion 
 
 of cultivators in the Balasore district who take opium regularly? 
 
 A. — Three quarters of the people take it. 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 Evidence of Er. Earn Mohnn Eoy. 
 
 Examined by the President. — Q. — What is your position. 
 
 A. — 1 am at present Medical Officer at Sambhunatly Pandit’s Dis- 
 pensary, at Bhowanipore, Calcutta, an institiitionJftadc ov/r to the Corpora- 
 tion of Calcutta since July 1890, and entirely inde|iendenVoi, fifovernment 
 aid or control, I was in the service of Government for a good many yearsi 
 but resigned it in 1890. I have been at Bhowanipore ■'fttf''"ur[TvraTds of 
 fourteen years, where I have, I may say, an extensive practice also. 
 
 Q- — What would you say as to the value of opium as a medicine ? 
 
 A. — The multifarious uses of opium in diverse diseases and com- 
 plaints, and its usefulness therein, ai’e well-known to those in the medical 
 profession as well as those out of it. It is one of tlie three medicines medical 
 men have learnt to rely upon. If the practice of medicine be restricted to three 
 medicines, and a practitioner called upon to treat two patients with only 
 three medicines and elect them out of tlie legion in the whole range of the 
 Materia Medica, both official and non-official, he would be sirre to name 
 quinine, opium, and mercury. Though mercury has, of late, somewhat 
 lost its position, opium has maintained it, and is likely ever to maintain 
 it. From this it will be seen how opium is regarded in the practice of 
 medicine, in the cure or relief of the sufferings to which mankind and 
 brutes are subject. But the subject-matter of this enquiry, I believe, is 
 not so much medicinal use as its use for dietetic purposes. I shall, there- 
 fore, confine myself to its effects such as are produced on persons habitua- 
 ted to take it either through sheer necessity or for luxury. As my practice 
 has been almost entirely confined to the better class of people who never 
 or very rarely smoke opium, I have not had much opportunity of observ- 
 ing wbat effect opium produces when smoked habitually. I have casually 
 met with opium-smokers, but I have never had an opportunity of studying, 
 and, far less, coming to any conclusion, as regards its effects. Besides, 
 opium-smoking is considered to be a stigma, and people who indulge in it 
 would not confess it even if they did it. And then, when smoked in 
 moderation it produces no symptoms, nor any particular appearance on the 
 person rising it to make one suspect it. I know some persons, though 
 their numbers are not large, who smoke opium. Tb.ey are in affluent cir- 
 cumstances, and thus in a position to command a good living. Tliere 
 is nothing in their person which can make one su.sjx'ct tliem of the habit. 
 They have not deteriorated in body or mind in the least, though they have 
 been using it for a long time. It is only when a person indulges in it, 
 and has not the means to supply himself with the proper amount of food, 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 that he deteriorates in body and mind, and one can easily find him ont by his 
 , appearance. Amongst the better class of people the habit is commenced 
 under a fancied or real belief in its aphrodisiac power, which it certainly 
 possesses, at least for some time. 
 
 Q. — What is the result of your observations as regards eating ? 
 
 A. — Then as regards eating opium. Here, hr India, especially in 
 Bengal, in which the whole of my experience has been gained, after a 
 patient, careful, and sifting enquiry and observation, extending over up 
 wards of twelve years, since 1881 , it is taken either in the shape of pills or- 
 in a solution of water, but rarely in the shape of alcoholic extract or its 
 active principle, morphia. It is originally commenced to be taken in the 
 shape of pills, once, twice, and sometimes, but very rarely, three times a 
 day. It is only when in any case, after a long mse in the shape of pills, 
 it begins to show any of its bad effects, such as insomnia or loss of ap- 
 petite, that the watery extract is substituted for it. Morphia is always 
 taken on medical advice. 
 
 Q. — Have you ever considered the effects of morphia or opium upon 
 yourself ? 
 
 A.~Compelled by a sheer necessity for alienating the most ex- 
 I cruciating pains of rheumatism, in 1881 , I commenced, under medical 
 : advice, to take morphia, the first dose of which was given to me by the 
 doctor himself. I took it in an increasing dose till it reached three grains 
 or a little more every day. I continued the habit for some time, even 
 after I was cured, but gave it up in one day, without feeling any the worse 
 for it. Almost simultaneously sugar was found in my urine, and I was 
 advised to take opimn. I was quite unwilling to take it before I was 
 satisfied tlwit it would do me no harm in the end, and I began my enquiry 
 about its effects. I set myself to the work, and the extensive practice I 
 have had offered every opportunity and facility for it. In a short time I got 
 all the necessary information, and being satisfied, I began the habit, and 
 took it up to twenty-four grains a day — i.e., twelve grains morning and 
 evening. The effect was all that could be desired. From the very first 
 day I began to feel new life in me; gloominess and anxiety vanished; 
 appetite returned; dyspepsia disappeared ; the bowels gradually be- 
 came regular; insomnia gave way to refreshing sleep; the power of 
 fixing attention (which was lost) was restored, and that of endurance 
 developed so much that I was better able to carry on my practice than 
 ever before. I work ninteen hours a day regularly and sleep for five 
 hours only. I would be quite useless and unfit for anything were it not 
 for opium. The enquiry I sot myself to in 1 ^ 1 , I have always continu- 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 ed, and I have failed yet to find a man the worse for It who takes it in 
 moderation. I have since reduced my dose to six grains a day, not for 
 any bad effects produced on me, but because I have found it to have the 
 effects I desire it to have. I had constipation lasting for five or six days 
 in 1889, and I reduced the quantity from twenty-four to six grains. 
 I found it served my purpose, and as a less quantity was found to do 
 as well. I have not resumed the larger. I can give up the 
 thing any day I like, but as it does me good and has 
 never produced any ill-effects, I have kept it up. It gives me 
 much greater power of endurance to go through my arduous work ; it 
 gives me power to resist the effects of exposure to cold and heat better 
 than I ever did before. Under it I can think better, understand things 
 more quickly, talk better, write better, eat well, and sleep well, and I am 
 full of spiiit and energy, and can undergo any amount of hardship and 
 fatigue. Ho one, up to this, although I have been taking opium for over a 
 decade, has been able to make out that I take opium, aud there are not 
 many persons even now who know that I do take opium, although I come 
 across quite a multitude of people in the practice of my profession. Had it 
 not been for the paper I read before the Medical Society in 1882, no more 
 than four persons would have known it, i.e., the shopkeeper from whom I 
 buy it, my servant who brings it, my compounder who makes it into pills, 
 and my wife who keeps it for me. 
 
 Q. — In what light do the people of Bengal regard the practice of 
 making use of opium, is it regarded as a thing which they are ashamed 
 of from a moral point of view ? 
 
 A. — It is never concealed, and it is never considered as a disgrace, 
 otherwise, I, as a medical man, would never give it, and keep it a secret. 
 People of Bengal at least never take opium except when alone This 
 coupled with the fact that they manifest no external or objectionable 
 symptoms, physical or mental, prevents other peoplfe from making out 
 as to who takes opium and who not. He will have to wait long who 
 wants to find out an opium-eater by appearance. 
 
 Tlie result of a patient and careful enquiry and observation, extend- 
 ing over a period of twelve years, have led me the following conclusions : — 
 
 (1.) That it is a very useful medicine in acute and chronic diarrhoea, 
 dysentery, diabetes, asthma, chronic bronchitis, dyspepsia and gastric 
 colic, rheumatism, diarrhoea stage of cholera, &c., &c., and that in all 
 these diseases people take to it either under medical advice or at the sugges- 
 tion of friends. It is quite a domestic medicine, and is resorted to by the 
 people from their experience of its usefulness in those diseases. 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 (2.) That it is really a blessing from above in a country where 
 scientific medical aid has not up to date been able to reach even one per 
 cent of its population. It is a blessing conferred by God on the people, 
 and no]man should take it away. 
 
 (3.) That it really prevents, frequently, relapses of malarious fever. 
 India, especially Bengal, is essentially a malaria-producing country ; its 
 soil saturated with sub-soil moisture, and its atmosphere surcharged with 
 humidity, -and its temperature undergoing very great diurnal variation — 
 sometimes a variation of twenty or more degrees from mid-day to mid- 
 night. People who are badly fed and badly clothed, tlirouglr extreme 
 poverty, ha^fing no means to protect themselves against such depressing 
 influences, fall victims to the disease. Opium, though not prophylactic 
 against malaria in the sense that quinine is, acts as a preventive to mala- 
 rious fever, by giving greater power of endurance and a power to resist 
 the effects of cold and dampness. People by experience having come 
 to know this well-known beneficial effect of opium, use it very largely for 
 the purpose. Since the introduction of railways and artificial irrigation 
 in India, and the consequent increase of sub-soil moisture due to obstruc- 
 tion to the natural drainage of the country, malarious fever and its multi- 
 farious diresome sequels have increased to a very considerable extent, and 
 the increased use of opium has kept pace with it. I am an inhabitant 
 of one of the most, if not the most, malaria-stricken districts (Hooghly) 
 of Bengal, and I know how malaria has been playing havoc, and how the 
 remnant of the people have kept body and soul together by opium. To 
 do away with such an agent will be fatal to the country. We are thankful 
 to the people of Britian for their increased sympathy, but we should be 
 more thankful to them if they had directed their energy and sjmipathy in 
 other quarters than this. Their interference against the use of of opium 
 makes us exclaim, “ God, save us from our friends,” and “ Recall your 
 dogs, Ave do not Avant your charity,” “ Viksha nahin mangta baba, karta 
 bolai lige.” 
 
 (4.) That people at or above forty years of age use it more largely 
 than those under it with a vieAV to keep them agoing ; younger people 
 who use it generally do it under medical advice. 
 
 (5.) That it has neA’er been knoAvn to do any injury to body or 
 mind if used judiciously and in proper quantities. 
 
 (6) That the ill-effects attributed to its use are from its excessive 
 or inordinate use, but even in this its evil effects are nothing compared to 
 the evil effects of even the moderate use of alcoholic liquors. 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 Q. —By Sir William Roberts : — -Yoa say that you reduced the use of 
 opium from t^yeuty-four grains a day to six grains a day, and that this 
 amount served your purpose ; did you try to reduce the amount still 
 further ? 
 
 A. — No, I have not tried it. I tried it once ; I went out and was 
 delayed, and not getting it, I felt depressed. 
 
 Q. — 'When you postponed taking your dose you found yourself 
 worse ? 
 
 A —Yes. 
 
 Q. — Yo'u have put in a table which is a remarkable one, and one 
 which in my eyes is, by far, tire most valuable contribirtion which you 
 could give before the Commission. I wish to ask you how you prepai’ed 
 that table and how long you were collecting the facts ? 
 
 A. — I know all these cases, and know everything relating to them. 
 
 Q. — They were all collected personally ? 
 
 A, — I have myself taken down the evidence and facts by seeing the 
 patients. I sent for many of them. 
 
 Q. — There were no agents employed? 
 
 A. — All my own. Only one man has died, and him I knew. 
 
 Q. — Are they all males ? 
 
 A. — Five are females. I have given particulars, and anyone can 
 see them and ascertain the facts. 
 
 Q. — There is one man here who is said to be a great age ? 
 
 A. — This is a man whom all the people of Bhowanipore know very 
 \tc 11. Every one considers him to be a living wonder. I can swear to 
 the accuracy of the statements ; they were all taken by me in my own 
 hand in the presence of people. 
 
 Q. — You can put your finger upon these 215 people without any 
 trouble ? 
 
 A. — I would have no difficulty. 
 
 Q. — You have been addicted to take opium for twelve years ? 
 
 A. — I began in 1881. 
 
 Q. — Have you noticed whether eaters of long standing have become 
 very thin or emaciated ? 
 
 A. — No ; it is only smokers who manifest tliese ^symptoms. 
 
 Q. — You distinguish between smoking and eating ? 
 
 A. — Yes I do. 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 Q. — Your experience of smoking is not wide ? 
 
 A. — No, I only speak of eating. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Wilson : — Yon have spent a good deal of space in this 
 statement in reference to the much greater harm of alcohol ; are you in 
 favour of the prohibition of alcohol ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Are you in favour of placing any further restrictions upon the 
 sale of opium ? 
 
 A. — I am satisfied with the present restrictions regarding it. 
 
 Q. — Would you place any restrictions upon smoldng. 
 
 A. — I would place any amount of restriction upon smoking. 
 
 Q. — Would you prohibit chandu and madah. 
 
 A. — Of course, if it is possible. 
 
 Q. — I notice that out of these 215 cases there are only five 
 labourers. 
 
 A. — I have not counted them. 
 
 Q. — Most of them are clerks or person in tolerably good condition ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Would it make any difference if the people were ill-fed. 
 
 A. — It may lead to emaciation or something like that, but 1 don’t 
 believe in the absolute necessity of milk being given. I remember five or 
 SIX cases who never took any milk. There is a case here who takes half 
 a tola of opium daily, and he does not drink a drop of milk ; he is in very 
 nood condition. 
 
 O 
 
 Q. — You take it yourself for medical reasons ? 
 
 A. — Yes. I began it for rheumatism. 
 
 Q. — You notice that the introduction of railways in India has in- 
 creased the sub-soil moisture ; explain how that is. 
 
 A. — The natural fall is towards the river, and the railway runs 
 along the river-side and prevents the natural fall of water into the river. 
 The water becomes stagnant and it remains, there. 
 
 Q. — Have you any particular railway in your mind when you speak. 
 
 A — Yes, the East Indian Railway in particular. 
 
 Q. — I understand you to say that in the construction of this railway 
 there were not a sufficient number of culverts and bridges made to allow 
 of proper drainage. 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 A. — At the commencement there were not many, but you can’t expect 
 the water to go out as usual, as it used to do when the country was 
 vacant. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that the railway interferes with the drainage in 
 these cases. 
 
 A. — It does throughout. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Mowbray: — You seem to draw a great distinction 
 between taking opium and morphia ; is there any law regulating the sale 
 of morphia ? 
 
 A. — Morphia is not sold by common shopkeepers, but only in dis- 
 pensaries, so all can’t get it. People generally don’t know what morphia 
 is. 
 
 Q. — Is it sold under the druggists’ permit. 
 
 A. — Yes. I don’t think there is any law to restrict its sale by 
 licensed vendors. 
 
 Q. — It is as a matter of fact only sold by chemists ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Supposing the sale of opium was restricted to places where 
 morphia is now sold, do you think that there would be a sufficient supply 
 of places to meet the legitimate requirements of prople who desire to ob- 
 tain opium ? , 
 
 A. — You mean for medicinal purposes only, 
 
 Q. — What do you mean by medicinal purposes ? 
 
 A. — Its use in the treatment of actual disease, the actual cure of 
 disease, I call medical use. 
 
 Q. — Taking your view of medical use, are you of opinion that if 
 opium were restricted to places where morphia is now sold, it would be 
 sufficient to meet the requirements of the people wanting opium for that 
 purpose ? 
 
 A. — If the treatment of all cases were in the hands of European 
 scientific men, it would serve very well ; but the treatment of diseases in 
 common people is not in the hands of European doctors, but they are 
 treated by hakims, lay people and grandmothers. You must provide 
 opium in dispensaries for all these cases. 
 
 Q. — Strictly for legitimate medical purposes in your sense of the use 
 of that word, the present facilities for obtaining morphia would not be 
 sufficient for obtaining opium ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 Q. — I may take it that for further use, which I may call dietetic use 
 you consider it quite unsuitable ? 
 
 A. — It is quite unsuitable. 
 
 Q. — Do you consider its dietetic use a legitimate requirement on th® 
 part of the people of the country ? 
 
 A . — I certainly do. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Haridas : Did you reduce the amount from twenty- 
 four grains to six grains at once ? 
 
 A. — At once, in one day, that was the first thing I did, and I used 
 to take it three times a day before. 
 
 Q. — You were none the worse ? 
 
 A. — I may have felt a slight uneasiness, but it was nothing. 
 
 Q. — You were present at the meeting of the Calcutta Medical 
 society when you mentioned these 215 people ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — And you referred to them in your speech there ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Can you give me aiiy idea how many medical gentlemen were 
 present. 
 
 A. — The meeting wab tolerably well-attended ; that was my impres- 
 sion. 
 
 Q. — Were there twenty, thirty, or forty present ? 
 
 A. — Something like twenty. 
 
 Evidence of Dr. James E. Wallace. 
 
 Examined by the President. — Q.-- Kindly state what experience you 
 have had in Calcutta and what position you hold ? 
 
 A. — I am a Doctor of Medicine, and my experience concerning the 
 use of opium has been gained during fourteen years of work in Calcutta, 
 both in Government service and as an independent practitioner. I studied 
 medicine in the Calcutta Medical College, and when I obtained my Dip- 
 lomas as Physician and Surgeon in 1879, I was appointed Eesident 
 Surgeon and subsequently Eesident Physician to the Medical College 
 Hospital. I also held the appointment of Eesident Surgeon to the Eden 
 Hospital for AVomen and Children. Subsequently I resigned Government 
 service and entered independent practice. During these years I have 
 had numerous opportunities of observing the habits and customs of all 
 classes and sects of the Indian people in regard to the use of opium. My 
 
( n ) 
 
 practice is- a large and mixed one, dealing as it does with Europeans, 
 Eurasians, Hindus, Mahommedans, Burmese and Chinese. 
 
 Q. — Is there any difference between Europeans and Natives as 
 regards the habit ? 
 
 A. — I would dismiss Europeans and Eiirasiansby saying that I have 
 never met an opium user among them. I liaA'e found opium used chiefly^ 
 among Chinese, then Burmans, then Hindus, and least among Mahom- 
 medans. On an average among my Indian patients I would say the 
 percentage stood about thus : Chinese, 4, Burmese, 3, Hindus, 2, Mahom- 
 medans, 1. I came to know the opium-using propensities of patients 
 casually in the course of my enquiries concerning their diseases. The J 
 quantity generally taken was from one to three pice worth, or from one to j 
 fifteen grains a day. The majority of such eaters of opium had taken a fix- 
 ed daily dose for years without increasing it. I found a fair proportion, who ^ 
 had gone on slowly increasing the dose from half a grain of opium till in a 
 year or so they had reached the use of ten to fifteen grains daily. The 
 majority of such opium-eaters had begun the use of the drug under the 
 belief that it gives them strength and acted as an exhilarating stimulant. 
 
 I have found some who started the habit simply by the example of others. 
 
 Q. — What is the effect of opium in the case of moderate eaters ? 
 
 A. — In treating such cases medically I have invariably enjoined the 
 stoppage of the drug, as I felt that in most cases the drug itself, or the 
 dose taken, was incompatible with the line of treatment to be adopted, 
 
 I have invariably found patients addicted to even small doses of the drug 
 complain that they felt badly without it. Three or four days of abstin- 
 ence from the drug in many cases was sufficient to lull the cravings for 
 it. I have noticed great restlessness, digestive distress, looseness of the 
 bowels, and severe pains about the body and abdomen attend the sudden 
 stopping of the drag. I believe that many Natives who eat opium do so 
 under the advice of friends for its reputed relief in rheumatic pains, some 
 bronchial affections, bowel complaints and diabetes. 
 
 Q. — What is the result of your experience as to the effects of opium 
 in the case of malarial fever ? 
 
 A. — I have never heard any patient tell me it was taken to prevent 
 or to cure malarial fever. I have never seen or heard of any physician 
 in Calcutta or elsewhere who prescribes the use of opium for the preven- 
 tion or cure of malarial fever. I have recently read of the good effect 
 of opium in preventing and even curing malarial fever. I have given the 
 theory a fair and honest trial during the past ten or twelve months, and 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 ■ I am thoroughly conyinced that beyond reheying the bodily pains and 
 aches of malarial fever, it in no way prevents or shortens its paroxysms. 
 I firmly believe that the action of opium in malarial disorders, in which 
 there is such a strong tendency to congestion of the liver, spleen and 
 kidneys is not only distinctly contra-indicated, but its administration in 
 many such cases would be undoubtedly harmful. I base this opinion 
 upon my own deliberate experience, as I have frequently found serious 
 complications follow the use of opium when given as a sedative in cases 
 where the liver had undergone inflammatory or degenerative change from 
 any cause. I base this opinion further upon the teaching and practice of 
 many able and experienced Indian physicians, such men as Norman 
 Chevers, David B. Smith, Coates, Harvey, and McConnell, men whose 
 lectures and practice I have attended and seen, and from whom I never 
 heard a word of commendation for the use of opium in malarial fever, men 
 who, as far as my recollection serves me, have always condemned the use 
 of opium in congested conditions of the liver — a condition which sooner 
 or later complicates every case of malarial fever. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything further to say in reference to your personal 
 knowledge as to the practice and opinions of other physicians ? 
 
 A. — First as a student and then as Resident Physician and as 
 Resident Surgeon to the Medical College Hospital, I had constant 
 opportunities of seeing the practice of such able men as Doctors Chevers, 
 Smith, Coates, Harvey, McConnell, McLeod, Raye, and others, and I 
 never knew one of them to prescribe opium in any form as a prophylactic 
 or as a remedy in malarial fever, I can, however, vividly recall the 
 frequent condemnation of Dr. Norman Chevers while Professor of 
 Medicine, and I know of his recorded opinions against the use of opium, 
 both in his work on Medical Jurisprudence in India and his last great 
 work on the Diseases of India. 
 
 Q. — Speaking of these opinions, you attended the lectures of Dr, 
 Norman Chevers, and speak from personal knowledge ? 
 
 A. — Yes. Quoting from the latter book, page 576, Dr. Chevei-s 
 says of opium-eaters and smokers ; “All who have seen much of these 
 unfortunates recognise the fact that in India and China, those habituated 
 to the use of opium, are very liable to fall victims to diarrhoea. * * * 
 Others, especially among the Mussulmans, addicted to the smoking of 
 narcotic drugs, the abuse of which brings on a debilitated state of the 
 system with nervous tremor, and not unfrequently temporary delirium, 
 which sometimes ends in confirmed mania, while in all, sooner or later, 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 the habit is followed by emaciation, weakness, indigestion, and fatal 
 diarrhoea. * * * Treatment is always unsatisfactory, and but seldom 
 followed by a thorough or permanent restoration to health. * - * Men 
 addicted to narcotics seldom remain longer than a month or two at duty, 
 and are at last very generally lost to the service by death or by being 
 discharged.” Quoting also from page 453 : — “A large proportion of 
 the inmates of asylums for Natives are found to be habitual ganja-smok- 
 ers and opium-eaters, and many of these are epileptic.” 
 
 Q. — Do you draw any distinction between the effects of opium taken 
 in a solid form and opium-smoking ? 
 
 A. — I have very little personal experience of smoking. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything further to say from your personal knowledge 
 as to the effects of opium ? 
 
 A — While the moderate use of opium by those in good circumstances, 
 who are able to provide themselves with wholesome nourishing food, may 
 not afford appreciable evidence of any marked harmful result, so long as 
 the drug is regularly taken, I have seen otherwise strong and healthy men 
 rendered almost helpless and unfit for work of any kind and even suffering 
 fi’om diarrhoea and pain when deprived of their accustomed moderate doso 
 of opium. I would assume from this that even in moderation, the use of 
 opium exercises a baneful influence on the human economy. I have also 
 seen many opium sots, men who were absolute physical wrecks from the 
 excessive and continued use of opium. I have seen such specimens in 
 three visits that I have made to opium dens in Calcutta, A report of one of 
 these visits I published in the Indian Medical Record for September, 1892, 
 and I tender that report as part of my evidence. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything to say in regard to the value of opium as a 
 medicine ? 
 
 A. — While admitting that opium is one of the most reliable thera- 
 peutic agents known to science to assuage pain, to calm nervous irritability 
 in various fomis and as a sedative, hypnotic and suporific, it stands un- 
 equalled by any other drug in the physician’s hands, I cannot help regard- 
 ing it as inimical to health when taken otherwise than as a medicine. I 
 know from numerous enquiries among Indians that opium-eating is regard- 
 ed as a vice its users are ashamed to admit the habit, that its continued 
 use causes emaciation, bowel derangement, and general vital impairment, 
 associated with marked moral delinquency. I have also seen and treated 
 many cases of opinm poisoning, and in many who have been rescued from 
 suicidal death, I have learnt that opium was chosen as the suicidal agent, 
 because of its pleasantly intoxicating effects robbing the act of suicide of 
 much of its terror. I cannot read daily of the numerous cases of suicidal 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 I and liouiicidal deaths from opium, without helieving that’too easy, pleasant, 
 I and effective a weapon is placed within the reach of the suicide and the 
 I murderer. Having regard to all these circumstances, I am strongly of 
 j opinion that the strictest limits and safeguards should be placed upon the 
 sale and use of opium. 
 
 Q. — Have you formed any opinion as to the practicability of what has 
 been urged before the Commission in reference to the total prohibition of 
 the use of opium ? 
 
 A. — I think it would be utterly impossible. 
 
 Q. — Ho you think it practicable in this country to lay down regula- 
 tions which would give sufficient facilities for obtaining a supply for 
 medicinal use only limiting the use of opium as a medicine ? 
 
 A. — I think it is possible. 
 
 Q. — Do you compare in your mind the effects of opium and the 
 effects of alcohol ? 
 
 A. — In my opinion opium can never take the place of alcohol in the 
 way that Western science has taught physicians to use the latter. 
 
 Q. — Do you approve of the moderate use of alcohol as an ordinary 
 article of consumption ? 
 
 A. — Under medical advice. 
 
 Q. — But without medical advice you would not say that it would be 
 well for all persons to abstain from the use of alcohol ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — By Sir William Eoberts. — I do not think your view regarding 
 opium as a true prophylactic differ greatly from the views generally held 
 in the profession ? 
 
 A. — It is in accordance with the opinion held by practitioners, 
 
 Q. — It is generally understood that opium does relieve the incidental 
 symptmos of the malarial conditioir as an anodyne ? 
 
 ‘A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — It is said to be more risky, as regards liability to take malarial 
 fever, to go outside of a morning on an empty stomach than with some- 
 thing in it ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Has it not struck you that opium might act as a preventive in 
 the same way ? 
 
 A. — I think not. 
 
 Q.— What is the date of Chevers’ work from which you quoted? 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 A. — It is published by Churchill, dated 1886. 
 
 Q. — You refer to the large proportion of lunatics who are ganja 
 smokers and opium-eaters ; are you aware that the statistics of returns 
 from asylums contradict that opinion ? 
 
 A. — I am aware of it, but these statistics do not make ample provi- 
 sions for recording the habits of these inmates. 
 
 Q. — You deny that those who indulge in narcotics remain long in 
 their employ ; is that a fact ? 
 
 A. — I believe it is. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Wilson. — May we take it for granted, that so fai as 
 you know, the universal conviction of educated -medical men is that for 
 Europeans opium is not to be recommended for dietetic purposes ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — In reference to Natives, what is your answer ? 
 
 A. — I would say it was the same in regard to Natives. 
 
 Q. — Suppose you substitute the word “ stimulant” for the word 
 “ dietetic ?” 
 
 A. — I can not regard opium as a stimulant in the sense tliat we 
 generally use the word for alcohol. I don’t recommend it as a stimulant. 
 
 Q. — You don’t believe that medical men recommend people to take it 
 as a prophylactic ? 
 
 A. — Orthodox medical men don’t so recommend it. 
 
 Q.— Is it sometimes used combined with other things ? 
 
 A. — Possibly, if the use for it may arise, such as in diarrhoea. 
 
 Q. — You spoke of opium as an anodyne, and you draw a distinction 
 between an anodyne and a stimulant ? 
 
 A. — There is a very clear distinction. 
 
 Q. — You read a report in the Indian Medical Gazette of the discus- 
 sion at the Calcutta Medical Society on the subject, are you a member 
 of the Society ? 
 
 A. — I am not. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q.— Why ? 
 
 A. — I was secretary to that society some years ago, but it came to be of 
 a very official character and I resigned. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — You have read the report, and you don’t 
 quite agree with the majority who spoke upon that occasion ? 
 
 A, — Certainly not. 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 Q. — Am I riglit in supposing that these gentlemen represent sub- 
 stantially the opinions of the orthodox medical practitioners in Calcutta ? 
 
 A. — I believe it does not. 
 
 By Sir W. Eoberts. — Q. — Can you give any names ? 
 
 A. — Very recently Dr. Ball Madimb Mookerjee, the Principal of a 
 private medical school, called upon me and gave me his deliberate opinion 
 that some on the staff of the institution were wholly against the opinions 
 which were expressed before this Commission. He mentioned the names 
 of the staff, but the information was gratuitous. I forget the names, 
 but I can tell you by referring to the Medical Directory. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — What do you mean by “ official” character ? 
 
 A. — I would say that the society, practically, is connected with the 
 official medical journal, the Indian Medical Gazette, and that its reports 
 are made to this Gazette ; and it had at the time a large number of officials 
 and less so of general practitioners, therefore I say it is more or less of 
 an official society, the official element predominating. 
 
 Q. — This is an important point. We have had many medical wit- 
 nesses here ; can you clear the point in any way, as to the numbers of 
 orthodox practitioners in Calcutta, and those who belong to the society ? 
 
 A. — The Society numbers according to its last report, 117 members 
 of it, twenty-five of whom don’t reside in Calcutta. There are 780 quali- 
 fied practitioners in Calcutta, European and Native, practising according 
 to the European system. 
 
 By Sir W. Eoberts. — Q. — What is the subscription ? 
 
 A. — Three rupees per year. All these practitioners are graduates of 
 the Calcutta University, or of some European medical body. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — Do you think that this doctrine about the use 
 of opium in malaria is a comparatively modern doctrine ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I first heard it in the discussion at the Society, and since 
 then I gave the tlieory a trial. 
 
 Q. —By Mr. Mowbray. — In regard to the Indian Medical Gazette, 
 do I understand that it is official ? 
 
 A. — In this sense, that it is supported by the Government. 
 
 Q. — What is the Medical Record ? 
 
 A. — An Indian journal which I started five years ago, entirely sup- 
 ported by the medical profession in India. 
 
 Q. — I think you were in Government service yourself ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — How long ago 7 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 A. — From 1872 to 1883. 
 
 Q. — Did yoir resign subsequently to or before you resigned as a 
 member (;f the Calcutta Medical Society ? 
 
 A. — That was subsequent to resigning the Government seindce. 
 
 Q. — You suggest in your note that opium is often taken on 
 the advice of friends as a relief from pain ; is that a medical use? 
 
 A. — It is a medical irse. 
 
 Q. — Therefore, any provision of opium for medical purposes would 
 have to be sufficient to supply persons under those conditions ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that, after supplying persons who require it in 
 that way, you would go much further than you liave done in restricting 
 the places where it could be got ? 
 
 A. — I would not like to go into that (piestion, because I don’t un- 
 derstand it, — the sale of opium I mean. It seems to me that there is a 
 superabundant supply that should be restricted. 
 
 Q. — You must admit that there must be places for the supply of 
 opium, medically. I wish to know how, if you are to have these places 
 open for the sale of opium, you would be convinced they would not be 
 used for'other purposes? 
 
 A. — It is a very difficult matter to deal with, because friends very 
 often' prescribe medicines legitimately. Tiie use of opium for the relief of 
 pain is perfectly legitimate, and it is a want which would have to be met. 
 Owing to the conditions of the country, medical advice is meagre, and 
 people are obliged to resort to relief at their doors. If opium was 
 prescribed under these conditions, I don’t know how Government could 
 limit its sale to that kind of use. 
 
 Q. — You can not help me in making a distinction which may be 
 drawn between persons requiring opium for such purposes, and persons 
 requiring it for purely vicious purposes ? 
 
 A. — I don't know how it can be helped, but the less of opium for 
 vicious purposes the better, and this lies in the hands of the Government 
 to prevent. 
 
 Q. — We have had it suggested that the person in charge of these 
 places should have a discretionary power, do you think that this is a pow- 
 er which C(ndd be safely entrusted to them ? 
 
 A. — It will be worth not! ling if placed in the hands of opium sellers. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Fanshawc — In the course of your experience have yoir 
 knowledge of lunacy caused by opium ? 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 A.— No. 
 
 Q. — You talk of tho prevalence of the habit among all classes, what 
 classes do you refer to ? 
 
 A. — I believe amongst all classes in Calcutta. 
 
 Q. — Would you include the Marwaries ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — And amongst the Chinese ? 
 
 ( A. — Yes. All the people among whom I have practised regard it 
 as a vice. 
 
 Q. — If its use was prohibited, is there any tendency among Natives 
 to their taking to alcohol or ganja ? 
 
 A. — There might be. 
 
 Q. — By Sir James Lyall. — I understood you to say that you consi- 
 dered that the use of opium as a drug for malaria or a prophylactic, is a 
 new doctrine amongst medical men, but is not it an old doctrine amongst 
 the people of this country ? 
 
 A. — I have never heard it in my practice. 
 
 Q. — You don’t think they take opium to protect themselves against 
 cold ? 
 
 A. — I have never heard that they do so. 
 
 Q. — I have met at different times several people in India who have 
 told me that if they knew they would have to sleep out of dooi’s, or get 
 wet, or be subject to any exposure, that, as a protection they take a small 
 pill of opium. Don’t you think they are right in doing so ? 
 
 A. — I would warn all those people to avoid that pill. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Wilson. — I think you have lived most of your time 
 in Calcutta ; might not persons, who have no direct interest in the sale 
 of opium, be vested with the discretionary power ? 
 
 A. — Discretionary power is estimated according to the individuals to 
 whom it is given. It depends upon the individuals placed in charge, but 
 I think if such discretionary power were placed in the hands of a person 
 not interested in the sale you will find it to be a wise measure. 
 
 Q. — Don’t you think the Government of India would be able to 
 devise some plan ? 
 
 A. — I believe the Government capable of meeting the evil. The evil 
 would decline as generation after generation arose, and new arrangements 
 could be made to meet the circumstances of the next generation. 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 Q. — By Sir James Lyall. — In regard to the selection of these peo- 
 ple in the villages they would not be very highly paid or educated, and 
 do yon tliink these men could be trusted? 
 
 A. — I don’t think they could be trusted ; it would be difficult to 
 find people who could be trusted. 
 
 Q. — Would they sell the opium at the price named, only accounting 
 to Government for the Government price ? 
 
 A.— Knowing as much as I do, I should have a much better system 
 than that. 
 
 Q.— I don’t see what other system you can have ? 
 
 .k. — They are sure to be surrounded by all sorts of corruption, and the 
 last state will be worse than the first. 
 
 Q — If you put discretionary power into an ordinary Oriental’s hand, 
 is not he at once inclined to look and see how much money he can make 
 out of it ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. 
 
 Q. — This is the great administrative difficulty in India ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Evidence of Ur. K. G-. Gupta, Ezcise Commissioner of Bengal. 
 
 Q. — State what your jiosition is in the Civil service, and what are 
 your duties and experience generally. 
 
 A. — I have served twenty years, having come out in October, 1873 
 During this period I have served in several districts of Bengal and Orissa 
 in the usual grades from Assistant Magistrate to District Officer. I was 
 Junior Secretary to the Board of Revenue for four years, and in that 
 capacity had to deal with, among others, the Excise and Opium Depart- 
 ments. I have held my present appointment since March last. 
 
 Q. — What are the chief stimulants in use in Bengal ? 
 
 A. — The craving for stimulants is satisfied in these provinces from 
 three distinct sources, viz., (1) country liquor (including toddy or the 
 fermented juice of date and palmyra palm) ; (2) hemp drugs ; and 
 (3) opium. The first is preferred in dry districts with pronounced cold 
 and hot seasons, and containing a large non-Mahommedan population, as 
 in Behar and Chota-Kagpore. The use of hemp drugs is largest in wet 
 districts, such as Dacca, Mymensing, and the 24-Purgimnas, or in 
 malarious tracts such as the low alluvial portion of the Bhagulpore 
 Division lying to the north of the Ganges. Leaving aside Calcutta, where 
 the use of all exciseable articles is large, the consumption of opium is 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 largest along the seaboard from Chittagong to Pari, with the excci.tion 
 of Noakhahh, where tlie excise revenne from all sources is smallest owing 
 to the presence of a large proportion of Fcrazis, a sect of pnritanica'^] 
 Mahommedans who are great abstainers. It i.s likewise considerable in 
 districts containing a large element of Jlalmmmedan town popnlation, as 
 in Hoogldy, Bnrdnan, Mnrshidabad, and Patna, as well as in notoriously 
 malarious districts like Rungpur, Uinajpur, Malda, and Purnea. 
 
 Q. — Have you anything to say in respect of madak and 
 chundu. 
 
 A. — ^ ery little madalc is consumed in these provinces. Outside 
 Calcutta the use of mruhtk is practically confined to the 24-Purgunnas, 
 Midnapur, Hooghly, IMursliidabad, Malda, and Cuttack. The majority 
 of tlie consumers are low Mahommedans and in Malda these belong to 
 the Jola or weaver class. The use of chundu is still more limited. In 
 Calcutta the consumers are chiefly Chinese. The only other places wdiere 
 the consumption is at all large are Chittagong and Mymensing. In 1882- 
 83, out of forty-four districts in which the pro^^nce was then divided, 
 madalc was used in forty, and there- were altogether 433 licenses in force. 
 In 1892-93 it was consumed in thirty-five districts out of a total of forty- 
 six, and the number of licenses was 2()3. The corresponding figures for 
 chundu are eighty-nine lincenses in twenty-one districts in 1882-83, 
 and seventy-one 'dicenses in twenty districts in tlie pa.st year. It can 
 therefore hardly be said, as has been asserted by some of the witnesses, 
 that the use of either drug is on tlie increase. The figures given above 
 distinctly indicate considerable restriction in the past decade. 
 
 Q. — Can you give us any statistics as to the quantities of these 
 articles sold. 
 
 A. — I can give you figures for Calcutta separately, they are not com- 
 piled for the districts yet. During the past year 355 maunds of crude 
 opium were consumed: during the preceding, 360 maunds 32 seers; 
 and during 1890-91, 335 maunds. Of madak, during the past year, 
 twenty-eight maunds ; during 1891-92, thirty-three maunds, and during 
 1890-91, thirty-three maunds. Of chandu during the past year tliirty- 
 six maupds ; in 1891-92, forty-nine matinds ; and in 1890-!)!, forty-nine 
 maunds. A maund is about 80 English pounds. 
 
 Q. — Under existing arrangements the system of farming of licenses 
 no) longer obtains, but the sale of excise opium in Lower Bengal is 
 conducted by a system of licenses, which are put up to public auction ? 
 
 A. — It is so. 
 
 Q. — Has this system been productive of increase of revenue to 
 Government. 
 
( 31 ) 
 
 -V.-— Very iiiiieli, 
 
 Q— The Govennueut have not found that the system is open to 
 ©bjection on administrative or moral grounds? 
 
 A. — Tlie system, I tliink, is vrorked very -well. From an administra- 
 tive point of view I see no objection at all, and from tlie moral point of 
 view I don’t tliink the system is open to any greater objections than any 
 other system whicli may be devised. 
 
 Q. — 1 observe that the quantity consumed seems to be approximately 
 stationary ? 
 
 A. — In twenty years the population has increased liy eighteen per 
 cent, and the consumption by ten per cent, comparing 1878 with 1892. 
 
 Q. — So that per head of the population there is a slight decrease ? 
 
 — Yes. 
 
 Q. — By Sir William Eoberts : — Is madah cheaper than opium. 
 
 A. — It is slightly cheaper, because in its preparation it is mixed with 
 guava and other leaves. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Pease : — What is the number of shops licensed for 
 retail sale ? 
 
 A. — Calcutta, including Howrah, fifty-seven opium shops, thirty 
 ■madah shops, eleven clumdii shops, of which last only four w’ere opened. 
 
 Q. — Can you say whether they are all used. 
 
 A. — This number of licenses the man pays for, but for his own con- 
 venience, he only keeps open four. 
 
 Q. — Why did you grant all the licenses? 
 
 A. — He can open the shops if he likes. 
 
 Q. — Why don’t you withhold the licenses? 
 
 A. — We get the license fees. 
 
 Q. — Is it not -the wish of the Goverment to reduce the number ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q.— And you grant seven licenses for which there is no necessity ? 
 
 A. — It has been so for some years, and the number has not been 
 reduced. 
 
 Q. — Licenses are sold by auction ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — What regard is held as to the locality in which the licenses 
 should be used ? 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 A. — The sites are fixed before the licenses are put up for auction. 
 The man who purchases the license must always arrange with the owner 
 of the premises, and if he fails to secure the premises, he must give up 
 the license. 
 
 Q. — Men who own the premises have a special advantage ? 
 
 A. — Naturally. 
 
 Q. — Does he charge increased rent ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say. 
 
 Q. — Do you have any regard to the character of the man who 
 purchases licenses? 
 
 A. — He has to produce a police certificate as to cliaracter and 
 respectability. 
 
 Q. — Apart from the character of the man who holds the whole 
 of the licenses, what guarantee have you as to the character of the person 
 who superintends the particular shops ? 
 
 A. — We take a guarantee as regards the person to whom the license 
 is given. 
 
 Q. — In regard to the thirty madak licenses, they are held by 
 separate individuals? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — And they are strictly confined in the same way to the house in 
 which business shall be carried on? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — There is a regulation that smoking should not take place in 
 connection with these houses : how far do you interfere where the smok- 
 ing takes place in a room closely connected with the licensed shop ? 
 
 A. — No such case was ever brought to my notice, but if it was, I 
 should direct a prosecution for a breach of the license. 
 
 Q. — If I understand you, no effort is made to reduce the consump- 
 tion of madak and chundn ? 
 
 A. — I am not prepared to say that, as I don’t know the actual 
 numbers prior to these figures. 
 
 Q. — Can you give us a general description of the distribution of these 
 shops ? 
 
 A — They are all over tl\e town. 
 
 Q. — Are they moi’e numerous in special localities? 
 
 A. — I believe so 
 
 Q. — In which locality are they most numerous? 
 
( 3S ) 
 
 A. — In those in which there are the greatest number of smokers. 
 
 Q. — What is the social position of the people where there is a large 
 nnniber? 
 
 A. — That I cannot say. 
 
 Q. — Are most of tlie licenses in tlie lowest parts of the town ? 
 
 A. — I don’t know the locality of all the shops. 
 
 Q. — Has there been any alteration in the number of oj^ium shops 
 in Calcutta? 
 
 A. — The number of opium shops in 1890 was 55 ; in 1891, 59 ; 
 and in the past year, 57. 
 
 Q. — Why was tlie number increased in 1891 ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say. 
 
 Q. — How many special licenses for manufacture of madalc and 
 cliandu, under the new rule mentioned in your statement, have been taken 
 out? 
 
 A. — Only one, in the district of Shahabad, none in Calcutta. This 
 rule was introduced in April last. 
 
 Q. — Who is responsible for the increase or decrease of licenses for 
 the province of Bengal and Calcutta ? 
 
 A. — Eventually the Board of Eeveuue. Proposals are submitted by 
 district officers to the Excise Commissioner, and these are again con- 
 sidered by the Board, which passes final orders. 
 
 Q. — Has a magistrate power to grant additional licences ? 
 
 A.— He cannot do so without the sanction of the Excise Commis- 
 sioner. It is very seldom a new shop is allowed in the middle of the 
 year. In I’ecent years there has been hardly ever an increase in the 
 aggregate number, on the contrary there has been a gradual reduction. 
 
 Q. — Who originally fixed the sites ? 
 
 A. — It is impossible to say ; most of these shops have been existing 
 for years. 
 
 Q. - Suppose a shop becomes no longer valuable, and it is desired 
 to remove it ? 
 
 A. — The site can be changed. 
 
 Q. — Who decides in Calcutta whether a site is suitable ? 
 
 A. — It is decided by the collector and then sent off to the Excise 
 Commissioner ; not merely that, but the Commissioner of Police must 
 also give a certificate. 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 Q. — He does not interfere with old sites, bnt he exercises a discre- 
 tion in reference to new sites ? 
 
 A. — Before a settlement is made the list is sent to the Commissioner 
 of Police who may object if he likes, and we are bound to listen. Objections 
 from residents in the neighbourhood are also listened to as well as the 
 probabilities of more crime being committed. 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Joseph Chlshaw, for the Methodist Pdblishino Hohsk, Calcutta. 
 

 ‘i 
 
 u 
 
 akvi, 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 v.‘.> 1 
 
 ’a : 
 
I 
 
 J 
 
 s 
 
VVI 
 
 V 
 
 ID 
 
 b f' 
 
 THE ROYAL COMMISSION 
 
 0f>ftJFR TflUFFie. 
 
 Special Report of tRe Eviilenoe taken 
 
 in India. 
 
 Part XL 5th December, 1893. 
 
 f. 
 
 f PRICE ONE PENNY, or ONE ANNA, for each part. 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society foe the Suppression of the Opium Trade. 
 Broadway Chambers, London, S. W.i 
 A lso at the 
 
 Methodist Publishing House, 45, Dhaeamtala St., Calcutta. 
 
The llopi Oominission on Opium. 
 
 Ezamination of Mr. A. Finlay, Secretary of tlie G-oyernment of 
 India in tlie Financial Department. 
 
 By Lord Brassey: — Q. — Yon were kind enough, on behalf of the 
 Government of India, to furnish the Commission with certain papers. 
 These papers were so clear and full that I can hardly suggest any ques- 
 tions to you regarding them. I apprehend that, as regards matters 
 falling more particularly under the control of the local Governments, we 
 shall obtain any further information which we may desire on any parti- 
 cular points in the course of our further enquiries and of the tours which 
 we propose to make. But with regard to the first of the papers you laid 
 before us, a statement of the public revenue and expenditure in British 
 India under all heads of account, I observe a sensible reduction in the 
 estimate for 1893-94, as compared with 1892-93, and also a sensible reduc ' 
 tion in the five years 1889-94, as compared with the previous five years ; 
 do you draw from such reductions the inference that the opium revenue 
 must be regarded as essentially a precarious revemre ? 
 
 A. — No, I should not draw such an inference. The reduction in 
 1893-94, as compared with the previous year, was almost entirely due 
 to the reduction in the amount of Bengal opium to be sold, which was 
 due to their having been bad crops in the previous five years. 
 
 Q. — What is your explanation of the fall in the nett revenue from 
 opium in the five years, 1884-89, as compared with the previous five 
 years ? The average revenue in the five years 1880-84 was X Rs. 
 8,624,000, and in the subsequent five years X Rs. 6,907,000 ? 
 
 A. — I notice that in 1883-84-85 the prices realised were very much 
 higher than in the following years, and there might have been variations 
 in the quantity of opium sold. The Malwa exports have also been less 
 in later years, but I could not give a very satisfactory explanation with- 
 out looking into the details, and observing tire various changes which took 
 place from year to year. The quantity to be sold this year is 43,000 
 chests, whereas formerly it used to be 54,000 chests. It depends en- 
 tirely on the crops whether that reduction will be maintained. If the crop 
 is good this year, the Government will sell more next year. 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 By Mr. Wilson : — Q. — With reference to tlie paper wliicli you 
 produced showing the quantity of opium produced and consumed in 
 India with reference to eacli of the several Provinces, you have stated 
 tliat the number of licenses issued in each locality was fixed by the local 
 authority ; are you able to tell us whether the local authorities enquire 
 whether the shops that are licensed are really opened, or whether it is 
 left to the option of the license holder to open his shop or not ? 
 
 A. — The probability is that when a license is granted the shop will 
 be opened ; the licensee would certainly not be forced to open the shop.- 
 
 Q. — A license is issued for the benefit of the revenue and of tlie 
 license-holder and not with regard to the wants of the public ? 
 
 A. — That is not correct. It depends upon the demand in the place, 
 and on the administrative convenience of controlling the sales and the 
 consumption. It depends also on the demand for the drug in tlie 
 locality. 
 
 Q. — Then, with regard to x^ssam, the quantity of opium issued 
 in 1883-84 was 56,000 seei’s ; in 1890-91 it was 59,000 seers. 
 Can you give any explanation here that is reconcilable with the state- 
 ment made by Mr. Luttman- Johnson, Commissioner of the Assam 
 Valley District, in a letter, dated 30th December, 1890, that the suppres- 
 sion of the opium trade in Assam has been one of the cardinal points 
 in our policy ? can you explain how the sales increased by 3,000 seers 
 if that was the fixed policy of the Government ? 
 
 A. — I don’t see that there is much difference. We cannot control 
 the exact quantity each year. There must be fluctuations from year to 
 year in regard to the quantity of opium issued for consumption. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell us how these figures have any bearing on the 
 alleged policy ? 
 
 A. — I cannot. 
 
 Q. — Then with regard to the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh, will 
 you explain in what way the sales bv the treasuries work on the sale of 
 illicit opium ? 
 
 A. — I should think it is supplemental to the licensed shops which 
 buy from the treasury. 
 
 Q. — If the authorities can issue as many licenses as they think 
 advisable and as will tend to check illicit sales, I do not understand in 
 what way the selling of opium from the treasury acts as a check ? 
 
 A. — Tliey may possibly have underestimated the requirements in 
 their desire to restrict the sale. 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 Q. — When was the cultivation of the poppy in Assam prohibited ? 
 
 A. — I am not sure. I have a vague recollection that it was abou 
 the year 1870. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell us what compensation, if any, was paid to the 
 cultivators when tlie cultivation of the poppy was prohibited in Assam ? 
 
 A. — I cannot. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray : — Q. — With regard to the apparent falling off of 
 the opium revenue in the estimate for 1893-94, can you tell as whether 
 the price of opium in Calcutta for the China market was affected 
 by the change of the currency ? 
 
 A. — The Currency Act was passed on the 26th June, 1893 ; at the 
 opium sale of Jidy the price fell very low, lower than it had been for years 
 — I believe to 969 or 970 rupees per chest. In the following month 
 (August) I think it went up to Rs. 1,175 ; in September, October and 
 November, it ranged between 1,075 and 1,100. The average price taken 
 in the Budget Estimate was Rs. 1,250. 
 
 Q. — The Budget Estimate is framed on the average of the preceding 
 year ? 
 
 A. — It was framed in March last, on what seemed to be probable. 
 If I had framed the estimate now, the receipts from Bengal opium would 
 have been smaller. 
 
 Q. — Is the change in the currency likely to have a permanent effect ? 
 
 A. — I hope the effect is only temporary. There must be a distur- 
 bance of trade when any great change takes place, but I hope it will pass 
 away and settle on a new basis. 
 
 Q. — In the paper, entitled “Opium produced or consumed in India,” 
 at page three, the estimated cost price is calculated. In that statement 
 you will find a column headed “Interest on advances will you explain 
 the working otit of that column ? 
 
 A. — It does not represent any actual payment ; it is merely a calcu- 
 lation of the interest upon money paid before the produce is delivered. 
 We have to take that into account, but no interest is really paid. 
 
 Q. — Then, it is merely a matter of bookkeeping, that’s all ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe : — Q. — Reference has been made to a statement 
 of Mr. Luttman-Johnson, Commissioner of the Assam Valley District. 
 No doubt, his statement of the general policy of the Assam Government 
 is correct ; but in making that statement, he would not necessarily re- 
 present the Government? 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 A. — Not iiecessai-%, but, no doubt, he would know what the 
 general policy was. 
 
 Q. — It is quite possible that the general policy may be what he 
 states, taking the administration of Assam from the beginning and 
 without reference to yearly fluctuations ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. 
 
 Q. — I see in the statement headed. Arrangements with Native 
 States, there is a reference to a precis by Mr. Crawford in regard to 
 opium ; will you lay that paper before the Commission ? 
 
 A. — It has not been pirblished ; but it is available, and can be given 
 if desired. 
 
 By the Chairman: — Q. — Will you kindly explain the procedure 
 followed in flxing the number of chests of Bengal opium sold each year 
 and the area of poppy cultivation ? 
 
 A. — The produce is brought to the opium agents, and they can tell 
 approximately what its value would be. This is reported to the Board 
 of Kevenue, who make their recommendations as to the quantity to be 
 sold ; having regard to the reserve stock in hand, the quantity to be 
 sold is then flxed, at the end of June, for the following calendar year. 
 
 Q. — How does that affect the acreage brought under poppy cultiva- 
 tion during the next year ? 
 
 A. — When those recommendations are sent up, if there is any 
 reason for an increase or decrease of cultivation, the Board of Revenue 
 and the Government of Bengal will mention it, and the necessary orders 
 will be passed ; but, ordinarily, tlie arrangements for cultivation will be 
 made on the assumption of what is assumed to be the normal quantity 
 sold every year. That quantity was, till within a few years, 57,000 
 chests ; now it is 54,000 chests. In 1888 the opium reserve grew very 
 large, and it was specially recommended that the cultivation should be 
 reduced ; that recommendation was accepted by the Government of India, 
 subject to two conditions, that there should be no risk of the quantity 
 to be sold in any one year falling below 57,000 chests, and also that the 
 reduction should be so arranged that it would not be out of the power 
 of the Government to extend it in future years in the event of a bad 
 crop. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson : — Q. — With reference to the question of interest 
 on advances, at what rate has it been calculated ? 
 
 A. — I should think it is probably four per cent. 
 
 Q. — From what date is it calculated ? 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 A. — From the date the advance is given, no doubt, and until the 
 date of the opium sale in Calcutta, or on which the produce is delivered, 
 I am not sure, but I can find out. 
 
 Q. — With reference to the report by Mr. Spence, Her Majesty’s 
 Consul in China, are the Consuls in the various ports in China in the 
 habit of making frequent reports on this subject direct to the Government 
 of India? 
 
 A. — They send us a copy of the reports made to the Foreign Office 
 in England ; that is the general practice. 
 
 Q. — Is this a specially important report? 
 
 A. — It seems specially important, and the orders of the Government 
 of India are to submit it to the Commission with tlie other papers. 
 
 By the President. — Q. — There is a paper dealing with Bengal opium 
 which you put in. In the first page of that paper you give the total area 
 under cultivation in each of the last ten years. I understand tliat the 
 area under cultivation has been reduced in certain years. For instance^ 
 from 1887-88, when the area under cultivation was 536,000 acres, there 
 is a reduction to 469,864 acres in the next year ; would you say that the 
 reduction was the result of the policy to which the late Mr. W. H. Smith 
 committed the Government of India, by his declaration in the House of 
 Commons, when he said that the area under cultivation had been reduced, 
 and that it was the settled policy of the Government to continue that 
 process of reduction ? 
 
 A. — I cannot add anything to what Sir David Barbour has said on 
 that point, 
 
 Q. — Before you leave us I believe you wish to put in a paper dealing 
 with a statement made to us by Mr. Alexander, to the effect that an 
 envoy had been sent, on behalf of the Chinese Government, to negotiate 
 with the Government of India -with reference to the traffic in opium. I 
 think Mr. Alexander was not sure as to the date, but he expressed his 
 belief that there had been such a negotiation, and we proposed to ask the 
 Government of India to give us the information. I believe you desire to 
 put in a return which practically explains to its the nature of the mission 
 to which Mr. Alexander referred ? 
 
 A. — I put in the papers on the subject, namely, a despatch from the 
 Government of India to the Secretary of State for India, dated 1st Octo- 
 ber, 1881, enclosing a report of the interview of Mah Kie Tchong, the 
 Secretary to the Imperial Commission at Pekin, with Major Baring. 
 
( 8 
 
 Q. — In the third pai’agraph of Major Baring’s memorandum of his 
 conversation witli Mah Kie Tchong, it was stated tliat he had no detailed 
 proposals to make, but he wished to know in a general way whether, 
 in the event of overtures being made by the Chinese Government to Her 
 Majesty’s Government on the subject of the opium question, the Govern- 
 ment of India would be prepared to consider proposals witli reference to 
 the system under which China is now supplied with opium. I under- 
 stand that the general notion of the proposal was that the Government 
 of India should supply the whole of the opium required by China to the 
 Chinese Government direct ; that the latter should 'engage on their own 
 part to pay a fixed sum for a certain term of years, say 30, 40 or 50 years; 
 and that the amount to be paid should gradually decrease. To that com- 
 munication Major Baring stated that he was unable to express any definite 
 opinion, without being informed in greater detail of the precise nature of 
 the proposal the Chinese Government desired to make. Then there was a 
 good deal of desultory conversation, and Major Baring proceeded to say 
 that it would be exceedingly undesirable that anything should be done in 
 China which would encourage the growth of the smuggling trade, and that 
 experience had proved in all countries that very high duties were sure 
 to be accompanied by smuggling.' Major Baring then went on to 
 say : — “ I endeavoured to find out whether the true aim of the Chinese 
 Government was really to suppress the use of opium, or merely to obtain 
 a larger revenue than at present. I could not elicit anything very 
 definite on this point. Mah Kie Tchong explained to me that there 
 were two parties in China, — one of whom was desirous of stopping the 
 growth of the native poppy and deriving as large a revenue as possible 
 from the importation of the foreign drug, whilst the other was in favour 
 of encouraging the use of the native drug, with a view to rendering 
 China independent of Indian opium. The impression, however, he left 
 on my mind was that the Chinese Government attaches very considerable 
 importance to the opium revenue, and are by no means inclined to aban- 
 don it. These seem to be the important part, of the communications 
 between Major Baring and the representative of the Chinese Govern- 
 ment. Have you any observations to make in that connexion ? 
 
 A. — I have not. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. — Q. — Is it within your knowledge when the 
 negotiations which led to the introduction of an additioiml article in the 
 treaty of Tientsin were begun ? 
 
 A. — They began in the year following the arrival of Mah Kie 
 Tchong — in the beginning of 1882. 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 Evidence of Eon. A. S- Lethbridge, H. S., C. S. X. 
 
 I am General Superintendent of the Thagi and ^Dacoity Department 
 and a Member of the Viceroy’s Legislative Council. In my official career 
 of over twenty-five years in India I liave served lin the Punjab, Bengal 
 and Burmah, and during the last twenty months have been engaged in 
 putting down organised crime in Hyderabad and in the Native States of 
 Bajpootana and Central India. In addition to this I have been employed 
 on four Commissions, and while on them have visited nearly all the dis- 
 tricts of Madras, Bombay, North-West Provinces, and the Central Prov- 
 inces. I can Avith some reason claim that my experience of India is at 
 least a Avide one. I have not made this subject a special sttidy from a 
 medical point of view, but I have Irad exceptional opportunities of observ- 
 ing the effects of the opium habit on the Natives of this country. My first 
 appointment in the service was that of Surgeon of a Sikh Eegiment, and 
 since then I have been Superintendent of the large Central Jails of 
 Lahore and Bhagulpore, Inspector-General of Prisons in Burmah, 
 Sanitary Commissioner of Bengal, and for fourteen years Inspector- 
 General of Prisons in this Province. In these various appointments I 
 have had opportunities of observing a very large number of persons who 
 were habitual users of opium. 
 
 I first came in contact with men Avho took opium as a regular stim- 
 ulant when I was Surgeon of the 15th Sikhs (the Loodiana Eegiment). 
 The regiment had recently returned from active service in China, and I 
 was at first disposed to think that the men might have contracted the 
 liabit in that country. It was not long, however, before I learnt that the 
 Cis-Sutlej Sikhs, from among Avhom this regiment Avas exclusively recruit- 
 ed, were, many of them, habitual opium-eaters. On this point I speak 
 from experience gained by a residence in Ferozepore, Eupar, Karnal, and 
 Lahore. In the 15th Sikhs, in 1868, the Native officers and the older 
 soldiers appeared to use the drug more freely than the younger men. A 
 large proportion of the sepoys admitted to hospital brought their little 
 boxes of opium with them. It was never hinted in those days that it was 
 a disgraceful thing for a Sikh to take opium, or that a regiment in which 
 such a large proportion of the Native officers and men were opium-eaters 
 had its efficiency in any way injuriously affected by the use of the drug. 
 On the; contrary, this regiment has ahvays held an honoured place in tho 
 army of India, and has perhaps been more frequently lemployed on actAe 
 service than any other. In cantonments the men Avere particularly well- 
 behaved, and on active service, in such campaigns as those of Afghanistan 
 and the Soudan, they have distinguished themseh’es by their courage and 
 endurance. 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 As an expert in Prison administration, I have seen a vast number of 
 prisoners Avho have acquired the opium habit. Speaking generally of 
 these men from what I saw of them in their prison life, I would say that 
 their gentleness and good behaviour compared very favourably with the 
 general character of those who had been addicted to alcohol and ganja in 
 excess. It was the rule in the prisons under my control to cut off the 
 supply of opium on the prisoner’s first admission to jail. If, in any case, 
 it was found necessary to continue the drug as a medicine, the prisoner 
 was invariably admitted to hospital, and there treated for the disease from 
 which he was suffering. In unhealthy jails, like Rungpore and Akyab, 
 where the prisoners are received from very malarious tracts of country, 
 and where the habit of opium-eating was general among the free popula- 
 tion, it was not found possible to enforce the rule of complete prohibition 
 on admission, and I have frequently been obliged to sanction the issue of 
 opium to all the opium-eaters admitted to these jails to guard against the 
 grave risks to life caused by depression from imprisonment combined with 
 the deprivation of the stimulant to which these malaria-stricken people 
 had been accustomed. 
 
 As to the therapeutic uses of opium in the treatment of diseases of 
 malarious origin, I can only say that in my experience the medical officers 
 in charge of jails in the more unhealthy districts of Bengal have been 
 accustomed to use the various preparations of this drug in very consider- 
 able quantities, and I know this to be the case, not only from my personal 
 observations in the jail hospitals which I have inspected, but from the 
 checking and passing of the indents for medicines required for the treat- 
 ment of prisoners in jails. 
 
 Where the opium habit is not complicated by disease we have never 
 experienced any difficulty or danger in breaking opimn-eaters of this habit 
 by a sudden and complete stopping of the drug. As a rule, a slight 
 tendency to diarrhoea is noticed in these cases, which is easily checked by 
 appropriate remedies. In cases where the drug has been used to excess, 
 the deprivation causes a certain amount of suffering, but this does not 
 usually last more than five or six days. 
 
 The use of opium even in excess does not in my experience lead to 
 any organic constitutional changes, such as those which result from the 
 abuse of alcohol. Even the emaciation and tucked-up appearance of the 
 opium drunkard disappears very rapidly after the drug has been 
 stopped. 
 
 Before I leave the consideration of this question from a prison point 
 of view, I state that it is my deliberate opinion, after an experience of the 
 criminal classes extending over a quarter of a century, that the opium 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 habit in this country is not, to any appreciable extent, the direct cause 
 of crime, and that its effect in this direction is not to be compared with the 
 recognized evils that result from the abuse of alcohol, both in England 
 and in India. 
 
 As President of the Factory Commission in 1890, which was appoint- 
 ed to enquire into the social condition and well-being of Indian opera- 
 tives, I made a careful enquiry into their mode of life, their work, their 
 complaints and wishes. Many mill hands were examined at considerable 
 length for this purpose, and we saw thousands of operatives working in the 
 mills of Bombay, Ahmedabad, Cawnpore and Calcutta. In no single in- 
 stance do I remember our attention being drawn by any one to the demor- 
 alization of the working classes from the nse of opium. It is true we did 
 not make any special enquiry in this direction, but if there had been any 
 deterioration of the working power of the mill hands from this cause, we 
 should most certainly have seen some indication of it in their appearance 
 or power of work, or heard of it from the mill managers and subordinates, 
 if not from the operatives themselves. 
 
 During the eighteen years I have been the head of a department with 
 a lai'ge staff of subordinates under me, I cannot recall a single instance in 
 which a subordinate was discharged for unfitness due to the e:^cessive use 
 of opium. I need hardly add that in this period hundreds have been 
 discharged for incapacity brought on by the abuse of alcohol. 
 
 In my present appointment, which requires me to visit Hyderabad 
 and the Native States of Rajputana and Central India, I have had many 
 opportunities of discussing this question with well-informed Indian gen- 
 tlemen and Durbar officials. The deliberate conclusion at which I have 
 arrived in this matter is that any attempt to interfere with the rights of 
 Natives States and the privileges of their subjects in regard to the 
 growth, sale, or consumption of opium vrill result in the gravest complica- 
 tions and in serious danger to the stability of the Empire. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts : — Q. — Will you Idndly tell us what is 
 the numerical strength of the Indian Medical Service ? 
 
 A. — The Indian Medical Service to which I belong numbers be- 
 tween 443 and 450 European Officers. There are a few Indian gentlemen 
 in the Service who have been admitted by competition in a few examina- 
 tions in England ; they number about twelve or fourteen, I am speaking 
 of the whole of India. 
 
 Q. — What are their grades and duties ? 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 A. — Every officer when he comes to India is obliged to serve as 
 Surgeon in charge of an Indian Eegiment. After two years’ service he 
 may elect for civil employ as the Civil Surgeon of a district ; but al- 
 though in civil employ he goes through the usual regimental grades 
 of Captain, Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, Surgeon-Majoi', General. 
 The Civil Medical Officers still retain their military rank and promotion, 
 but they also rise from small stations to larger ones, and the best of 
 them are subsequently drafted to the Presidency towns in charge of hos- 
 jjitals and as Professors in the Medical Colleges. 
 
 Q. — What about the Civil Medical Officers in charge of disijen- 
 saries ? 
 
 A. — They have complete charge of the whole administration of the 
 district. They have charge of all the dispensaries of the district, the 
 number of which vary according to the size of the district. The outly- 
 ing districts have to be inspected once, twice, or three times a year ; 
 the local dispensary at the headquarters they attend every day. These 
 head quarter districts are many of them large institutions with a large 
 number of beds for in-patients and a very large number of out-patients 
 also attend daily. The majority of these cases are seen by the Assistant 
 Surgeon, but the interesting cases are reserved for the Medical Officer- 
 In the hospital he sees every patient every day, and besides he has a 
 large practice among the Native population, and is called in consultation 
 in serious cases by private practitioners. 
 
 Q. — They would come very closely into contact with the Assistant 
 Surgeons of the outlying districts ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — He would also be as a rule the Medical Officer of the Jail ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Do you consider that in their work they would have oppor- 
 tunities of detecting the effect of the opium habit on the health and 
 physique of the people ? 
 
 A. — No European would have such opportunities. 
 
 Q. — Could they in any way detect the effect of the opium habit on 
 the characters and morality of the consumers ? 
 
 A. — They have opportunities of observing the inner hfe of the people 
 which very few other officers have ; therefore they have opportunities of 
 forming an opinion on this point. 
 
 Q. — With regard to their experience in jails they would be able to 
 detect the connection of opium with crime ? 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 A. — They are the executive officers as well as the Medical officers of 
 jails, in small jails, especially. 
 
 Q. — You have travelled throughout the various provinces of India, 
 have you had much converse with the Indian members of the Service on 
 this habit ? 
 
 A. — I have only lately been travelling a good deal, I have had con- 
 versation with all the officers I have met, and I have also had general 
 conversations before this on this particular subject. 
 
 Q. — What impression have you gathered from these conver'Sa- 
 tions ? 
 
 A. — It is curious how unanimous they are as to the fact that opium 
 is not the curse it is supposed to be in this country. 
 
 Q. — Have you met with exceptions ? 
 
 A. — I don’t remember a single officer who held a different view. 
 
 Q. — So that this large class of 450 men so far as you know are 
 unanimons on the point ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — How is this staff of Medical officers selected? 
 
 A. — They as a rule have had a European education, but there are 
 certain others who were trained in Medical Colleges here and went to 
 England to compete. 
 
 Q. — What is the status of that Service ? 
 
 A. — The competitive examination for the Indian Medical Service is 
 second to no medical service in the world. It is quite apart from their 
 pass examination. Before you can compete you have to be a recognised 
 medical man. The qualifications of the candidates are always high, be- 
 cause the best men compete for this service. It attracts the best men on 
 account of the pay and pension attached to the service and the position 
 occupied by the officers in this country. 
 
 Q. — They are superior to those afforded by the Army or the Navy ? 
 
 A. — Yes, certainly. 
 
 Q. — The competition is a real one ? 
 
 A.— -Yes. 
 
 Q. — Looking to the general status of the men who come to India, 
 would you consider the members of the Service as the representatives 
 of a high class of medical education ? 
 
 A. — Yes, that is my belief, and among the best educated men in 
 England, Ireland and Scotland. 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 Q. — After they are chosen in this way do they under go any addi- 
 tional.training in England ? 
 
 A. — 1 es, they go to Netley for four months ; they go through a 
 course of '_^sanitary science, Military Surgeiy, and tropical diseases. Then 
 they pass another examination on the subjects tauglit at Netley and by 
 the results of that examination their position in the service is graded. 
 
 Q. — Will you say generally from your experience that they are 
 well-educated men generally as well as specially, and whether they are 
 men of good social status as regards the profession ? 
 
 A. — They are well educated gentlemen and occupy a position in 
 India in complete equality with other gentlemen in serving the Govern- 
 ment, and therefore they may be said to be of the same class as other 
 gentlemen who form the rest of the services in India. 
 
 Q. — So that they would be highly qualified for detecting the effect 
 of the opium habit upon the people. 
 
 A. — Certainly, and no persons more qualified exist in India. 
 
 Q. — And are they men of such independence of character that their 
 evidence may be taken to be given without favour, fear or affection ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. 
 
 Q. — Now as the Assistant Surgeons in charge of dispensaries, who 
 are mostly educated in India. What is their professional status ? 
 
 A. — They undergo a medical education which in all respects conform 
 to the Medical education required for degrees and diplomas in England. 
 A native of Calcutta by going through a course of lectures in the Medi- 
 cal College here can present himself for examination to most of the 
 Universities, and other examining bodies in Europe. The course of 
 education is as complete as in England. They are well trained men, and 
 a certain proportion of them go to England and take their diplomas 
 there. They don’t go through any education at home. 
 
 Q. — I presume that their intercourse with the people in the areas 
 in which they serve will be pretty complete ? 
 
 A. — Yes, they are of the middle classes of the people and live with 
 them in their villages. 
 
 Q. — What is the opinion of that class of men with regard to this 
 matter ? 
 
 — My acquaintance with that class of officers is not so large as 
 it is with the Europeans, but I think they also will agree that opium is 
 not the curse it is supposed to be ; that it is very largely used by the 
 people in malarial districts and that they themselves prescribe it largely. 
 
•( 15 ) 
 
 Q. — Then they are qualified to give an opinion ? 
 
 A. — They have many opportunities of observing even more closely 
 than we, the effects of opium. 
 
 Q. — And that they may be depended upon from their independence 
 of character ? 
 
 A. — Certainly. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Fanshawe. — Can yon tell ns the number of Assistant 
 Surgeons ? 
 
 A. — No ; there are a certain number in the Government Service 
 and a very large number in private practice. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Mowbray. — Ai’e there many Europeans in independent 
 practice in India ? 
 
 A. — In large cities, such as Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, and 
 among the large European communities in Assam, Darjeeling and 
 Tirhoot there are several independent European practitioners, but in the 
 purely native towns there are not many. 
 
 Q.— Can you give any idea of what tlie number of European practi- 
 tioners would he ? 
 
 A. — It is difficult to say. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Fanshawe : — I believe Rungpore is an exceptionally 
 malarial district. May we take that as a well established fact ? 
 
 A. — Yes, if anything is well established it is the fact that Rungpore 
 is a malarial district. 
 
 Q, — Can you tell us whether the jail population consists prin- 
 cipally of accidental criminals ? 
 
 A. — Chiefly accidental ; there are very few habitual criminals. 
 
 Q. — Then the jail population of Rungpore fairly represents the 
 population of the district ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson : — Q. — Can you tell us how much opium Sikh 
 soldiers take ? 
 
 A. — I could not tell you what the dose is in each case. 
 
 Q. — You said that the Native officers and elderly soldiers are more 
 addicted to the habit than the younger men. 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q, — Bo you mean that they take larger doses or that a larger 
 proportion of them take opium ? 
 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 A. — I mean a larger proportion of them. My remark referred to 
 the proportion of men rather than to the quantity taken. , 
 
 Q. — You referred to the opportunities you had of discussing the 
 question with European gentlemen in Native States. How long have 
 you had such opportunities ? 
 
 A. — Only recently. Within the last twenty months, since I liave 
 been in charge of my present appointment which requires me to travel 
 all over India. 
 
 Q. — You adhere to the last portion of your printed statement ? 
 
 A. — Yes. It is my confirmed belief thatthegrievancewould.be 
 so great and such action so unnecessary tliat it would shake the confi- 
 dence of the people in our justice and our rule. 
 
 Q. — You told Sir William Roberts about the number of medical 
 men in this country. Can you say what proportion of them have been 
 detached from medical work, as in your case ? 
 
 A. — Very few have been actually detached altogether from Medical 
 work as I am. One or two have been placed in charge of Government 
 Botanical Gardens and one or two in the Mints. I think not more 
 than twelve or fourteen altogether. 
 
 Q. — Would that include the Forest Department ? 
 
 A. — As far as I know we have no officers employed in the Forest 
 Department. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell us what is the object or policy of the arrangement 
 described by Sir William Roberts, of so many of the officers of the 
 Medical Service being kept as Army Surgeons and others having Civil 
 practice ? 
 
 A. — I understand it is due to the fact that the Government of 
 India are extremely anxious to have a reserve of Medical Officers. If a 
 war was declared the whole of the Medical Officers in Civil employ 
 would have to join the Army and take their share in the campaign. The 
 Civil stations would be left in charge of Assistant Surgeons or other 
 efficient medical men. 
 
 Q. — Do I understand that all the Medical Officers practising in 
 Calcutta would be required to join the Army ? 
 
 A. — Yes, and so would I. 
 
 Q. — By whom are these gentlemen paid now ? 
 
 A. — Since the decentralisation of the finances they are paid by the 
 Provincial Government while in civil employ. The Military Department 
 pays for those in medical charge of Native regiments. 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 Q. — Then the Civil Department really maintains a staff of gentlemen 
 required for military contingencies ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — By Lord Brassey: — You alluded to instances in which opium 
 was used to excess obviously to the detriment of the individual concern- 
 ed. You have not stated whether in your opinion there are cases in 
 which persons make use of opium daily with direct benefit to their health ? 
 
 A. — There are such cases, but not having practised my profession I 
 am not in a position to give an opinion ; but from what I know from 
 prisoners in jail I know that they have not suffered physically. 
 
 Q. — Is it your belief that people who are consumers of opiuni are 
 consumers in moderation ? 
 
 A. — Yes, certainly, such a question never protruded itself upon the 
 notice of those who made special enquiries into the social position and well- 
 being of opium eaters. It does not affect the work or position of those 
 who use it moderately. 
 
 Q. — Then your view is that the majority of opium eaters are moder- 
 ate consumers and that in their cases, as far as you had the opportu- 
 nities of judging, it does neither good nor harm ? 
 
 A. — That is ny opinion. 
 
 Q. — As compared with the use of alcohol in a tropical climate as far 
 as you know the use of opium is less iujurious than the use of alcohol ? ■ 
 
 A. — Most certainly. 
 
 Q. — Do you see any analogy between the use of opium by the popu- 
 lation of a tropical climate and the use of alcohol by the inhabitants of 
 a climate such as that in England ? 
 
 A. — Judging from the fact that large numbers of people in a trop- 
 ical climate take opium as a stimulant without any apparent detriment, 
 one would draw an analogy between it here and the use of alcohol in 
 colder climates. The people take opium here just as people take alcohol 
 in a colder climate. 
 
 Evidence of Sir Edward Ends. 
 
 By His Highness the Maharajah of Durbhunga : — You think that if 
 opium cultivation was abolished the ryots could substitute any other crops 
 in its place ? 
 
 A. — I think this is a question which should be properly enquired 
 into and which requires very careful consideration on the spot. All that 
 I sav. I would wish to be taken as the basis of inquiry rather than as 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 positive evidence on the subject. My belief is that opium cultivation is 
 best carried on on certain lands and by certain cultivators. I must explain 
 by saying that the best laud, ^;a/- excellence, is land that is fit for market 
 garden crops and cultivated b}’' market gardeners, Now, such lands 
 would be wasted upon such crops as sugar-cane and w'beat, and would 
 only be made fit for opium growing and for such crops as I have indicated 
 under the term, “garden crops '■ namely, herbs, spices, tobacco, and such 
 like. Where the demand for such crops is sufficient to enable a market 
 to be found for them, I think they could be substituted for opium, with- 
 out any loss upon the cultivators or landlords. But in districts where 
 opium is grown, it is groAvn upon other lands as well as the land especially 
 suited. A certain amount of outlying land is now used for opium, and is 
 cultivated by classes who did not originally cultivate it. These men are 
 the industrial classes, Kurmis, Ladas and others, and even some other 
 less industrial classes, to a certain extent, have taken it up. Upon these 
 outlying lands, if they are not fit for garden crops, and are cultivated by 
 others than market gardeners, tobacco and market crops could not be sub- 
 stituted, but it would be possible to sirbstitute either wheat, sugar-cane, 
 or potatoes, and crops of that kind. But it is a question wfiiich, I think, 
 requires inquiry on the spot, w'hether these crops, especially sugar-cane 
 and pjotatoes, do not require a very much larger quantity of coarse manure 
 than opium. For this reason I think most of the crops could not be sub- 
 stituted for opium in what I may call second-class opium lands, lying out- 
 side the market crop area. Thus we have opium land divided into two 
 classes : first, the market garden class, cultivated by marked gardeners, 
 mallies and others ; next, the second class, which requires special manuring 
 cultivated by the farming class. An examination of the question as 
 to the substitution of other crops for opium must be approached from the 
 point of view of each of these classes of land and cultivators. Then, 
 again, I woirld state another fact, that the manure, both solid and liquid, 
 altogether for opium, is not of the same class entirely as the manure 
 required for potatoes and sugar-cane. For opium, it is necessary to have 
 solid or liquid farm manure containing various chemical ingredients, which 
 I class under tlie name of nitrates. I liave an analysis here of the water 
 which I have taken from a w'ell, the water of which was considered valua- 
 able for opium. It contains a large quantity of soda and lime, as well as 
 nitric acid and cliloriiie. This water is practically Avasted upon 
 sugar-cane, which can be successfully cultivated with a coarse form of 
 manure and with canal water, which is obviously free from those ingredi- 
 ents which are required for opium and the other crops I have indicated. 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 Q. — For second-class land there is really no discovery of any proper 
 substitutes for opiirm ? 
 
 A. — My own vieAv is that tliey cannot be grown because they require 
 a very much larger amount of manure. 
 
 Q. — Consequently, in these cases, the ryots would be entitled to some 
 compensation, not legally, but according to equity ? 
 
 A. — That is so ; I think that the loss, whicli I understand to be 
 about fifty lakhs, representing the advances every year in most of the 
 populated tracts would be a very serious blow to the agricultural popula- 
 tion. Thej" receive this money without interest at a time when they want 
 it and if tliey were deprived of it, they would probably have suddenly to 
 have recourse to the money-lender, to obtain capital at a very much 
 higher interest, and to cultivate under more difficult circumstances. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts Penang is one of the Straits Settle- 
 ments ? 
 
 A. — It is, and there are tin mines at Tepang and also in Perak. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe : — Q. — You have referred to the question whether 
 compensation would be necessary to cultivators ; can you say whether 
 the poppy crop is an exhausting crop for the soil ? 
 
 A. — I should make the same answer that I did to the Maharajah of 
 Durbhunga, that anything I may say may be taken as the basis of enquiry 
 rather than positive evidence on the subject. My own impression is that 
 it is not an exhausting crop, in the sense in which sugar-cane, potatoes, and 
 other root crops are. It is more like spices grown in a garden. It re- 
 quires high cultivation, but it does not take much out of the soil to any 
 depth, and I would take this opportunity of noticing, what I did not 
 notice just now, that it is very frequently grown in the same area 
 as a crop of Indian corn. Indian corn precedes opium, and in 
 comparing it with other crops which may be substituted for it, that 
 fact should not be lost sight of. I noticed it was lost sight of in the 
 report of the Opium Commission of 1883. It was lost sight of, or not 
 taken into account at all, any more tlian that other thing which ought 
 to have been taken into account, viz., the interest which the cultivators 
 have in being able to take these advances. I understand that the 
 Government of those days took into account or into its estimates the 
 loss which they suffered by foregoing interest, but in all the calculations 
 I liave seen of the value of the opium crop, that interest was never put 
 in. These two things, tlie value of the Indian corn crop and interest, 
 ought to be added. 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 Q. — As compared with other crops, such as sugar-cane or tobacco, 
 how does opium stand ? 
 
 A. — In tlie case of tobacco grown in Bengal, I believe it cannot be 
 grown. In the case of tobacco grown further up-country, it can be 
 grown. That very fact shows how very careful and close investigations 
 must be before any general acceptance can be given to any answers of 
 this kind. 
 
 Q. — You are not in a position to give any statistics as to the com- 
 parative value of the crops ? 
 
 A. — 1 consider that this question is one of the most difficult to 
 investigate in this country, and that no answer can be given by any one 
 man on his general knowledge. I have any amount of statistics of sorts 
 given me as to the cost of producing this and the cost of producing that, 
 and the profits, but I consider they are only valuable for the particular 
 locality in which they are given, and when you take into consideration 
 the large area over which poppy is grown, what dift’erences of climate, 
 soil, and irrigation there are, it would be very dangerous for me or any 
 one man, relying on general information, to give a reply to the question. 
 It would require very close detailed investigation by a largo number of 
 officials to obtain any approximate information as to the real value in cash 
 of any crop, and even then it would be difficult to get a satisfactoiy 
 answer, because it is very difficult to value the labour of the cultivators 
 and their families. An opium cultivator, a market gardener, employs on 
 his field his wife and all the women of the house, and small children four 
 or five years old even, and it is very difficult to value their labour. 
 Coiiung to the cultivator of the higher classes, he will not allow his 
 women to enter into his field or to labour. Ijook at the different profits 
 made by each class. 
 
 Q. — From your knowledge of Northern India, would you antici 2 )atc 
 any extension of the market for Indian tobacco over any large area ? 
 
 A. — This is also a question very difficult to answer. The demand 
 within India itself I cannot conceive as likely to increase to such an 
 extent as to admit very largely tobacco as a substitute for opium. On 
 the other hand, tobacco grown in Tirhoot, Rungpore, and Purnea goes in 
 British Indian steamers to Burmah and the Straits, and I cannot see 
 how far the market might not extend in that direction. It would be a 
 point which would have to be very carefully considered, but it must not 
 be assumed that if you had an area cultivated with opium that the whole 
 of this first-class land could be jnit at once under tobacco. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 Q. — Could not tlu' acreage under poppy be, perhaps, devoted to 
 cereals and cotton ? 
 
 A. — Cotton is not grown as a staple crop between Benares and 
 Patna, and it could not, therefore, be substituted for opium in the opium- 
 growing tracts. Further west and north-west, cotton is grown upon land 
 which would not be given up to opium or root crops, as it is grown upon 
 lauds of a different quality. Therefore, 1 do not consider that cotton 
 would come in as a substitute for opium at all. 
 
 Q. — Coidd tlie acreage given to poppy l)e given up generally for the 
 production of cereals ? 
 
 A. — I don't regard cereals as competitors with opium, except upon 
 second-class lands. 1 don’t tliink cereals would ])ay cultivators anything 
 like what opium does. 
 
 Q. — Even if the same area were brought under wheat, would that 
 wheat be available for export or consumption in this country ? 
 
 A. — I think it would be mainly for export ; food-grains of the 
 country would not be grown upon that laud, except so far as Indian corn 
 is now grown for local consumption. 
 
 Q. — You have told us of advances without interest; do you mean 
 to say that if these advances were not mad('. tlie Government would alter 
 the price of opium ? 
 
 A. — I can’t conceive it would do so : cultivators Avho now come 
 forward to grow opium get a cash advance, as well as the price whicli 
 they receive for the opium. 
 
 Q. — As regards your water containing nitrates, the quantity is 
 limited ? 
 
 A. — It is limited in a very marked way ; it is only in wells which 
 are in thickly populated sites or in places which have in former years been 
 populated, that the particular ingredients are found. There are in the 
 opium-growing countries of the N.-W. Provinces and Oudh a very large 
 number of old sites, and it is on these that you find this very valuable 
 water chiefiy. Bound these wells, as a rule, you will see nothing but 
 tobacco, opium, and other high class garden crops. 
 
 Q. — I think you have had several opportunities of studying poppy 
 cultivation from personal observation 1 
 
 A. — I was settlement officer in two opium-growing districts, Cawn- 
 pore and Furruckabad. In these parts I saw several opium fields grow- 
 ing in every village ; except when I spoke of cotton, this remark applies 
 entirely to that part of the N.-W. Provinces. 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 Q- — From the papers before ns, it appears that there are 550,000 
 cultivators employed in the Benares and Patna agencies : can you' from 
 your experience say whether the cultivation is voluntary or not ? 
 
 A. — I was seven years' settlement officer in the districts I have named, 
 and no case has ever been brought to my notice of cultivators being 
 forced to cutivate against tlicir will. I have known many anxious to 
 cultivate it, and I have known others who, for caste reasons object to 
 cultivate ; but 1 do not remember that they were ever forced to do so. 
 There is a certain objection amongst some classes to cultivating opium 
 on the score of religion, just as there is an objection to cultivating indi- 
 go and root crops. There is a religious objection amongst some classes 
 against the cultivation of indigo and root'crops; so there is against opium, 
 and that is the only objection I have come across. 
 
 Q. — That objection worrld not touch the cultivation of opium under 
 compulsion ? 
 
 A. — My point is that the only objection I have ever heard is on the 
 score of religious prejudice. I have never heard of compulsion being 
 used. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson: — Q. — Wliere were you seven years Settlement 
 officer ? 
 
 A. — At Cawnpore and Furruckabad, opium districts in the North 
 Western Provinces. 
 
 Q. — How long ago was that ? 
 
 A. — Between 1866 and 1873. 
 
 Q. — Opium used to be grown in many parts of India where it is now 
 prohibited ? . 
 
 A. — I know there are certain districts where opium was grown but 
 where it is now restricted. 
 
 Q. — In Assam it used to be grown ? 
 
 A. — I have no information on the subject. 
 
 Q. — In the North-Western Provinces there are considerable tracts ? 
 
 A.— There are tracts. 
 
 Q. — Can you tell us the general grounds on which the present dis- 
 tricts were selected as opium growing districts while it is prohibited in 
 others ? 
 
 A. — Because the districts which were selected were very highly sup- 
 plied with the kind of manure which was required for opium and there- 
 fore with the classes of cultivators who are better able to grow opium. 
 Where you find large quantities of these nitrate manures, and where you 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 find thickly populated tracts, there you will find the market gardener class- 
 es, who are jja/- excellence opium cultivators. The districts were I believe 
 selected mainly upon these grounds. 
 
 Q. — 111 reference to the water, have you any analysis of the water ? 
 
 A. — I sent up some to the Chemical Examiner in Calcutta, and when 
 Dr. Volceker was out here he had some more made. 
 
 Q. — Is this analysis before you ? 
 
 A. — Yes. I have not put it in, I have merely got the names of some 
 of the constituents of the water, but I can easily put it in. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that wkter of that kind is specially prevalent in 
 the districts where opium is now grown ? 
 
 A. — It was prevalent in the districts where I have my actual ex]3eri- 
 
 eiice. 
 
 Q. — Have you any reason to believe it is more prevalent in those 
 districts than in other parts ? 
 
 A. — I think it is prevalent to a great extent in the tracts to which I 
 have drawn attention as being highly populated and whose soil was satu- 
 rated with the refuse of long past generations. 
 
 Q. — You have told us in your last paragraph of the advantages • 
 of the advances to the cultivators; can you tell us the grounds upon which 
 they sometimes object ? 
 
 A. — The only ground which has come under my notice is that of 
 religious prejudice. 
 
 Q. — Is it within your knowledge that there has been difficulty? 
 
 A. — The subject has been only raised within the last two or three 
 weeks. 
 
 Q. — I have a letter here from the Government of India dated 19th 
 Deeember, 1881, in which it is said that vigorous efforts made by the 
 Benares opium agent to extend cultivation were an utter failure. You are 
 not aware of that 1 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — How do you reconcile that with your statement, “poppy growing 
 is an advantage to the cultivators ? ” 
 
 A. — In the country in which I have had experience there is a great 
 deal of land fit for opium and garden crops : not only do they take to it 
 readily as their natural profession, but the cultivators around them having 
 ail example before them find it easy to copy. In those districts where 
 cultivation is of long standing and of old times, or where the practice has 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 not existoil tliey ^yonld uatnrallv olijeet to ojrowing it as it requires a pecu- 
 liar amount of special skill. 
 
 Q. — This letter which I have read was preceded by a letter from the 
 India (Ifflce sent by Lord Hartington on the Kith Jannary. 
 
 A. — T was not aware of that. 
 
 Q. — I will read you a few lines : — “Some of the cultivators do not 
 now exhibit the same eagerness for the Government advances ns formerly.” 
 That never came under your notice ? 
 
 A. —No. 
 
 Q. — Will yon explain whether the question of higher rents or taxes 
 attaches to the crop or to the particular plot of land ? 
 
 A. — The higher rent primarily to the laud. One of the market 
 gardens would pay perhaps thirty rupees or fifty rupees more than the 
 ordinary cultivators. There is also the character of the manure applied, 
 whether the land would be fit for the crop or not. 
 
 Q. — If cultivators who had been in the habit of growing opium, 
 ceased to do so, woidd any alteration be made in his rent? 
 
 A. —I doubt very much whether landlords would reduce rents, and on 
 a great deal of land I don't think they would be bound to do so, I think 
 there is a very material amount of land in which poppy is now grown, upon 
 which, if cultivation was closed, the loss would be so material to the culti- 
 vator, that either he could not pay the same rent as before, or he would 
 have to claim under the law to have his rent reduced. 
 
 Q. — Under what law ? 
 
 A. — The Rent Law. 
 
 Q. — Can you give us a reference ? ' 
 
 A. I would rather put my opinion as a basis for further enquiry on 
 
 the point. I cannot give you a decisive answer whether the law courts 
 would or would not hold it as sufficient ground, but T have a strong- 
 opinion that the cultivator should have a claim. 
 
 Q. Have there been any such claims where cultivators have been re- 
 
 fused the right to grow opium ? 
 
 — No, I have not known claims, but on the other hand, I have to 
 say as a settlement officer I have had to enquire into assessments and 
 have to look to the fact of opium cultivation and cotton for bringing the 
 particular assessment upon the land. 
 
 Q, — Are there any other crops besides these ? 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 A.— Maize, a vakablc crop. It can be grown in the same year with 
 opium, but there are other crops of less value which can be grown in the 
 same year, Niell for instance. 
 
 Q. — Supposing opium was not grown, how many other crops could be 
 grown in the year ? 
 
 A. — That depends very much upon what crop was substituted. If 
 tobacco was substituted in the districts I have referred to, Indian corn 
 could be grown before the tobacco. This is not the case with tobacco 
 grown in the lower parts of the opium tracts where tobacco is put in the 
 ground at the same time as opium. 
 
 Q. — I have heard it generally, said that three crops may be got off 
 the land in the year. 
 
 A. This is only in very exceptional lands, very exceptional. 
 
 Q. — AVould it be possible on opium land ? 
 
 A. — On a very small percentage. 
 
 Q. — Will you explain the connection between the two maps you have 
 put in? 
 
 A. — One of the great difficulties in this country is to know what to 
 do with the surplus population in these tracts. Special enquiries were 
 made as to what could be done, whether there were other tracts to which 
 they could emigrate. The amount of money, five millions, which goes 
 into their hands every year, enables them to carry on agricultural opera- 
 tions with greater ease and facilities. Without this they either would 
 have to get more capital from money-lenders at a very much higher rate 
 of interest and their circumstances rvould be very much less prosperous, 
 or they would never be able to get any capital at all. You would thus 
 find it very difficult to grow any grain at all. 
 
 Q. — In the cases I mentioned they did not wish to cultivate opium 
 and they do not appreciate the advantages you mention ? 
 
 A. — In this instance I can give no answer, because in those districts 
 I have never known objections to cultivate being overruled, except upon 
 the ground of religious prejudice. I have not mentioned the districts, 
 alluded to and have only given evidence in respect to those I mentioned. 
 
 Q. — Did you say that cotton was not grown or could not be grown 
 between Benares and Patna ? 
 
 A. — “There is a very inferior kind grown between Benares and Patna 
 but it is not a staple crop ; and tl)e climate is not conducive to 
 it. 
 
 growing 
 
’( 26 ) 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Havidas Arc you aware tliat the classes who have 
 religious objections to growing opium, grow it occasionally ? 
 
 A. — They have come to grow it, both Brahmins and Maknrs I shall 
 not say to a large, but to a certain extent, in tliat part of the country. 
 
 Q. — Do they grow the poppy every year or in rotation ? 
 
 A. — I believe in rotation except upon tlie veiy best land, where it 
 may he grown every year. 
 
 Q. — There are two kinds, one grown in the rains, and one by 
 irrigation ? 
 
 A. — Not in my experience. I don't know of any poppy grown in 
 tlie districts except in the season of the cold Aveatlier. 
 
 Q. — You do not know whether poppy is grown in the rainy season ? 
 
 A. — I do not know, not in the districts I have worked in. 
 
 Evidence of lilaliaraja Girija ITatli Hoy Bahadur. 
 
 (1) The opium consuming portion of the population of Bengal 
 is not very large. Opium is +aken here — 
 
 (1) in lump or with water, 
 
 (2) or smoked. 
 
 T have not seen people becoming more’ immoral by taking opium, nor 
 have I seen them suffering physically by using it. Opium taken in 
 moderate doses, particularly after forty years of age, rather benehts than 
 injures the constitution. 
 
 Excessive indulgence in opium, like excessive indulgence in other 
 things,, is always followed by evil effects. 
 
 2. (a) It is very difficult to get hold of an opium-eater who 
 
 will admit that he takes opium for non-medical purposes. In fact ninty- 
 nine per cent of opium-eaters, wliom I met, complained to me of liaving 
 suffered from dysentery, diarrhoea, rheumatism, etc., prior to their taking 
 the drug. 
 
 Tlie people of tliis country do not, as a rule, detest tlie people who 
 eat opium either for medical or non-medical purposes. Opium-smoking, 
 however, is considered somewhat disreputable. 
 
 (h) The people of this Province are not at all willing to bear in 
 whole or in part the cost of prohibitive measures, as consumjition of opium 
 is confined to a very small section of the community and does not consti- 
 tute a widespread and serious evil, for the removal of which the Society 
 is over-anxious. 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 3. The prohibition of the growth of poppy plants will bring serious 
 losses to the landlords and tenants of the opium-producing portions of 
 the country ; and the prohibition of the sale and manufacture of opium 
 will prove a source of greatest inconvenience to tlie consumers of the 
 drug and produce serious discontent among them. As, therefore the 
 number of persons interested in the manufacture and sale of opium is 
 not very inconsiderable, discontent among them is not at all desirable. 
 ISTor is the absolute prohibition of the sale and manufacture of opium at 
 all possible. 
 
 4. The Government has already thrown serious obstacles in the 
 way of easy procurability of the drug by restricting its sale to particular 
 persons, places and time. Any further improvement in the regulation 
 of opium traffic, unattended with increased expenditure would be 
 welcome. 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Joseph Culsuaw, for the Methodist Publishing House, Calcutta, 
 
fTtn! • 1 ; tu'Kt.Ujf,’' Riiuif*! vqtjo<{ V) t)is' *■'< 
 
 o;,‘i 1 lOjii cJ fi/ '''’ 
 
 iin.' 7<i fjnA ojtf. uOiTk'Ii'' 'J'; flili f tffl 
 
 <. ... A ' A ' ' 'aV^SSS ' '■■■''. (■•:«■ , • ’i:-"-. • .- 
 
 ■J.Jt' ■■ ^ .>■ Oi 0!'flbiw<xn!j''W< s>! '"'f 
 
 < 'ii -y.vhi'jifi ^e/~ .iroi'} 0 !'()« -^ v 
 
 ’»,i biAi ri ■'-■ito»‘,‘t'''t lo 'loffrotn? 
 
 {f* wTjot. - i -(Ol'.'i.v, '.Uf:' iit '(.loy ion ■ 
 
 7’ j.-nJnif; ia f'nat pUn, ^ , io ndJtidhUytq'jtnlC^ifn oi'.} (iHoK t;. 
 
 ‘ i:' ! • '-MwVJo HfC'"' : R nv,” ’ i ! ', ! j fvilii f/sfj . inouiii'DVoy sniT .-fe-;, »i; 
 
 "£ !V' ■)« i<;'l oi obu, ( ^ v<J viiliilKiiioo’inj v/iioi Ifj Y,*'*'' ’’ 
 
 I'oifiiri '^'Vi o([l n’t inniii'/n/njin/i,. liiil y^uA ‘ .-.rc'i. tuft R'jo/fftj ^Ri/WWiI 
 
 /'fPn'ii innioa ■ t«> 'I 
 
 ' 1 , . '■■■-. 
 
 .s; 
 
 ' , : -A,, , 
 
 ■}'■■ ■y 
 
 
 5 .'taTfi'i o/i 
 
 v f fc<),)i:;T' 
 
 TfiY’t T;-vtO:'. 
 
 \ 
 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION 
 
 ON THE 
 
 TflllFFig. 
 
 Special Hepori of the Eaideqce taken 
 
 in India. 
 
 Part XIII. 8th & 9th December, 1893. 
 
 PRICE aa, but the , OP ONE ANNA, for each part, 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society for the Scppeessiof of the Opium Teaok, 
 Broadway Chambers, London. S. W. 
 
 Also at the 
 
 Metiiodtst PuBLisHiNo HousE. 45, Pfaramtat.a St., r alcutta 
 
ill i 
 
 "v 
 
 
 ( , 
 
 
 
 ■/i^ 
 
 iit 
 
 , ' ' '■ ’AV' 
 
Ilie l{opI Gommission on Opium. 
 
 • ^loOOO^p — 
 
 Evidence of Hr. Eolsert Steel of tlxe Bengal Cliamber of Commerce. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness stated that he had been 
 twenty-two years in India as a merchant, during which time, he was four 
 years a member of the Viceroy’s Council and sixteen years a Port Com- 
 missioner. He had not been concerned in the opium trade with China. 
 As a representative of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce he stated that 
 the commercial community are satisfied that no evils result in India from 
 the consumption of opium. On the financial question they consider that 
 it is impossible for us to do without the opium revenue ; that no substitute 
 can be found for it. They considered that it would be bitterly resented 
 by all classes throughout India if an attempt were made to take away 
 the opium revenue. The Government of India is in severe financial straits 
 already. 
 
 The only possible thing that might be done, would be to put on an 
 import duty on piece goods which would not produce more than a third or 
 a fourth of the present revenue from opium, or to double the salt tax. 
 Supposing the export of opium to be prohibited and assuming that the other 
 produce were grain instead of opium, the value of that produce, would not 
 be more than a quarter of the value of the opium which is exported. 
 The balance of trade would thus be affected, to the extent of six millions 
 sterling, and as the power of the Government to maintain the value of the 
 rupee at a higher point than its silver equivalent depends upon the 
 balance of trade, the prohibition of this export would prejudicially affect 
 the value of the rupee. Occasionally small quantities of sdver come from 
 China to India, but the trade is comparatively unimportant. China pays 
 for her imports from India of opium and yarns ; she pays in London by 
 the produce of the silk and tea that she sells in London. Through the 
 exchange banks the matter is adjusted in London. Occasionally some 
 adjustment is required by sending bullion one way or the other, but that 
 is comparatively unimportant. 
 
 During my twenty-two years in India I have never known a case of 
 anybody being injured by eating or smoking opium. The witness esti- 
 mated at 200 millions sterling as the sum that would have to be provided 
 by the Home Government to compensate India for the loss of the opium 
 revenue. 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 By Mr. Wlison, The Chamber is composed entirely of Natives of 
 Europe, and represent the European commercial community. 
 
 The sum of 200 millions includes tlie capitalization, 1st, of the 
 revenue, then, a sum which will be required to compensate the Native 
 States for the loss of revenue, and finally, possible claims by cultivators 
 for the diminished value of their lands. Altogether not less than six 
 millions sterling per annum would have to be found, representing a capital 
 sum of 200 millions. 
 
 Q. — You have referred to the possibility of compensating cultiva- 
 tors ; did you ever hear of any cultivator being compensated? 
 
 A. — No, I have not heard of any. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Fanshawe, witness said that he had an intimate 
 knowledge of the tax payers of the country, and claimed to represent their 
 views mth some authority. 
 
 Evidence of Idr. 'TT. H. Cheetham. 
 
 By the Chairman. — I have been in India twenty-eight years, and 
 liave been intimately connected with the industry of the country, and 
 employ over 6,000 natives. For the first seventeen years I was engaged in 
 the piecegoods trade ; since that time I have been connected with a firm 
 which has very large industries in cotton spinning, indigo factories, tea 
 factories, steamers, collieries, and shellac works. Witness considered 
 that the Natives of India would object very strongly to increased direct 
 taxation arising out of the loss of the opium revenue. Every possible 
 tax had been considered by the financial advisers of the Government 
 only to be condemned. A cotton tax would probably be the least 
 objectionable. At the rate at which it was last levied, it would produce 
 about a crore and a half. He would object strongly to an increase of 
 the salt tax, except under the direst necessities of the Government. 
 He had beeen informed by a Native doctor that one-third of the popula- 
 tion of Bengal, is unable to get salt and that the people burn the stems 
 of plantain trees to get a little saline matter to mix with their food. 
 
 About 5°/o of the working people eat opium. They draw a wide 
 distinction between eating and smoking opium. The latter is generally 
 objected to and he believed the practice to be harmful. 
 
 Evidence of Ux. Ferdinand Schiller. 
 
 This witness was also a representative of the Bengal Chamber of 
 Commerce and concurred in the views of the two previous witnesses. 
 
 Evidence of Hr. ITil Eatan Sircar, H.A., H.S. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson : — I am a Fellow of the Calcutta University in 
 the Faculties of Arts and Medicine, and I am Lecturer of Forensic 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 Medicine in the Calcutta Medical School. I have been in practice as 
 a medical man for the last six years. I was for two years House 
 Surgeon of the Mayo and Chandney Hospitals, where the daily average 
 of out-door attendance exceeds 300. In my opinion, ten per cent in 
 the upper and middle classes, and barely one per cent amongst the 
 lower classes take opium. This, of course, includes cases of opium- 
 smoking. Opium-eating is prevalent more among the upper and middle 
 classes than among the lower classes ; whereas opium-smoking is almost 
 confined to a section of the lower stratum of the middle classes. 
 People belonging to the masses rarely take opium. The cultivator, for 
 instance, the palki-bearer, the fisherman, the day-labourer, etc., who have 
 to lead a life of active muscular work, rarely take opium, though many 
 of them have to pass the greater part of the time in the malarious 
 swamps of Bengal ; nor do their means allow them to pay for their luxury 
 of opium and its accessories. A few members belonging to the lower 
 classes, however, for example, tailor s, carpenters, etc, who have more 
 time and little work, join the middle classes in indulging in the luxury of 
 opium-smoking. The habit is generally acquired between the thirtieth 
 and fortieth year, though cases of opium-smoking have been known to 
 commence earlier. 
 
 Q. — What are the motives which induce people to take opium ? 
 
 A. — In most cases indulgence and luxury. Some take it as an 
 aphrodisiac. I may add that when taken as an aphrodisiac, I have also 
 seen it administered to their wives in many cases. 
 
 The habit when once formed can be reliquished but with difficulty. 
 In some cases most dangerous and evil consequences have taken place 
 after relinquishing opium. I know cases of that sort. But ordinarily 
 the habit can be relinquished with some difficulty. 
 
 Q. — Is there a marked difference between moderate and excessive 
 consumers ? 
 
 A. — That is a question which I could not thoroughly understand ; 
 it was rather vague, and I could not answer the question definitely. 
 
 Q. — Do you draw any particular and marked distinction between 
 those who are in the habit of taking opium in small quantities or in 
 moderation and those who take large or excessive quantities ? 
 
 A. — In the case of alcohol it is easy to make a distinction, but in 
 the case of opium, it is not easy. Under one ounce of alcohol cor- 
 responding to two ounces of brandy, it would be almost harmless ; 
 but in the case of opium it is different. 
 
( 6 ) 
 
 Q. — What proportion of iucorae does each habitual smoker spend 
 (ju opium 
 
 A. — The proportion varies in different classes. It is very trifling 
 with the members of the upper class. It is a pretty good drain upon 
 the income of the members of the middle class ; aud it is not less than 
 one-fourtli of wliat a member of the average lower class people earns 
 as his day’s wages. 
 
 At first a small dose is sufficient to fulfil the desired object, but as the 
 \dctim become more and more habituated to the drug, he generally not 
 only reijuires a larger dose, but also at a shorter interval. When habitually 
 taken opiuni acts ]>rimarily as a stimulant chiefly of the brain, but also 
 to some extent of the circulatory system. When taken in small doses 
 (less than one grain for the first few weeks, this stage of excitement lasts 
 for five or six hours and is followed by sound sleep. The after-effects 
 when the primary sleep and excitement have passed away, are nausea, 
 headache, depression and listlessness. As the habit becomes confirmed the 
 e.xcitement diminishes and the miserable after effects become more marked 
 and more prolonged. To combat this depression of spirits, a larger dose 
 is often had recourse to. When the victim sticks to a very small dose 
 and when he can manage to live upon milk and other similar nourishing- 
 articles of diet, the evil effects of the habit are not so well marked for a 
 fairly long time, but the process of digestion being slowly impaired, mal- 
 nutrition is sure to super-vene in the long run. As 'a rule, however, the 
 dose is indefinitely increased in most cases : the process of general mrtrition 
 suffers materially within a short time, the power of resistance to disease 
 generally becomes diminished, and the opium-eater becomes predisposed to 
 some diseases, for example, cold, bronchitis, diarrhoea, dysentery and dys- 
 pepsia. The power of repair becomes also slow ; and hence the confirmed 
 habit of opium-eating is looked upon by surgeons as a disadvantage in opera- 
 tion cases. In confirmed opium-eaters comparatively trivial attacks of 
 ordinary diseases such as fever, diarrhoea, bronchitis, cold and specially 
 dysentei-y, have generally a grave prognosis, almost every medicine fails 
 to produce its re-action on the system. As a rule opium-eaters die of 
 very trivial complaints ; opium has no dietetic value. The exhilaration 
 of mind produced in the first stage of opium intoxication, together 
 with the sense of freedom from anxieties and sufferings of all sorts is 
 the great temptation of opium. In beginners this effect is extremely 
 deluding, and if he sticks to a small dose may last with him for a fairly 
 long period. But with a confirmed opium-eater who often takes to an 
 increased dose gradually, this effect vanishes soon. Sooner or later torpor 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 of the mind supervenes and the victim becomes dull, apathetic, enfeebled 
 intellect and, in fact, almost demented. The moral nature- of ^the 
 victim is also slowly but steadily affected. He becomes gradually more 
 and more idle, sluggish, shy, and cowardly ; he has no scruples to give 
 false evidence in Court ; he has ho scruples to steal other people s 
 property. In many cases the moral sense becomes almost perverted. 
 All these effects are much more pronounced in the opium-smoker than 
 in the opium-eater. I am connected with a Life Insurance Company 
 in this city. Ordinarily we do not pass opium-eaters, but if any-candi- 
 date takes small quantities we pass him at a higher premium. 
 
 Q. Can you give any opinion as to the proportion of injurious 
 
 results that follow from opium-eating ? 
 
 A. — In three-fourths of the cases in some shape or other. 
 
 Q. — What do you say in regard to any popular opinion as to opium 
 being a protection against fever ? 
 
 A. — I do not think that the public have the idea that opium is a 
 protection against fever. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that it is ? 
 
 A. — No, I do not. There is no evidence to prove the supposed 
 prophylactic action of opium against fever. 
 
 Q. — Is the use of opium specially useful in malarious districts ? 
 
 A. — I do not think it has ever been used as a useful medicine in 
 malarious districts, either as a prophylactic against fever or as an anti- 
 periodic in the course of the fever. It has, however, been tentatively 
 used by Dr. O’Shaughnessy in malarious fever in the intermission stage 
 as an antiperiodic, but as regards this action he himself says : “ The 
 antiperiodic virtues of the drug are scarcely procurable from any safe 
 doses.” I have been to several of the malarious districts of central 
 and east Bengal, and nowhere have I noticed opium appreciated by 
 the people as a preventive against malarious fever ; on the other hand, 
 I have noticed opium-eaters equally affected with malaria with abstainers. 
 
 Q. — Do you consider that opium is needful, or that the people 
 believe it to be needful to enable working people to get through their 
 work ? 
 
 A. — Certainly not. In Bengal the working people are much better 
 without opium. The use of opium would make them much more idle, 
 dull, and torpid than they actually are. On the otlier hand, I have been 
 credibly informed that the lower class people of Assam and certain hill 
 people who take opium are extremely idle and leave the greater part of 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 their manual work to their wives and daughters who take less opium 
 and are much more active. Compared with opium-smoking the chair- 
 coolies of China, who on the authority of Mr. Cooper could work well as 
 long as they got their daily supply of opium, but “ became wretchedly 
 weak and miserable after a single day’s absence, and who would be down 
 with water streaming from their eyes, listless, disinclined to eat and 
 unable to sleep ; ” without opium our working people, malaria striken and 
 ill-fed as they are, are much more advantageously situated, being much 
 more regular, steady, and hardy in tljeir work. I have a very poor idea 
 of the working capacity of the opium-smokers, I speak of Bengal only. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that the taking of opium is regarded as disgrace- 
 ful or discreditable ? 
 
 A. — Yes. The words afimkhor (opium-eater) and (opium- 
 
 smoker) are terms of reproach. 
 
 Q. — Do you think it would be desirable to prohibit the sale of opium 
 except for medical purposes ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that th.e public opinion of India would justify any- 
 thing of that kind ? 
 
 A. — So far as I can gauge public opinion they will support it. 
 
 Q. — If there were any further restriction or prohibition, would it be 
 desirable to make special provision for the wants of those who are already 
 accustomed to the use of opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes, at least for some time. 
 
 Q. — Do you suggest what means could be adopted for doing that ? 
 
 A. — It may be under a doctor’s prescription as other medicines are 
 
 sold. 
 
 Q, — Is it not the case that there are large parts of Bengal in which 
 there are no medical men available ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; thei’e are some places, and in those places I think it may 
 be sold through Post Offices, as quinine is now dealt out to malaria- 
 stricken people by the Government. 
 
 The word “ opium ” does not occur in early Sanskrit words on medi- 
 cine. The date of Vaba Prakas, the earliest work in which opium is 
 mentioned, has been fixed by Dr. Wise as three hundred years ago. 
 There is a particular disease mentioned in that book which prevailed first 
 amongst the Portuguese and is called Firing! Bog. That is the name 
 under which syphilis is described in Vaba Prakas. That shows that the 
 book must have been compiled after the Portuguese had been in India. 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 Q. — I dare say you are aware that we have had some Native practi- 
 tioners iiere according to the Ayurvedic System who have told us that 
 opium was recommended in some of their books eight hundred years old ? 
 
 A. — Yes, but I do not think Vaba Prakas the earliest work in which 
 opium is mentioned, is eight hundred years old. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. Q. — Your professional experience extends over 
 six years ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q.— Has it been limited to Calcutta ? 
 
 A. — Not entirely limited to Calcutta. I have made frequent tours 
 in Eastern Bengal and Central Bengal and other places. Calcutta is the 
 principal field of my practice. 
 
 Q. — Have you made the opium habit among the people a subject of 
 any special enquiry or study ? 
 
 A. — Not of special enquiry, but I have frequently come in contact 
 with opium-eaters and I have noticed them and formed my opinion 
 about them. 
 
 Q. — In one of your answers you have stated that the cultivators and 
 the fishermen who pass the greater part of their time in the marshy parts 
 of Bengal are not in the habit of taking opium. Where have you acquired 
 your experience of these classes of people ? 
 
 A. — In several districts. I belong to the 24 Pergunnahs, and am 
 a Native of where cultivators and fishermen never take opium. I have 
 several times been to Eastern Bengal on professional visits in Mymensing 
 and Dacca. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. Q. — You have stated that the lower class people 
 spend on an average one-fourth of their wages on opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes. They take four grains in the morning and four in the 
 evening, costing altogether two pice, which with the additional expenses on 
 account of extra diet represents one-fourth of the average daily wages ? 
 
 Q. — Do not persons of the middle class eat sweetmeats as a matter 
 of ordinary diet ? 
 
 A. — Ordinarily they do not take sweetmeats every day. Some of 
 them take it at tiffin. The opium-eater requu’es more. 
 
 Q. — You have stated that the confir’med habit of opium eating is a 
 great disadvantage in operation cases : have you performed operations in 
 the case of opium eaters ? 
 
 A. — I have not, but I know surgeons who have avoided it, unless it 
 was an operation of emergency. 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 My own professor, Dr. McLeod, used to say tliat it was a dis- 
 advantage, and he mentions this in his book. 
 
 Q. — You are not speaking of your own knowledge ? 
 
 A. — From my own knowledge. I would avoid operations on opium 
 eaters. 
 
 Evidence of Mr- Serambu Cbunder Mittra, M-A., 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. I am Professor of English in the City College, 
 Examiner in English of the Calcutta LTniversity. 
 
 The City College has about 1,500 students in all departments. I 
 belong to Nuddea, which is a malarious district. I have never seen opium 
 used as a preventive or prophylactic against malaria, nor is it ordinarily 
 used as a domestic medicine. It is only so used in some few cases. 
 
 Q. — What do you Avish to sa}' about its physical and moral effects ? 
 
 A. — As far as I have been able to observe, its physical effects are 
 injurious in the extreme. Want of energy and vigour manifest itself 
 almost in every way. The people are generally able to distinguish opium- 
 eaters or opium-smokers from those who do not use the drug, by their 
 emaciated features, sunken eyes, and their lethargy and indolence. In 
 the case of a very well-to-do man who can afford to take plenty of milk 
 and other nourishing food, the injurious physical effects of the drug are 
 to great extent counteracted ; and I remember one case in which the 
 physical effects of opium-smoldng were not percej^tible. I cannot account 
 for this exceptional case otherwise than by supposing that the physical 
 constitution of this man was sufficiently strong to resist the effects of the 
 drug. But in the vast majority of cases opium-smoking is disastrous in 
 its results. Opium eating is less injurious than opium-smoking, but, 
 except when used for medical purposes, it is serioiisly harmful. Very 
 often opium-eaters and opium-smokers die a premature death from 
 dysenteiy or other diseases. I have known some most painful cases of 
 premature death from the effects of opium. As to the moral results of 
 of the consumption of opium, in most cases all manhood is crushed out 
 of a person addicted to it. The habit is so terrible in its power over its 
 victim, that he is driven to the sacrifice of all considerations of health, 
 respectability, and usefulness for its sake. 
 
 Q. — What do you say in reference to pubUc opinion in connection 
 with opium eating ? 
 
 A. — That the habit of taldng opium is looked upon as disgraceful, is 
 easily proved by certain well-known facts. In the first place, the extreme 
 secrecy with which the habit is indulged in, indicates the strong reluct- 
 ance of opium-eaters or smokers to allow their habit to be known. 
 
( 11 ) 
 
 Secondly, the terms ffolikJior (opium-smoker) and qfimHor (opium eater) 
 are regarded as most abusive, being taken to cover the meaning of the 
 words “insane,” “dishonest,” “indolent.” They would be resented by 
 any one to whom they might be applied. Thirdly, if any one looks very 
 lean and emaciated, people say of him “he looks like an opium-smoker or 
 opium-eater.” I may mention two more facts to show how extremely 
 disgraceful and degrading the habit is considered to be. An aunt of 
 mine was advised to take opium as a medicine in consequence of certain 
 disorders from which she suffered ; she said, with a very sad look : “ If T 
 must take opium, I shall submit to it as an inevitable affliction.” My 
 father suffered from chronic diarrhoea for nearly twenty years before his 
 death. He once said in my presence that he had been advised by many 
 to take opium, but he would never do it even for the sake of life. 
 
 Q. — Have you any suggestion to make as to how the loss of revenue 
 might be made up, provided there was a loss and England did not make 
 it up ? 
 
 A. — If the traffic can be shown to be injurious and degrading, we 
 must submit to the inevitable loss and must make it up as the Gover nment 
 of India is now bound to make up the loss it has inflicted upon itself by 
 granting an exchange compensation allowance to its European servants. 
 I am not a financial expert, and can only speak of the question from a 
 moral aspect. I further suggest that a curtailment of expenditure might 
 be profitably tried in certain departments of adminstration in order partially 
 to meet the loss. In my opinion the sale of opium ought to be permitted 
 only at dispensaries and on the prescriptions of medical men. 
 
 Q. — Is it not the case that there are many parts of Bengal in which 
 there are no medical men to give prescriptions ? 
 
 A. — Certainly such is the case, but I would ratlier liave people go 
 without opium than have it placed within their reach, as is the case with 
 other poisons that are not vended except in dispensaries. 
 
 Q. — 111 the cases in which there are no medical men who could give 
 these prescriptions, is there any class of persons in the Bengal villages who 
 you think might be entrusted with a discretionary power to supply it for 
 medical purposes and to refuse it where it was not so required ? 
 
 A. — I am certainly aware of various classes of men who practise 
 though they are not qualified. There are some whom I would not en- 
 trust with the sale of opiuui ; on the other hand, tliere are others who 
 have had some training ; they have not passed the examinations of the 
 Medical College of any Indian University or of the medical schools, but 
 t hey have studied at these places or seats of learning for several years 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 and, therefore, have some little knowledge of medical subjects. Such 
 men I would entrust, and also those who have had some little training in 
 the old Hindu method of treating cases, the Kobirajes. 
 
 I have been invited to give evidence here by the Indian Association 
 which consists solely of Natives of India and by the Brahmo Somaj. 
 
 By Mr. Haridas Veharidas. — Would you compare the effects of 
 opium with those of alcohol taken in excess ? 
 
 A. — I would rather avoid making any comparison because I regard 
 both as extremely injurious. 
 
 Q. — Both are equally bad ? 
 
 A. — Yes in different ways. It may be that alcohol stimulates, and 
 opium enfeebles and enervates — that is the only difference. Nature in 
 both cases is ruined, disordered ; in tlie one case by being pushed beyond 
 its normal limits, and in the other by being enervated and enfeebled. 
 
 Q. — You say that the opium habit and the alcohol habits are two 
 evils ; if you were asked, which you would prefer ? 
 
 A. — It would be like asking me whether I would prefer to die of 
 cholera or paralysis. 
 
 By the Chairman. — You regard the indulgence in alcohol or in 
 opium as a vice ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 By Mr. Haridas Veharidas. — Which would you deal with first ? 
 
 A. — From a financial point of view I do not know that I can make 
 any suggestion of any value ; but I might suggest that a further restric- 
 tion of consumption might be practised in both fields. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. — Do you think that the alcohol habit is doing 
 more harm than opium or less harm ? 
 
 A. — I confess it is rather difficult to make any comparison. I have 
 known people who have been ruined by indulgence in alcohol, and I have 
 known people who have been ruined by indulgence in opium. 
 
 Q. — You are not prepared to express any opinion as to the comparative 
 harm which from your point of view they are doing. 
 
 A. — It would be difficult for this reason, that the proportion of those 
 who indulge in alcohol or opium varies considerably at various places. 
 If I saw in certain villages that opium was doing a great deal of harm I 
 should be inclined to do away with it, and if in another place I saw alcohol 
 was doing harm I should be inclined to do away with that. 
 
( IS ) 
 
 Q. — Do your remarks apply more particularly to the eating of opium 
 in excess or also to the eating in moderation? 
 
 A. — I find it very difficult to make a distinction between eating in 
 excess and moderate eating though I can make a distinction between those 
 who eat opium for medicinal purposes, and those who use it merely for 
 the pleasure they derive from the narcotic effects of the drug. 
 
 There are cases where the use of it has begun only from the motive 
 of preserving health, and that is not regarded as equally disgraceful with 
 those cases in which it is used merely for its narcotic effects. A sufferer 
 from certain complaints might be advised by his doctor to take opium 
 for a day or two, and that would not be regarded as disgraceful, but if, 
 even from motives of health, he took to the use of opium daily his feeling 
 would be that he would not be quite understood, that liis conduct might 
 be misintei'preted. 
 
 Q. — Does the word Afim-lchor” meaniau opium-eater in excess or in 
 moderation ? 
 
 A — I do not know the quantity of opium which must be taken 
 daily to justify the word “ afim-khor.” It would not be used as a term 
 of reproach to those who took opium only for medical purposes. 
 
 Q. — Do you mean those who use it habitually for medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — If habitually used, all I can say is that it would be unjust to 
 them, but people would apply it even to them. 
 
 Q. — Is the opium habit fairly common in the Nuddea District ? 
 
 A. — In one sense it is not common ; only a small proportion of 
 the population take it. The proportion of opium eaters or smokers 
 varies considerably in different localities. In some places fifty per 
 cent of the people take it. In a place near my own native village 
 fifty per cent of the people at least are consumers of opium, but in my 
 own native village I have not seen a single person using opium. 
 
 Q. — Can you give any reason for that? 
 
 A. — The only reason I can think of is that the habit is contagious, 
 and that it spreads in those places where there have been opium smokers 
 for a long time. 
 
 Eyldencd of Idr. S. Id. S.ustomjee of the Bengal ITational Chamber 
 
 of Commerce. 
 
 Mr. Rustomjee in reply to the Chairman said that he was one of the 
 Vice-Presidents of the Chamber and had been an Honoraiy Presidency 
 Magistrate for more than sixteen years. He did not remember ever 
 having a serious case of a criminal addicted to opium-eating. He con- 
 sidered that the majority of opium-eaters were consumers in moderate 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 amounts, and that to them the use of opium was beneficial and harmless. 
 The people of India were very heavily taxed already, and if fresh taxation 
 were imposed in consequence of the suppression of the opium revenue, it 
 would create great discontent and dissatisfaction. If the use of opium 
 were prohibited, he tliought it would lead to the increased consumption 
 of alcohol, which would demoralize the people. He did not think it could 
 be done by reduction of the Ci\ul or Military expenditui-e, as reducing 
 salaries would bring an inferior class of men into the Government 
 Service. 
 
 Evidence of Llr. ITil ComnliMookerjee. 
 
 Mr. Mookerjee, a Port Commissioner, concurred in these views. He 
 had had the management of the Tagore States in Rajshai, Mymeiising, 
 Pubna and Krishnagur, and in these districts he often came into contact 
 with the poorer classes. The poor ryots took opium for medicine, or as 
 a special luxury. To these men it often meant life, and he thought that 
 if deprived of opium, they would be driven to use spirits, ganja, and other 
 still more deleterious drugs. He thouglit it would be desirable if some 
 sort of prohibition were adopted to put a stop to the increasing cases of 
 opium suicide. In reply to Mr. A^'ilson, the witness stated that he would 
 not like his son or nephew, or any young man in whom he was interested 
 to take opium except under medical advice. He also stated that there 
 was reluctance on the part of many to admit the habit. He had himself 
 taken opium for the last six years for medical reasons. He had tried 
 four or five times to give it up but had fallen ill and was advised not to 
 give it up. 
 
 Evidence of Eai Sheo Buz Bogla, Bahadur. 
 
 Rai Sheo Bux Bogla, Bahadur, in reply to the Chairman, said he 
 was a merchant and banker, whose family originally came from Raj- 
 putana. He spoke of the use of opium by Rajputs and Sikhs. He con- 
 sidered that the use of oj^ium amongst those races did not bring physical 
 injury or demoralization. 
 
 In reply to Mr. AVilsou, he estimated the proportion of Rajputs and 
 Sikhs who take opium as a daily ration at seventy or eighty per cent. 
 
 In re^^ly to Mr. Fanshawe, he said that he represented the Marwaa i 
 community amongst whom the habit of opium-eating was fairly common. 
 It was generally begun about the age of forty. His own country was 
 Bikaneer. 
 
 Evidence of Maharaja Sir ITorendra 2Srishna. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness said : — Generally the people 
 of Bengal, especially in malarial, low and swanjjiy districts, take a small 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 quantity of opium as a tonic to preserve their health ; the dose daily 
 used is not exceeded by them, and it has no deleteiious effect eithei on 
 their moral or physical condition. People begin to take it for medical 
 purposes, though after the disease is cured they continue it to prevent 
 a relapse. 
 
 The prohibition of the cultivation of poppy lands would deprive the 
 Government of a large amount of revenue derived from the manufacture 
 and sale of opium, and I do not know that the Government can devise 
 any other easy mode of raising this large income. Besides, the-moderate 
 use of opium does not lead to the commission of heinous offences. Itds 
 beneficial to health ; it is better than brandy or whiskey. He had no 
 personal interest in poppy growing. He believed that themonsumption 
 of a moderate quantity of opium is not harmful to the persons who 
 take it. It does affect the brain and has no depressing effects afterwards 
 like the drinking of alcohol. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Wilson, witness said that if he had sons or young 
 men in whom he was interested, he would not allow them to begin 
 taking opium regularly in their younger days. He. would notallow 
 them to touch opium until they arrived at a ripe age, say fifty, if 
 necessary for their health. In their younger days he would object to 
 their touching opium, or any intoxicating drink. His', opinion that the 
 people of Bengal, especially in malarial swampy districts, take opium 
 to preserve their health was based on what he had heard generally from 
 others. He was personally acquainted with some of the Eastern districts 
 of Bengal. When Deputy Magistrate in the service of the Government, 
 he had visited Dacca, Farridpore and Mymensing, in which places 
 people take opium. This was about forty-five years ago. He had lived in 
 Calcutta since his birth except eight or ten years, when he had lived in 
 the Mofussil. He had once visited his zemindari in the twenty-four 
 Pergunnahs, about sixteen years ago. In his capacity as Senior Vice- 
 President of the British Indian Association, he signed a letter to the 
 Commission, in which it was stated that prohibition would reduce rents. 
 His explanation of this was that the opium cultivators pay more rents 
 to the zemindars tlian the cultivators of other food crops or grains. He 
 admitted, however, that if the ryot cultivates sugarcane or other plants 
 of his own inclination in the poppy growing lands, he could not claim 
 reduction of rents. He could not cite a case where the zemindar had 
 reduced the rent because Government had withheld the license to grow 
 poppy. So far as that part of the letter of the British Indian Associa- 
 tion was concerned, he had no personal knowledge, and referred the 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 Commission to the other members of the Association who have lands in 
 the poppy growing districts. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Haridas Veharidas, witness said that did not think 
 the habit of opium so bad as that of drinking. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Fanshawe, witness expressed the opinion that the 
 habit of eating opium was gererally begun by middle-aged people who 
 take small quantities after arriving at the age of fifty, when they find 
 that their digestive power is weakened. 
 
 By the Maharaja of Dhurbhanga. — Q — I suppose the chief objection 
 of the British Indian Association to the abolition of the opium monopoly 
 is that, in case the opium revenue were done away with altogether, 
 Government would very likely have recourse to direct taxation, and 
 I suppose the people of the country prefer the opium monopoly to any 
 direct taxation ; is that the view of your Association ? 
 
 A. — They think that the opium monopoly should not be abolished. 
 
 Evidence of Maharaja Dnrf a Churn La*^, C. Z. E. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness said that he was at the head 
 of a large commercial concern. He attended, not as a representative of 
 the British Indian Association, but to represent his own individual views. 
 He expressed the opinion that people who consume opium have taken it 
 as a remedy against miasmatic influences and several other diseases, such 
 as diabetes, bronchitis and complaints arising from cold. His experience 
 did not extend beyond Calcutta and Chinsurah. He had not heard of a 
 single case of moral depravity of people who were accustomed to eat opium 
 in moderation. On the contrary, he had always heard of the good effects 
 of opium among people after they have reached about fifty. It prolongs 
 life ; that is the general impression, and I believe it is a fact. It gives 
 tone and spirit to the man who takes it. It is, so to speak, an instinct- 
 ively adopted indigenous remedy or preventive against what are known 
 to be the effects of the unhealthy sourroundings of the people. There 
 would be a general discontent among the people if a new tax had to be 
 imposed upon them in lieu of the revenue derived from opium. The 
 zemindars in the opium districts would suffer by prohibition as they 
 could not get the same rents for their lands. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q. — Under the Tenancy Laws can the ryot claim a 
 reduction of his rent if he ceases to grow poppy ? 
 
 A. — I think he can. 
 
 Q. — Do you know of any case in which he has got a reduction ? 
 
 A. — I am not aware of any case. 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 Q.— Do you take any personal part in the management of youi 
 estates ? 
 
 A. — I do not take a large interest in the management of my estates 
 now-a-days. The active management is left with my son. 
 
 The letter which he had signed was not a letter of the British 
 Indian Association. Those members of that Association who signed it, 
 did so on their own individual account. 
 
 Q. — It is dated from 18, British India Street ; is that the 
 office ? 
 
 A. — That is the office of the Association, 
 
 Q. — And I think the last signature is the signature of your secretary ? 
 
 A. — Yes, but he does not sign as secretary, 
 
 Q. — The first signature is the signature of one of your vice- 
 pi'esidents ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — This was given to me as a letter from the British Indian Asso- 
 ciation, is that wrong ? 
 
 A. — It was a mistake. 
 
 Q. — Still you signed ifand it expressed your opinion ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q.— Now will you explain it a little ? In paragraph three you state 
 that “where a monopoly is so strict as that of opium is in India, it be- 
 comes practically prohibitive to the general body of the people;” that is 
 your opinion ? 
 
 A. — Yes, it is as far as possible. 
 
 Q. — Then you say that “prohibition of the growth of the poppy and 
 manufacture and sale of opium would practically mean unjustifiable inter- 
 ference”? 
 
 A. — So it will be. 
 
 Q- — But then it is already interfered with as regards the general 
 body of the people ? 
 
 A. — Yes, so long as the poppy is allowed to be grown it is not a 
 prohibition. 
 
 Q. — But so far as the general body of the people is concerned it is 
 prohibited ? 
 
 A.— In cases where it was already allowed, if prohibition is to take 
 effect, it will interfere with the rights of the people. It is already 
 allowed by the Government to be grown in certain districts ; on what 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 o-round is tlie Goverameiit to take away that right from the owner of the 
 place ? 
 
 Q, I must not answer questions, but ask them. I want to know 
 
 why you say that proiiibition is unjustifiable interference when in the 
 greater part of India it is absolutely prohibited ? 
 
 A. It is absolutely prohibited in other parts of India, but where 
 
 prohibition does not exist, if Government tried to withdraw or to prohibit 
 in tliose parts, it would be an interference with the rights of property 
 there. 
 
 Q. In the case of Assam, prohibition of the poppy was enforced 
 
 twenty years ago ; do you consider that was unjustifiable interference with 
 the rights of private property ? 
 
 A. I have no knowledge of that interference, and therefore cannot 
 
 answer that question. If the Government were bent upon poisoning the 
 whole or the greater part of its subjects, I would certainly prohibit opium 
 everywhere, but such not being the case, I do not see why there should 
 be any attempt made to urge the Government to prevent. the cultivation of 
 opium. 
 
 Q. If it is an interference with the rights of property and the 
 
 liberty of the subject, is not that liberty already interfered with as regards 
 the larger part of India ? 
 
 A. We see that it is good for the country that that prohibition is 
 
 made, because if the whole of India was allowed to grow opium, there 
 would be a famine every year. 
 
 Q. — Then if it is good for the country that the prohibition is made 
 to prohibit it entirely would be justifiable ? , 
 
 A. — I do not think so.' 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — If you thought that opium was necessarily 
 a poison you would consider that the policy of the Government should be 
 changed ? 
 
 Q. — Yes, I would. 
 
 Asked by Mr. Wilson how he knew that the cultivators would be 
 opposed to the change, he replied. It is fair to conclude that when 
 their interests sirffer they would be opposed to the change; it is not 
 that I have consulted them. 
 
 Q. — Then you speak not from what you know but what you con- 
 jecture ? 
 
 A. — I have not consulted them. 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 By Mf. Fanshawe : — He had no poppy cultivation in his own zemin- 
 dari, and had no practical knowledge of it. 
 
 Evlloaco of Sir Joi:3!il?9 MjIxuu T%2:3?0; E.O.S.Z. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness stated that his property did 
 not lie in the poppy growing districts. He believed that the moderate 
 use of opium was beneficial to the people, but in cases of abuse it might 
 bring on injury. He thought that the cases of abuse were relatively very 
 few, and that medicinally opium was of great value to the people of India. 
 He considered that a policy of prohibition would create a great deal of 
 dissatisfaction, and would drive the people to an increased use of alcohol. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Wils m, witness stated that he had signed the letter 
 of the British Indian Association with five other gentlemen. Asked 
 whether he could throw any further light on the question put to the last 
 witness about reducing rents, he replied ; the question stands in this way. 
 When the ryots grow a crop which is less profitable than another, the 
 zemindar is bound to reduce the rent by no legal act, but it is for his 
 own interest as well as the interest of the estate that he should not claim 
 the same amount of money or rent from him which the ryot used to 
 pay when cultivating a crop which paid him better. 
 
 Q. — As a matter of fact when the Government withholds the license 
 to cultivate the poppy from any ryot, does the zemindar reduce the rent ? 
 
 A.— Most likely he will have to do it. It was never tried. When 
 a cultivator has been cultivating beetle-leaf or sugar-cane, and when by 
 rotation or by some accident he cannot get an equally paying crop the 
 zemindar is obliged to make a reduction in the rent ; and it necessarily 
 follows that the same thing will occur in a case of this kind. 
 
 Q. — Can you give any cases in which it has been done ? 
 
 A. — In my own estate several cases of the kind have occurred. 
 
 Evidexise of Eaja Poary Mohun IMooIssi'jse, 0. S. Z. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness said that he held estates in 
 five districts in the Bengal Presidency, none of them in the poppy grow- 
 ing districts. He agreed with the previous witnesses. He thought that 
 greater restrictions might be introduced as regards smoking chandu. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Wilson, he said that he regularly visited his estates 
 during the last thirty or thirty-five years. He had seen opium taken 
 habitually as a preventive against fever and with good results. In some 
 cases they take it for failing health, for failing powers of assimulatiou 
 for the gradual decay of bodily power and a variety of causes. 
 
 In his native town of Utterpara he estimated the number of persons 
 taking opium to be 821 . This large proportion of opium takers might 
 
( w ) 
 
 be due to the large floating population. He thought that the 
 Government monopoly is far from injurious, and that its abolition would 
 result in a much greater use of opium in this country. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Fanshawe, theiwitness said that he knew hundreds of 
 cases of moderate opium-eating. After a certain age, it was found very 
 beneficial. It does not affect their health or their morals injuriously ; on 
 the contrary, it renovates the health in the case of persons whose powers of 
 assimilation have been failing, whose health has lost all elasticity, whose 
 powers of nutrition have been diminished ; in all these cases opium does 
 immense good, even in the case of young men of thirty-five. One of my 
 nephews takes opium. He began when he was thirty ; he is now 
 thirty-seven. The habit is not regarded as showing any want of respect- 
 ability or as a vice, whilst the man who drinks alcohol labours under a 
 social ostracism. 
 
 In reply to Mr. Wilson, witness said that the letter from the 
 British Indian Association could not be considered as an official letter, 
 because the question was not discussed formally at a meeting and a 
 decision come to. This letter, however, represented the views of all the 
 members of the Association whom he had had occasion to consult on the 
 subject. In August last their Association did send a formal letter to 
 the Viceroy upon this subject, but the present letter was not an official 
 one. Asked why in the official letter of August last, the Association 
 stated that “ no proposal is made by the advocates of these measures in 
 recouping the loss of revenue that this country would suffer at this critical 
 time ” he replied : — Because we have not heard that any proposal has 
 been seriously made for recouping the revenue if the opium revenue is 
 lost to the country. 
 
 Then you do not know anything of the publications of the 
 
 of the society to which you are referring ? 
 
 We refer simply to the resolution of Parliament. 
 
 Q_ I am referring to the Anti-Opium Society. Let me ask you, 
 
 is Sir Romesh Chunder Mitter, the late Judge of High Court, a member 
 of your Committee ? 
 
 A.-— Yes. 
 
 Q._Was he invited to sign this letter ? 
 
 I believe he was not at the time in Calcutta. 
 
 Q Are you sure that he was not asked to sign this letter ? 
 
 A. I am perfectly ignorant about it. 
 
( *1 ) 
 
 Svlde&ce of RajlEumar Sarradhlkarl. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness stated that he had signed the 
 letter addressed to the Commission in his individual capacity and that he 
 held the office of secretary to the British Indian Association. He con- 
 curred in the views expressed by the preceding witnesses. In reply to Mr. 
 Wilson, he said that his committee had not considered this question 
 since their memorial presented in August last. Sir Romesh Chunder 
 Mitter was not asked to sign the letter addressed to the Commission. 
 Witness was editor of the ''■Hindu Patriot.” He could not' tell how 
 many copies of the paper were taken by Government. He should think 
 about fifty copies, not more. Asked whether he had personal knowledge 
 of the facts stated in the memorial, he said that he had come across many 
 people who use opium. He was not familiar with any opium growing 
 districts himself. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. — Q. — You say that Government takes copies of 
 the "Hindu Patriot,” does it stand on any different footing from other 
 papers in that respect ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — Do you happen to know whether my own office, the Post Office, 
 takes a copy of the paper or not? 
 
 A. — I think it does. 
 
 Q. — I suppose the Government Departments take it as they require 
 it as an advertising medium, or whatever the reasons may be ? 
 
 A. — As they send to other papers, so they send to us. 
 
 Evidence of Sahu Sallgram Singh. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness said that he came from a vilr 
 lage in the district of Shahabad in Behar, in which opium is not largely 
 consumed. Those who take it as a habit and for the sake of pleasure are 
 generally Mahommedans. Not much opium is used in the district as a 
 medicine. If a man takes opium except for medical pui’poses it is looked 
 upon as improper. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that they would approve of Government prohibit- 
 ing the use of opium for other than medical purposes ? 
 
 A. — If opium be supplied freely to the people for medical pui-poses, 
 if the effect of prohibition bfe not to interfere with that free supply, and 
 if it does not lead to the imposition of any tax, the people would like to 
 have some further restriction. There are already existing restrictions ; 
 but in spite of those restrictions we find chandu and madak being 
 smoked by the people, and we also find in some cases that opium is taken 
 
( ) 
 
 as a pernicious habit which leads to the niination of people. If some 
 restrictive measures could be adopted to stop the recurrence of thoscj evils 
 it would be very desirable. He had not thought of any scheme for 
 further restriction. 
 
 Q. — Do you think it possible absolutely to prohibit the growth, 
 manufacture, and sale of opium in British India for any other than 
 medical purposes? 
 
 A. — I do not think at present that it is possible unless Government 
 were to prohibit private persons from growing opium. If the Govern- 
 ment were to withdraw the monopoly and leave it open, like indigo and 
 other things, to private individuals, the evils might be much worse. 
 
 Q. — It has been said that the prohibition of I'oppy cultivation would 
 reduce rents ? 
 
 A. — Certainly as regards money rents according to law they could 
 not be reduced, but in Behar and in parts of Shahabad and Gya rent is 
 paid in kind ; all my people in Patna and Gya districts invariably pay 
 rent of poppy lands in money, with respect to poppy land, therefore, it is 
 a matter wholly of unconcern with the landlord if the cultivation of the 
 poppy be stoped, because the money rent established by law cannot be 
 reduced. When the tenant agrees to pay a money rent it is his look-out 
 what he cultivates, not the look-out of the landlords. If he does not 
 wish to cultivate upon those terms, he can abandon the tenure. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson.— Q. — I am a Pleader in the High Court, and I know 
 the law. I know that in no case can a tenant go to the landlord and ask 
 for a reduction of his rent because he has ceased to grow opium. 
 
 Q. — It is stated on the top of the printed paper that I hold in my 
 hand that you are nominated by the British Indian Association ? 
 
 A. — When I sent in my manuscript statement those words were not 
 there. 
 
 Q.— You say in paragraphs five and six that the growing of opium 
 is not viewed as profitable now-a-days. I suppose that is so ? 
 
 A. — That is so. My special reason for making that statement is 
 that during September or October last I happened to be in my village and 
 some common officer connected with the Opium Department came and 
 reported to me that the lumbardar was not agreeable to cultivate opium 
 in that village, and suggested that I should ask him or persuade him to 
 enter into an arrangement with the Opium Department to cultivate some 
 lands. I sent for the lumhardar, and told him that it was desirable that 
 he should cultivate opium unless it was a losing business for him. I 
 
( ) 
 
 could not compel him to do so, but if he chose he could do so ; he had a 
 free option in the matter, but at the same time I told him it would be 
 desirable if he could see his way to cultivate. The lumbardar is a man 
 who enters in the contract on behalf of the other tenants. He agrees to 
 take up one hundred bighas or fifty bighas and he brings in other tenants 
 and distributes it between them. He brings the advances from the Opi- 
 um Department and distributes them ; and finally when the opium is sent 
 in he brings the price of it as it is supplied by the cultivators. There is 
 only one man to whom they look up in the village, and he is the lum- 
 bardar. As I have said, I sent for him and asked him whether he was 
 willing to cultivate, but he was not willing because the tenants generally 
 were averse to doing what was not a very profitable business. This was 
 in the village of Kalharia, near the town of Arrah. Later on I had a 
 letter addressed to me or to my brother — I am not sure which it was — a 
 letter from Mr. Sen ( the son of Keshub Chunder Sen ), an officer con- 
 nect d with the Opium Department, saying that he would like to know 
 why the tenants were averse to growing opium, and that he would like to 
 have a conference with me on the subject. If I remember rightly, we 
 said in answer that the reason was that it was not a very profitable busi- 
 ness, and therefore they did not like to cultivate it. 
 
 Q. — Have you heard of anything of that kind before, or was that the 
 first and only instance ? 
 
 A. — Before that I had also heard from those tenants that they were 
 not very keen about cultivating opium ; I heard from people also in the 
 Patna District. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. — Q. — What conclusion would you found on that 
 single instance as regards the large number of cultivators who cultivate 
 the poppy in Behar, some 630,000 ? 
 
 A. — The man who came asked me to persuade a particular tenant 
 to do it, and he said, There are other villages where the tenants are also 
 unwilling to cultivate. ” 
 
 Q. — Would you place any reliance upon this as proving general un- 
 willingness to cultivate poppy when you have 630,000 cultivators to deal 
 with ? 
 
 A. — Where the growth of sugarcane is fast increasing, as in Sbaha- 
 bad and also in Patna, and in some parts of Gya, there it would be a 
 matter of indifference to the tenants and landlords whether opium or 
 sugarcane is grown. So far as the tenants are concerned, they will prefer 
 sugarcane, which is more profitable. 
 
( w ) 
 
 Q. — Does not the cultivation of sugarcane depend upon various 
 conditions — ^upon whether there is a market and whether there is certain 
 manure to be had, and various conditions of that kind ? 
 
 A. — It does not depend Upon that altogether. It requires three or 
 four times watering ; it takes a little more trouble to water. 
 
 Q. — Is it not the case that the cultivator who grows poppy is regard- 
 ed as a good solvent tenant, likely to pay his rent punctually ? 
 
 A. — There is this advantage, that when the advances are made, the 
 man is able to pay his rent more readily from the money that he gets, and 
 he is not put to the inconvenience of selling his grain to pay the landlord. 
 
 Q.— You think that the prohibition to cultivate poppy would not 
 affect the landlord indirectly ? 
 
 A, — -Indirectly in regard to the payment of rent. In some cases 
 there may be a delay on account of the man not growing poppy. 
 
 Q. — You expressed an opinion as to the injurious effects caused by 
 opium. Do you mean by opium-eating in excess ? If so, what would'be 
 the number of opium-eating cases in excess which have come within your 
 own experience. Would they be^few or many, speaking generally? 
 
 A. — They are few, and that in towns, not in the villages. 
 
 Q. — ^Would the majority of people who eat opium be those who eat 
 it in moderation ? 
 
 A. — There are a good number, regard being had to the population 
 but I could not give you the percentage ; the majority of people take it in 
 small quantities. 
 
 Q. — Do you include in the use for medical purposes the cases of such 
 persons as take opium at a later age ? 
 
 A. — Yes, to prevent the effects of colds and chills. I admit that iti 
 is taken in some cases as a preventive against chills and colds. 
 
 Q. — ^With your knowledge of the country, do you t think it is practi- 
 cable to provide that people who want to obtain opium for this purpose 
 should be able to do so while others should be prevented from obtaining 
 opium for purposes not included under the head of medical ? 
 
 A. — I have not considered over any scheme, and I should not like to 
 adopt any scheme the effect of which may be to deprive those who want 
 opium for the purposes of medicime of the opportunity of getting it. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — The lumbardar is the principal tenant of the 
 village; he gets his name registered in the Opium Department and 
 enters into a sort of agreement with that Department to get certain 
 quantities of land within his village cultivated either by himself or by 
 
( M ) 
 
 others. For these lands he gets advances from the Opium Departmmit. 
 
 Q.— Is he appointed by the Government or elected by the villagers ? 
 
 A. I should say both. The villagers choose and recognise him as 
 
 their lumbardar, and the Government looks upon him also as a man 
 through whom the advances can be distributed. 
 
 Q. — ^He is not a servant ? 
 
 A. — ^There is no appointment. 
 
 Q. — Suppose the villagers do not like him, can they get rid of him ? 
 
 A.— They will not cultivate the land at his instance, if they dislike 
 him. That is the most effective way of prohibiting him. He is some- 
 thing like a go-between between the Government and the tenant. 
 
 Q.-^Does he get any profit out of it? 
 
 A. — Very little. Perhaps two pice in a rupee for the trouble of 
 going and coming. 
 
 Q. — By Mr. Fanshawe. — He belongs to the village and he is a re- 
 presentative of the villagers ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q.-^But so far as any appointment goes? 
 
 A. — The Government does not appoint him. 
 
 Q.^In no way ? 
 
 A.— No. But he is recognised by the Government Department as a 
 go-between so far as opium is concerned. 
 
 Q. — He is put forward ‘by the villagers as their representative ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 E-TiAonoeQfSx. XCobd&dra Lai Sircar. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness stated that he was a member 
 of the British Indian As.sociation ; that he received a circular asking him 
 to attend and give evidence, not from the Association, but from Mr. Inglis, 
 Mr. Lyall’s Secretary. Some time ago a member of the British Indian 
 Association asked him if he would like to give evidence before the Com- 
 mission, and he said that he would have no objection if he was required. 
 Asa medical practitioner, his experience was limited chiefly to Calcutta. 
 He regarded opium as having value, but not much, in affording relief 
 from pains. He did not think it had a permanent value for this purpose. 
 A pretty large percentage of opium-eating originates in the desire to ob- 
 tain relief from pain. Opium is often recommended by opium-eaters who 
 have themselves experienced some temporary relief from its use, but 
 witness did not approve of such advice. By far the largest class of opium 
 
( ) 
 
 eaters consists of persons who have taken to the habit for the sake of the 
 pleasures which its intoxication brings on, the chief of these pleasures is 
 what I may call sexual endurance. When once adopted, it is almost im- 
 possible to give up the use of opium. I have not observed any serious 
 organic desease or moral depravity, from a molerate habitual use of 
 opium. I have found it when taken in immoderate quantities to produce 
 great mischief. It acts as a poison. Taken in immoderate doses opium 
 often gives rise to fatal obstruction of the bowels and retention of urine 
 from paralysis of the muscular fibre of the viscera ; or it may lead to 
 the opposite conditions of diarrhoea, dysentery, and eneuresis. It often 
 leads to a condition of the brain which makes the victim lead a most 
 wretched and miserable existence of dullness andistupidity, the very picture 
 of living death If the dose is suldenly increased, as it sometimes is, 
 then there may be actual apoplexy. 
 
 Witness had recently visited two cAan'/tt-smoklng dens and one madak- 
 smokingden. The smokers were very familiar with me and confessed many 
 thingswhich I put down. In the first chandn shop that I visited all the 
 smokers were males, and did not appear to be such as may be called poor. 
 Indeed, one of them was a zemindar from the North-West. All of tliem 
 seemed to be well nourished, and some of them even appeared to be ro- 
 bust. I entered into a pret'y long and familiar conversation with them. 
 They one and all confessed that they had begun to take to the smoking 
 from the assurance they had received from smokers of its strengthening 
 effects on the sexual powers an 1 they told me that this invariably was 
 the origin of what they all most emphatically called the pernicious habit. 
 
 The witness would desire that Government should abolish shops at 
 which chindu or madah can be smoked or purchased. The smokers 
 themselves would be glad if Government would abolish these shops. He 
 considered opium-eating less pernicious than opium-smoking. He was 
 opposed to the use of all intoxicating drugs, and he lookerl upon tea, 
 coffee, cocoa, &c., as absolutely unnecessary for men. In his opinion, rest, 
 healthy recreation, and adequate nourishment are all that man requries for 
 the due performance of the functions of life, physical, and psychical. As 
 a practical man, he thought it impossible to prohibit the use of opium, and 
 that Government should strive to regulate its consumption as far as it 
 can. He was not prepared with any specific suggestion, but considered 
 that more stringent measures should be adopted to prevent abuse. In 
 reply to Mr. Wilson, the witness explained that the heading of his 
 statement, in which he was said to have been nominated by the British 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 Indian Association, had not been supplied by himself. He had headed 
 his paper “Notes on opium-eating and smoking for the Royal Commission,” 
 when the print came into his hands, he found it altered. Only one other 
 medical gentleman in India had received the distinction of C.I.E. He 
 found opium to act as a palliative and seldom as a curative agent. It 
 seems to arrest the progress of disease but this is seeming only in the 
 majority of cases. The disease which appears to yield often returns with 
 greater violence. Partly owing to the recklessness of practitioners many 
 a patient has been driven into the habit of taking the drug, from 
 which neither could he free himself nor could he be freed without caus- 
 ing a return of the suffering which had necessitated the use of the drug, 
 or without fresh and peculiar sufferings due to the cessation of the drug’s 
 primary action. 
 
 The use of which he had spoken for sexual endurance, or prolonga- 
 tion of the sexual act, is afterwards followed by impotence. He did not 
 go so far as to say that the habit cannot be broken, but the cases are 
 very few and far between. The only depravity that he had observed was 
 the unconquerable hankering after the drug. In both the chandu and 
 madah smoking dens, the smokers said they would be glad if Government 
 would abolish the shops. They knew they would suffer individually, 
 but they would rather do so than that future generations should be 
 entangled in aliabit which entails such a perversion of the will, and in 
 the end deprives them of the very power for tlie strengthening of which 
 they prized it so much in the beginning and the owners of the shops 
 who were themselves smokers did riot dispute what their customers said. 
 He did not put beer, tea, and opium on a level as things that he would 
 like to see equally abolished. Tea, cocoa, and coffee he regarded as 
 much naore innocent than opium, but absolutely unnecessary. 
 
 By the Cbairman. — Alcohol is a deadly poison, one of the worst 
 poisons in existence for a man to take ; infinitely worse than opium. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Q.— rls beer worse than opium ? 
 
 A. — -Yea. Whatever contains alcohol is worse than opium as re- 
 gards its effects on the physical as well as on the mental constitution. 
 
 Q. — Is that in your experience as regards Europeans as well as 
 the Natives of India ? 
 
 A.rrrl have had very little experience of Europeans who are opium- 
 eaters as to whether the effect of beer and spirits is equal to, or worse 
 than, the effects of opium. If the people take beer in moderate quantities 
 they may not have body or mind diseased in any way, but generally 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 these things are never taken in moderate quantities. Europeans in India 
 fare worse for their drinking habits in this climate. His practice was 
 in Calcutta and in the suburbs. He did not know much of the habits 
 of the poorer classes in the remote dictricts of Bengal. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe Q — TIis statement tliat the largest class of 
 opium-eaters take to t'le liabit ln'cauae of its pleasures, applied mainly 
 to Calcutta. He luid chiefly found opi in:-eaters among Mahommedans, 
 but the habit belonged to all classes. His remarks were applicable 
 more to the middle and upper classes than to the lower in Calcutta. 
 The difficulty in giving up the habit applied to all cases, even to those 
 who only take a grain a day, though it becomes greater with an increase 
 of the doses. In the first chanrlu shop that he visited there were 
 about ten and in the next about eight. The statements made to him 
 by the smokers were volunteered. He simply asked them why they 
 had taken to the habit, and they made that confession. He had not 
 made any chemical or medical analysis enabling him to ascertain the 
 effect in eating and smoking opium. He spoke from simple experience. 
 He would not interfere with the man who habitually smokes in his 
 house, but he thought that privaie gatherings or clubs for smoking 
 should and could be prohibited. 
 
 Q. — There has beeen a certain amount of smoking going on in 
 private places called smoking clubs. Would you propose to interfere 
 with them ? 
 
 A. — It would be impossible to interfere with them. 
 
 He did not regard tea, coffee, or cocoa as nourishment at all, if 
 it were not for the little milk and sugar with which they arc mixed. 
 
 By the Chairman ; — I am a graduate of medicine in the Calcutta 
 University. I did not say that drinking tends to shorten life. 
 
 Q. — But you think it a pernicious habit ? 
 
 A. — I do not say it is a pernicious habit, but an unnecessary habit. 
 The time devoted to tea-drinking and coffee drinking might be better 
 occupied. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe. — Q. — Is it or is it not the case that the British 
 Indian Association sent in your name with those of other gentlemen as 
 the name of those who were ready to give evidence ? 
 
 A. — I did not know that before this was sent to me. I did not 
 know that I was to come here as a nominee of the Association. 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 Evidenoe of tbe Son’isle (^onesli Ohander Olia&der. 
 
 1 am a member of the Bengal Legislative Council and of the British 
 Indian Association. I concur generally with what has been said by the 
 previous witnesses Some of those who are addicted to the smoking of 
 madak and chandu commit petty thefts and other minor offences, but the 
 eating of opium in moderate doses has not been the cause of moral 
 depravity of any kind among any class of persons. 
 
 Witness did not believe that the people of Bengal would be willing 
 to bear the cost of prohibitive measures and he recommended no alteration 
 of any sort in existing arrangements for the growth of the poppy and the 
 manufacture and sale of opium. The prohibition of the poppy would be 
 prejudicial, and would be difficult to maintain in view of the risks from 
 smuggling. 
 
 By Mr. Wilson. — Witness was a member of the legal profession. 
 He visited the outlying districts of Bengal once a year during the vacation. 
 The evidence of Babu Saligram Singh to the effect thatipoppy cultivation 
 was not profitable, and that the people did not care for it, did not at all 
 affect his opinion as to its being one of the most valuable agricultural 
 resources. So far as witness’ information went, he did not think that 
 Babu Saligram Singh was right. He would put the sale of opium under 
 police regulations in Calcutta. He considered the arrangements as to 
 growtli and cultivation perfect ; but the retail sale ought to be put under 
 further restriction. 
 
 By Mr. Fanshawe Eating opium in moderation has no injurious 
 effects on the visible condition of the people or on their moral character. 
 The practice is fairly common. All retail vendors of opium in Calcutta 
 should be placed under the supervision of the police of the thanas in which 
 their shops are. 
 
 Q — What do you mean by that — that he would be liable to have 
 his shop visited at all times, or that the police should check his issues or 
 what? 
 
 A. — There should be some guarantee that purchasers do not use 
 opium for other than lawful purposes. 
 
 Q. — How are the .police to maintain that? 
 
 A. — In the some way as arms and ammunition are under the police 
 supervision . 
 
 Q. — A register being kept of all purchases ? 
 
 A. — Some such thing ought to be done. 
 
 Mr. J. Prescott Hewett, Secretary of the Commission, was then 
 called to explain how the statement of Babu Saligram Singh came to have 
 
( 80 ) 
 
 the words “ a wituess nominated by the 'British ilndiau Association” 
 at its head. He stated that be had not had the paper printed, and tliat the 
 heading was upon the paper when he reeeived it from Mr. Dane or Mr- 
 Inglis. >He gave the same answer as to the statement of Dr. Mohendro 
 Lai Sircar. 'With regard to the letter signed by six gentlemen, dated 
 from No. 18, British Indian Street on which was written “Letter 
 from the British Indian Association” ; those words were written by his 
 clerk. 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Joseph Culshaw, Methodist Publishing House, Calcutta. 
 

 
 
 '■'r- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ?>■». 
 
 1 . 
 
 
 
 :4 
 
 ^ir . 
 
 ■"jt 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 


 3 />7 
 
 7f7 
 
 OfV 
 
 tJ v>o 
 
 THE ROYAL COMMISSION 
 
 
 X 
 
 ’)N THK 
 
 \' 
 
 0f>ltJFR VmFF\(S. ^ 4 / 
 
 .NX/,- 
 
 
 Special Report of ihe Evidence i 
 
 in India. 
 
 Part XVI. 13th Sc 15th December, 1893. 
 
 SITTING AT, RANGOON AND MANDALAY. 
 
 •A 
 
 _ .... • 
 
 PRICE ONE PENNY, or ONE ANNA, for each part. 
 
 Published by the 
 
 Society for the Soppebssiok of the Opium Trauf, 
 Broadway Chambers. London. S. W.' 
 
 "Also^at the 
 
 Wp’JHODTRT FrBl.TRHlNU HouRF. 4.^, 1-HAPA5.T.M / St., (akTIIA, 
 
' K' t 
 
 
 ' \ 
 
The HopI ComniissiDn on Opium. 
 
 Evidence of ULv. F. HL. Itladoerav Pillay. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman (Sir -lames Lyall) the witness stated that 
 lie was an Honorary Magistrate and Municipal Commissioner in Ran- 
 goon and liad been in Burma twenty years, almost entirely in Rangoon. 
 He read the following statement : I am a merchant and a contractor for 
 loading and unloading cargoes from vessels visiting this port. I am doing 
 the largest trade in this lino, besides I used to work for the Public 
 AVorks Department, rice mills, and railway, etc., and own a saw mill 
 and several parcels of paddy-land in Rangoon, Hanthawaddy, and' P,egu 
 districts. Most of the men whom I employ to carry out tliese works are 
 people who come from the Madras Presidency, in Ganjam and Godavery 
 districts. I engage an average of 1,500 men daily. These men are com- 
 monly known as Coringis; 90 per cent of these men are opium eaters, 
 they look healthy and are very hardworking men ; tliey start their work at 
 six in the morning and work till 1 r.Ji., and resume their work at 2 p.m. 
 and continue to 6 p. -m. Some of the carrying men are always busy in 
 carrying rice bags, each weighing 220 to 230 lbs., on their shoulders ; 
 they take their meal at 4 a. m. and at 1 p. Jt., instead of mid-day meal 
 they use to eat a small pill of opium and drink water. As soon as then- 
 work is over they take another pill of opium, and they return to their 
 houses for cooking, etc. Unless tliese opium-eaters have opium they look 
 like dead men and they cannot do their work. If they are suddenly 
 stopped as to taking opium they are subject to severe sickness. When 
 I was a passenger on board a steamer there were a large number of coolies 
 coming across from the Madras Presidency here. Of course, they were 
 very strict about carrying opium from one port to another, and all the 
 opium was seized. Most of the men were very sick and never took a 
 meal. Some of them were very dangerously ill, and I was obliged to ask 
 the captain of that steamer to give them a little tincture of opium. 
 After they had had it they got alright. 
 
 Q. It was not sea-sickness, but from not getting opium ? 
 
 A. Yes. They are accustomed to come across in tlie season, 
 
 and then go back to their country. 
 
 — Does the taking of opium seem to have any effect upon the 
 moral or physical condition ? 
 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 A. — Not in i^ie least. I can declare to the best of my knowledge 
 and experience the eating of opium in no way affects their moral or 
 physical condition. I liave had great experience in travelling in 
 Northern, Southern, and Western India and have had the opportunity 
 of seeing several countries, even in the North-West Provinces, say in 
 Fyzabad, etc., where almost all the people eat opium, both men and 
 women, and also give opium-water to infants. I know for certain that 
 several well-to-do Native gentlemen working in the Government, liolding 
 high offices, and land owners, are accustomed to eat opium. In Burma 
 there are seventy-five per cent of labourers from Northern India and the 
 Madras Presidency, who are the largest majority of inhabitants in Burma, 
 doing all sorts of labour work, who are opium eaters. 
 
 Q. — What is your opinion about discontinuing the sale of opium ? 
 
 A. — If it is discontinued it will be the ruination of those people wlio 
 have been already accustomed to it ; they will be subject to serious sick- 
 ness, and we could not expect to get the work from them that we are 
 getting now. 
 
 Q.— Why ■? 
 
 A. — The opium-eater requires a good deal of exercise. If he eats 
 opium and does not eat his food properly, he is subject to sickness. 
 
 Q. — Do not they become lazy from taking the opium ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 By Sir William Eoberts. — Q. — Have you ever had to discharge 
 any of your workmen on account of their taking too much opium ? 
 
 A. — No, I have not. 
 
 Q. — Have you had to discharge any on account of drink ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I have. 
 
 Q. Have you had to discharge any on account of eating hemp 
 
 preparation ? 
 
 A. I have never come across any of this hemp : it is not used 
 
 here. Gauja-eaters are not fit persons to work. 
 
 Q As far as your experience goes as an employer of labour, the 
 
 habit of opium-eating amongst Natives of India is not injurious ? 
 
 A. — No, it is not. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — How do you know that ninety per cent of 
 these men are opium eatei's ? 
 
 A. Because I know them very well. Almost all these people eat 
 
 opium. If I am not mistaken, I think I ought to have said ninety-five 
 per cent. 
 
 I 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 Q. — Do those who do not take opium do their work well ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; but you hare to consider the countries they come from. 
 
 Q. — You say that unless these opium-eaters have their opium, 
 they look like dead men and cannot do their work : tell us how they look? 
 
 A. — I will explain it. If they have not got opium they are not so 
 energetic, and do not work so well. Tliey work slowly ; they do not care 
 to work ; and every now and then they sit. If they get opium they are 
 cheerful and run very fast and work. You can get more work done 
 from those who eat opium than from those who do not eat it. 
 
 Q. — You say “ in Burma there are seventy-five per cent of labourers 
 from Northern India and the Madras Presidency who are the largest 
 majority of inhabitants in Burma ” : do you think that there are as 
 many as seventy -five per cent ? 
 
 A. — Yes, the labouring class of men ; there are not many Burman 
 workmen at all. The people from Southern India are the labouring class- 
 es here. On the railway, in buildings and in the cultivations, the Natives 
 of India do almost all the work. It is very seldom that you find Burmans 
 on the railway or clearing jungle, or cultivating. 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — Do you mean seventy-five per cent of 
 them are opium-eaters 7 
 
 A. — Yes, of the labouring classes. 
 
 Q. — Do you say that ninety per cent of the Coringis take opium ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — And of the labourers from Northern India and Madras seventy- 
 five per cent ? 
 
 A. — Yes seventy-five per cent. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — The men go backwards and forwards between 
 Madras and Burma. We get the same men again. They go in the months 
 of July and August, and return in December and January. I have had 
 experience of these men working for me for years and years. Opium, 
 I believe, is increasing largely among them. I mean more people now 
 eat opium than used to be the case, not that the man who eats opium 
 takes a larger dose. 
 
 By the Chairman.— Q. — As far as you can judge from men that 
 you have known for some years coming backward and forwards, they do 
 not get any the worse for eating, do they ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — I suppose none of your men smoke opium ? 
 
A. — No tliey never smoko it. 
 
 By Sir William Boberts.— Q.— At 1 r-. ji. they do not take a meal, 
 d(i they bnt take opium ? 
 
 A. — No, they eat nothing at all at one o’clock. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — Bnt when they are working they take a 
 meal at one o’clock do they not ? 
 
 A. — No, never. 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — Do yon know what the weight of opium 
 is in the pill that they take ? 
 
 A. — I think it is as big as a peppercorn or a little larger. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q. — About two grains ? 
 
 .V. — Yes, I think so. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — How long have yoir been able to watch the 
 liealth of any particular man ? 
 
 A. — I have had experience of men eating opinm and working under 
 me for the last fifteen years. 
 
 Q. — Have you been able to' watch the liealth of one man for 
 fifteen years ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Do you tliink they are really in as good health at the end of 
 fifteen years as they were before ? 
 
 A. — Yes, the same. I see the same men year after year. 
 
 Evidence of Meung Hpo Sdliyin, E. S, lif. 
 
 In answer to the Chairman, the witness stated that he was a Burmese 
 merchant and a Native of Moulmein, dealing in timber, rice, and the 
 general produce of the country. 
 
 He read the following statement : — I have had experience amongst 
 the Burmese and the Chinese in regard to the use of opium. In Burma 
 mostly opium-smoking is prevalent. The habit is generally acquired 
 amongst these people between the age of the fifteenth and the twentietli 
 years. As to motives, they are oftener led by the bad example set before 
 them. They are generally advised to smoke opium when intoxicated with 
 alcohol to take away its effects, as it is supposed that opium serves as an 
 antidote against the indisposing effect of alcohol. This bad habit once 
 formed is seldom relinquished. The opium-smokers would rather spend all 
 their income than give up the habit contracted. They go on increasing the 
 dose as they grow in years. They become tlie wrecks of their former 
 selves, physically weak, mentally unable to think for themselves, morally 
 degraded. The foregoing remarks apply to the Chinese as well as the 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 Burmese. In Burma opium is not known to be protective against fever 
 or to be of any use in malarious districts. Burmese do not believe 
 opium to be a necessary element to enable working people to get through 
 their daily toil ; they look upon the habit as disgraceful — even worse 
 than alcohol. I think the existing system of granting licenses for the 
 sale of opium tends to the spread of the habit. As to the measure 
 to give effect to the policy of discountenancing opium-smoking, I would 
 say in Burma that total abolition would be the best thing to be done, 
 as they have done away in the case of ganja. It is desirable to prohibit 
 the sale of opium. People of Burma would hail such a measure with 
 delight. The loss of revenue resulting from such prohibition could be 
 best met by either re-imposing import duty of piece-goods or by raising 
 the salt duty in Burma, it is much lower here than in India at present. 
 
 Q. — Do "you yourself think tliat the opium habit is worse than the 
 drinking habit ? 
 
 A. — It is a very degrading thing to be considered an opium-smoker 
 in Bunna. A young man if he takes drink, but is not a habitual 
 drunkard, is not considered as an outcaste from society ; but even a 
 moderate smoker of opium is considered as an outcaste. 
 
 Q. —Both opium and alcohol are forbidden by the Buddhist religion : 
 why is there greater degradation with regard to opium ? 
 
 A. — The general demeanour is very disreputable. 
 
 Q. — Are opium saloons, the places where they smoke opium, sup- 
 posed to be particularly bad places ? 
 
 A. — Yes, they are. 
 
 Q. — Are there any places for drinking liquor ? 
 
 A. — There are liquor shops. 
 
 Q. — Do people drink in liquor shops ? 
 
 A. — Only the low class of people drink in liquor shops. Burmese 
 also, but very few in number. 
 
 Q. — Is the same disgrace supposed to be attached to the habit of 
 taking a piU of opium as it is to the smoking of opium ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Do you think the effect is as bad ? 
 
 A. — Yes, the effect is the same. 
 
 Q. — The Coringi coolies all take pills ? 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 A. — I have been employing Coringi coolies myself, and I have found 
 a great many of them were opium-eaters. It seems to me that they were 
 very badly off for it. When once the opium consumer gets a disease, 
 especially the opium-smoker, he gets worse. The disease is very liable 
 tf) stick to the man who smokes. 
 
 Q. — You say that opium is not supposed to be a protective against 
 fever, or to be of any use in malarious districts ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Have you ever been in Ai'akan ? 
 
 A. — No ; but I have been in timber forests where malarious fever 
 is most prevalent. 
 
 Q.-^ — Did not the foresters take it ? 
 
 A. — No, none of them would take it to prevent fever. • 
 
 Q. — They have been reported by officers to say that they must have 
 opium ? 
 
 A. — That is not my experience. I used to employ two or three 
 liundred men at a time in the season. I found amongst them ten per 
 cent who wore smokers, and who brought their pipes with them to the 
 forests. 
 
 Q. — Were any opium-eaters ? 
 
 A. — Very few men in Burma eat opium, 
 
 Q. — But it has been reported by Government officers who are 
 opposed to opium that the foresters say that they must have opinm when 
 rhey are in the forest ? 
 
 A. — I only found ten per cent. They are considered to be bad 
 ])eople, men who are of no consequence, and who cannot work properly. 
 They joined the service in the forests. A man who could work and 
 earn his living here would not join ; but you generally find that men of 
 very low habits join the forest work, and amongst them you find some 
 opium-smokers. 
 
 Q. — Is not opium much used as a domestic medicine in Burma ? 
 
 A. — No. If a patient is told that a dose of opium is given to him 
 he will refuse to take it, simply because he considers if once he takes 
 opium his disease will be liable to be prolonged. If a man finds out 
 that opium is the cause of his going to sleep, when the doctor gives him 
 a sleeping dose he will not take it. 
 
 Q. — You are speaking of pious, respectable Burmese ? 
 
( f ) 
 
 A. — Even an ordinary man. It is not <jn acconut of liis religion, 
 but it is on account of his belief that once lie takes opium Ids disease, 
 whatever it may be, will not go away from him easily. 
 
 Q. — He will think it fixes the disease upon him 
 
 A. — He thinks it will become chronic : he considers opium is only 
 good for a short time. 
 
 Q. — Would not total prohibition be rather hard on the Cliinese 
 and Shans who are great opium-eaters ? 
 
 A. — As far as my experience goes, 1 do not think it would injure 
 their health. They might suffer for a while and get weakened for a month 
 or so, but after that they would get on all right without smoking opium. 
 Many of my ' acquaintances, well-to-do Chinamen living in Rangoon, 
 smoke opium. I have in my mind especially one man now in Rangoon. 
 He smoked opium, and he used to get thin and weak, xibout two year.s 
 ago he gave up smoking and he became healthy and went about his 
 business. He has commenced to smoke again, and he is getting very 
 thin and weak, I asked him^why he commenced again, and he told me he 
 could not give up the habit. His friends have enticed him to smoke 
 and now he is getting bad and ill again. 
 
 Q. — Is it not the case that in the Burmese King’s time, when 
 opium-smoking was severely punished, still a great deal of opium was 
 brought into the country ? 
 
 A . — Hot a great deal. It was smuggled by the Kachins and 
 Chinese. They gave some young Burmese men opium and seduced them 
 into bad habits. 
 
 Q.— -If total prohibition were ordered now, do you think there would 
 be much smuggling or not ? 
 
 A. — So far as Upper Burma goes, the Chinese frontier smuggling 
 could be prevented. I could not say as to seaports, however. 
 
 Q. — Have you been along that country and Upper Burma ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I have travelled in that country. 
 
 Q. — Ho you think that smuggling could be easily prevented ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q.— -There is a great deal of opium amongst the Shans, Kachins 
 and Chinese in the Yunnan district ; it is a forest country and it has 
 not a great many paths through it ? 
 
 A. — Yes, it is a forest country. 
 
 Q . — How are you going to stop it ? 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 A. — It is a very billy country, and there are roads and passes and 
 country stations. I would prevent it in the same way as you prevent 
 arms and ammunition from being imported from China. There is not 
 a single gun imported. 
 
 Q. — But a gun is rather a different thing to opium ? 
 
 A. — You prevent gunpowder. 
 
 Q. — At present are there not a great many prosecutions for illicit 
 possession of opium ? 
 
 A. — Seventy-five per cent, of the prosecutions are owing more to 
 opium being sold by licensed farmers than they are entitled to sell, not 
 to real smuggling ; the opium found in the possession of a man who has 
 more than he is legally entitled to is the same as opium issued from the 
 Government treasury. 
 
 Q. — How is this opium discovered ? 
 
 A. — By Magistrates and others. The informer goes and tells that 
 a certain man is in possession of so many tolas of opium, or so much 
 more than he should possess. The police pognce upon him, and it is 
 generally found in his house or in his possession. 
 
 Q_ — Who are these informers — what sort of people are they ? 
 
 A. — They are mostly men hanging aboixt having nothing to do. 
 
 Q. — Is not there a danger that these people would put a little bit 
 of opium into a man’s house ? 
 
 A. — Yes, there is a danger of that. Such a case only comes up 
 occasionally ; it is not the general rule. I do not think people could afford 
 to buy opium to put into. another man’s house. 
 
 Q. — These informers get rewards ? ‘ 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Do the police often let these people go — take a bribe from 
 them ? 
 
 A . — There are some instances in which that is supposed to have 
 taken place. 
 
 CJ. — L)o you think it is necessary to .suddenly stop tlie sujrpilies to 
 all habitual consumers, Burmans and Chinese and Shans? 
 
 A. — -Yes. So far as Burma is concerned, there has been no harm 
 done by stopping the whole thing. You have suddenly stopped ganja, 
 and there were a lot of ganja consumers here in Burma. No harm was 
 done by suddenly stopping ganja,, except that there might have been a 
 little prosecution here and there. As time went on the people stopped 
 gmn.srgling, tliouglx they did attempt to smuggle it at first. 
 
( llj ) 
 
 Q. — Were not ganja smokers nearly all Indians? 
 
 A. — There were a great many Barmans who were ganja smokers ; in 
 fact there were more ganja smokers than opium smokers. Since you 
 stopped ganja I think people have commenced to smoke opium. Many 
 men have told me that they contracted the habit of smoking opium 
 through the alcohol habit. 
 
 Q. — If you stop opium, will not these men, who are probably the 
 most self-indulgent and least respectable men among their nation, take to 
 alcohol if they can get alcohol and cannot get opium ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say exactly how far they would take to alcohol, because 
 these are two opposite influences. Opium causes a man to be weakly and 
 drowsy, and alcohol makes him excited. When a man could not get 
 opium, I do not know whether he would take alcohol or not. 
 
 Q. — A Burman generally likes being excited, does he not ? 
 
 A. — Yes, more or less he does. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — You said, I believe, that some of the 
 coolies you employ smoked opium ? 
 
 A. — Not the Natives of India, but Burmese coolies. In Upper 
 Burma we have mostly Burmese coolies. 
 
 Q. — You were not speaking of the class of coolies employed in 
 Rangoon in loading and unloading ships ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — Have you any experience of them ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Are there any opium-smokers amongst them ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — Is there a large number of opium-eaters ? 
 
 A. — Yes, nearly half the number of coolies I employ. I know more 
 about the Burmese and Chinese, with whom I come in contact, than I 
 do about the Natives of India. 
 
 Q. — I rather thought that you were speaking of these classes of 
 Natives employed in loading and unloading ships in Rangoon ; but now I 
 understand you to say that you have no personal experience of them ? 
 
 A. — I have had experience of them, but I have not come so closely 
 in contact among them as I have with Burmese and Chinese. I have 
 employed them as coolies, and I have found, generally speaking, that about 
 fifty per cent of them were opium-eaters. 1 found them to be generally 
 
( 12 ) 
 
 weakly and sickly, compared with the same class of men who are not 
 opium-eaters . 
 
 Q. — Did you ever make enquiries in order to get non-opium-eaters 
 liecause they were better workmen ? 
 
 A. — It was impossible to get all non-opium eaters. When one hun- 
 dred coolies were engaged forty or fifty would be found to be opium-eaters, 
 
 and they would be sickly. 
 
 » 
 
 Q. — I suppose you have found sickly men among opium-eaters 
 and non-opium-eaters ? 
 
 A. — The majority have been non-opium-eaters. 
 
 Q. — You speak of the opium-smoking habit being generally acquired 
 amongst the people between the ages of fifteen and twenty; are you speak- 
 ing then of Chinese ? 
 
 A. — Yes, Chinese boys born in this country. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — The amount of salt duty is one rupee a maund here, 
 and in India it is Rs. 2-8-0 a maund. 
 
 Q. — How for is the evidence you have given, the view of the 
 Burmese people generally ? 
 
 A. — I think they all agree with me. I have taken some pains to 
 enquire into this matter, and I have found that this is the prevailing 
 opinion of the people. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — Have you consulted the Chinese as to 
 their view ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I have. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Tell us what you think the view of the Chi- 
 nese is ? 
 
 A. — I have spoken to Chinese people before, and wthout exception 
 they agreed with me. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — Why have they not come forward here ? 
 
 A. — I think some are coming here. 
 
 By Sir Y/^illiam Roberts. — Q. — You are a merchant, and I suppose 
 you have transactions with Chinese merchants ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I have. 
 
 Q. — Arc those Avith whom you have transactions mostly opium- 
 smokers ? 
 
 A. — Half of them are opium-smokers. 
 
( 18 ) 
 
 Q. — Would this description you give apply to that half, — that they 
 are “pliysically weak, mentally unable to think for themselves, and morally 
 degraded ? ” 
 
 A. — I generally find that most of my Chinese friends who smoke 
 leave . the management of their business entirely in the hands of their 
 managers and subordinates. Generally, they are sickly and complain of 
 being ill, although they sometimes get on well. I have told them it 
 was on account of their smoking opium. They have admitted that it 
 was, but they say they cannot give it up. 
 
 Q. — Do you suggest that half the Chinese merchants here who 
 smoke opium are unable to attend to their business ? 
 
 A. — I say this in general. One of my Chinese friends who smokes 
 opium admits himself that it is bad. He says, “ I cannot give it up, 
 because I contracted the habit when I was young.” They all say it is 
 very bad : not one defends himself. 
 
 By the Chairman.— Q. — It is also against their religion, too : most 
 of them are Buddhists, I suppose ; and according to the ideas of Buddha 
 and Confucius, opium is a very bad thing, is it not? 
 
 A. — Yes, it is. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Are most of the Chinese you know Buddhists? 
 
 A. — They are Buddhists by name, but not so much by practice. 
 
 Evidence of Tlie Savrbvra of Thibavr, esamined 
 through an interpreter. 
 
 By the Chairman.— My State is in the Northern Shan States. It 
 is the largest of the four large States, and is called Thibaw. 
 
 Q. — Is there much opium grown in that State ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Is the opium exported or used in the country ? 
 
 A. — It is imported from other countries and some is made in the 
 country also. 
 
 Q. — Is not some exported to China from your country ? 
 
 A.— No. 
 
 Q. — Is it all used in the country ? 
 
 A. — No, it is sent to other Shan States. 
 
 Q. — Does opium go from the other Shan States to China ? 
 
 A.— No. 
 
 Q- — Are there Chinamen in your State as well as Shans ? 
 
 A. — Yes. Very few live in the State. They come down once a 
 year in large parties to trade. 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 Q. — How is the opium used ? 
 
 A. — It is smoked and eaten, but more people smoke it than eat it. 
 
 Q. — Wliat in your opinion is the effect of opium-smoking, — is it 
 had or good ? 
 
 A. — If thevjeafit, it is bad, and if they smoke it, it is bad, both 
 equally bad. 
 
 Q. — How long has the custom of eating and smoking opium 
 existed among the Shans ? 
 
 A. — For a very long time, about two or three hundred years. 
 
 Q. — What do the common people think ; do they say why they do 
 eat it ? 
 
 A. — Thy say it is very nice to smoke, and it makes them feel very 
 happy thoughts. 
 
 Q. — Do they think it is very good to keep them in health ? 
 
 A. — No, it is very bad. Those who take it have short lives. 
 
 Q. — Do the common people think it is good for their health ? 
 
 A. — It is the common opinion that it is not good. 
 
 Q. — Do they do it for pleasure, or is there any other reason ? 
 
 A. — They take it to rejoice their hearts ; but their lives are short. 
 
 Q. — Do they drink any liquor or spirit ? 
 
 A. — Yes, they do. Locally-made liquor, made from rice. 
 
 Q. — Is that as bad as opium ? 
 
 A. — It is not bad if you take it is as medicine, but it is a veiy bad 
 thing to drink for pleasure. 
 
 Q. — Is opium ever used for medicine, and not for pleasure ? 
 
 A. — Very little. 
 
 Q. — What sort of disease is opium used for as medicine ? 
 
 A. — It is taken for insomnia, diarrhoea, and internal pains. 
 
 Q. — Has it been the custom among your family to smoke or to 
 eat opium ? 
 
 A. — I tried when I was. young, just a little bit, but I gave it up. 
 
 Q. — Are you in favor of total prohibition of opium in your State? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — How would you do it ? 
 
 A. — I would prevent the growing of it. 
 
 Q. — Would not the people complain very much ? 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 A. — If they got enough opium to smoke for their lives, well and 
 good : but I do not want any more eaten in future generations. The 
 people who smoke opium, when they have not got it, never die. Thieves 
 sometimes are put in prison and they are not allowed to smoke, and 
 they get rid of the habit quite soon. 
 
 Q. — But do not the people make a profit out of the cultivation of 
 the poppy ? 
 
 A. — Yes, they do get a profit, and the State gets a revenue from 
 opium. 
 
 Q. — If the men who plant opium no longer plant it, would they 
 complain ? 
 
 A, — I do not think they ought to make complaints, because they 
 can grow other things and trade in other ways. 
 
 Q. — IIow long have you held the opinion that opium is a very bad 
 thing ? 
 
 A. — Ever since I was quite young. 
 
 Q. — Why do not you try to stop it in your own State ? 
 
 A. — Because the other States will not stop their trade, and 
 if I tried to stop it, all the people would hate me. 
 
 Q. — Would your own people dislike you if you tried to stop it ? 
 
 A. — I do not think the people in my own country would dislike 
 me if I told them that it was not right for them, and that it was a bad 
 thing for them. 
 
 Q. — Why have you not done it then ? 
 
 A. — I cannot very well stop it, because the people sell it secretly 
 sometimes. 
 
 Q. — But you have never tried to stop the cultivation ? 
 
 A. — No I have not tried to stop it. 
 
 Q. — Do you think if you tried to stop it, the people would obey 
 you ? 
 
 A. — They would do it and they would not be angry. 
 
 Q. — If they would do it and not be angry, why have you not done 
 it? 
 
 A. — I have looked upon it in much the same way as eating betel, 
 and I do not think much of it. It slipped my memory, 
 
 By Sir William Eoberts. — Q. — How many amongst the men, in 
 y our State smoke opium ? 
 
 A. — About five per cent. There are not very many who use opium. 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 Q . — Do any of the old people use opium ? 
 
 A. — Tliey never live till they get old ; they die. They have very 
 short lives if they smoke opium. No old people eat it. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Do you think the rules which are to stop the 
 Burmese from buying opium ought also to apply to the Shans throughout 
 your country ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that the other Shan Chiefs would agree to give 
 up opium cultivation in their country, if you gave it up and the English 
 Government wished it ? 
 
 A. — They would be willing to stop it. 
 
 Q. — How many people are there in your State ? 
 
 A. — About 100,000. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — How many years have you been at the 
 head of your State ? 
 
 A. — Thirty years, 
 
 Q. — You were head of your State when Thebaw was king in 
 Mandalay in the old days, I believe 7 
 
 A. — I was at one time at the head of the State before the English 
 went to Mandalay. 
 
 Q. — At that time opium was forbidden in Mandalay ; was it not ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I heard that orders were given not to sell any opium ; 
 but the rule was not properly enforced, as far as I know. 
 
 Q. — You did not at that time forbid it in your State ? 
 
 A. — I did not say anything about it ; I did not try to prevent it ; 
 I let matters be as they were. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q.— Did the Burmese King ever try to prevent 
 the consumption of opium in the Shan States ? 
 
 A. — No, he did not. 
 
 Evi&eiice of Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Eugli Johnstone, 
 
 U A., S£.D., Z.1£.S., 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — I believe you are Senior Civil Surgeon in 
 charge of the General Hospital, Eaugoon ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — How long have you served ? 
 
 A. — I have been over twenty-five years in the service, most of my 
 time having been spent in Burma, with the exception of two years in the 
 
( IJ ) 
 
 Medical College Hospital in Calcutta. I resided in Mandalay about six 
 years, one year at Akyab and the rest in Rangoon. The races I have 
 come in contact with are the Burmese, Chinese, and Natives of 
 India. 
 
 Q. — What personal knowledge have you of the use and abuse of 
 opium amongst the Natives of India and amongst the Burmans ? 
 
 A. — Of the use of opium among the Natives of India I have not 
 much personal knowledge. Although Resident Medical Officer in a large 
 hospital, I saw little of its effects, either of its use or abuse and 
 although I have conducted more than 100 postmortems I never saw any 
 pathological lesion that could be ascribed to the use of opium. Among 
 the Burmese I have found the use of opium most extensive in Arakan, 
 although the Burmese use it elsewhere. Among the prisoners in the 
 Akyab Jail a good many were opium-eaters. Physically, they were 
 healthy enough looking and good enough constitutions — and the sudden 
 deprival of opium in the great proportion of them did not seem to have 
 any bad effects beyond distress, especially in the young. Among the 
 older and those who had continued the habit for a longer time and con- 
 sumed greater quantities the process had to be more gradual. In the 
 post mortems of those who had died from other diseases, but were known 
 to be opium users, there was no lesion that could be ascribed to the 
 effect of opium. 
 
 Q. — What have you to say with regard to opium-eating among the 
 Chinese ? 
 
 A. — It was at Mandalay that I came in contact chiefly with the 
 Chinese opium-eaters. I was suddenly called one night to one of their 
 gambling houses where in a brawl a Chinaman was wounded, his abdo- 
 men being laid open to the extent of seven inches with protrusion of 
 the intestines. This man was an opium-eater and the one who did it 
 a shumshoo (rice-spirit) drinker. The man recovered without a bad 
 symptom, his wound healing up by first intention. These gambling 
 houses are filled chiefly with opium-smokers and shumshoo-drinkers. 
 Having been successful in this case I was often called in again on account 
 of wounds received in these brawls, and it was almost invariably the rule 
 that the disturbance arose from the shumshoo-drinker and not the 
 opium-smokers. In these gambling houses, though the class of Cliinese 
 were not the best, I could not say that I saw any ill-effects from the use 
 of opium, They were physically in good health ; it never interfered 
 with the healing of their wounds or in the treatment of other diseases 
 
( 18 : ) 
 
 that I saw. In these places where there was so much to excite them 
 tliey were not quarrelsome like the slurmshoo-clrinkers : neither did they 
 seem to be morally debased. I enquired of many of them what led them 
 to begin to use opium. : Among many of them it seemed to be an 
 acquired habit like smoking tobacco, and only thought of in that way; 
 amongst others again to relieve pain or cure illness ; and all considered 
 it a preventive of fevers, dysentery, diarrhoea, and cholera. Certainly 
 what I saw among these Chinese did not at all correspond with the 
 accounts I had heard of the awful ravages the use of opium caused 
 to the health and morals of opium-consumers. I have seen a very few 
 f)ld emaciated men suffering from chronic diarrhoea and dysentery, said 
 to be the result of its abuse, but these were doubtful cases. All these 
 races consider its use a prophylactic in malarious fevers and bowel- 
 complaints. 
 
 Q. — Have you ever employed it yourself ? 
 
 A. — I have often employed it myself in treating malarious fevers 
 with good results, often staving off an ague fit if given an hour before its 
 usual period of seizure, and at the least modifying its severity and adding 
 greatly to the patient’s comfort. Quinine and opium combined will often 
 be successful when quinine alone fails. The value of opium in bowel- 
 complaints is known to all these races. There is another class of cases 
 which occurs in malarial districts, and which induces the use of opium, 
 and that is malarial neuralgia. In malarial districts these racking pains 
 in all parts of the body render the life of the individual miserable, sleep- 
 less at night, and unable to work during the day. Opium in this state 
 has been found by the inhabitants of these districts to be a great boon, 
 and I have no doubt is often the original cause of the habit, and these 
 people will tell you if they had not opium they could not live there. The 
 moderate use of opium has no baneful effect on the health and constitu- 
 tion, as far as my experience goes, and the effects of its abuse has 
 come so little before me that I could give no particular lesion that it 
 causes in the human economy. 
 
 Q, — Have you formed any opinion of its effects irpon morals ? 
 
 A. — Of its baneful effects on morals I have seen none, although it is 
 said to lead to crime and insanity. During my charge (four years) of 
 the Lunatic Asylum in Langoon a certain number of insanes were 
 admitttd with opium-eating as the alleged cause, and this as a cause I 
 considered doubtful, and even if true they are not a large proportion. 
 Opium is not such a great cause as bliavg or Indian hemp. During the 
 many years I have l)een in large liospitals in India it would be strange 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 if the effects of the use of opiuui were so deleterious to the people con- 
 suming it, that no more cases, whose physical health should have failed, 
 would have become inmates in the hospitals. In the Rangoon General 
 Hospital there are no records of auv one being admitted suffering from 
 the effects of eitlier the use or abuse of opium. There is no want of 
 cases suffering from the irse and abuse of alcohol, and I cannot say these 
 are on the decrease. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — There are about 300 beds in the Rangoon 
 Genei'al Hospital, these are generally filled ; 280 or 285 is the general 
 average, I think, daily. 
 
 A. — I have been in sole charge for four years ; I was ten years 
 Second Civil Surgeon in the hospital. Altogether I have been there 
 since 1878 — fourteen years. I have been nearly eighteen montlis at home 
 out of that. 
 
 Q. — You are not as a medical man cognisant of the opium habit as 
 a cause of disease ? 
 
 A. — No. No cases of opium abuse have come into the hospital, as 
 far as I have seen in the records of the hospital. 
 
 Q. — You spoke of a belief of many of the people amongst whom 
 you have worked, that opium is a prophylatic against the various condi- 
 tions of iU-health in malarious districts ? 
 
 A. — Yes, they considered it as such, both the Natives of India and 
 Burmese. 
 
 Q. — Did you gather that from conversation with them ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — You are very positive about that ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Amongst the Burmans ? 
 
 A. — Yes, amongst the Burmans and the Natives of India. 
 
 Q. — Do they smoke or use opium in malarious districts as a domes- 
 tic remedy ? 
 
 A. — As far as I know, they do, 
 
 Q. — Have you the means of ascertaining that fact ? 
 
 A. — No, no means other than what they told me, their admission of 
 it ; I never heard them state it. 
 
 Q. — You have their direct testimony to that effect ? 
 
 A, — Yes, certainly. 
 
C ^0 ) 
 
 Bj' M r. Pease. — Q. — Are Natives liere usually treated by doctors 
 vfbo treat them upon the Western system, or are they usually under the 
 care of their own medical men in Rangoon ? 
 
 A. — In Rangoon the Natives of India are generally treated by Euro- 
 peans in the hospital ; the Chinese do not come very often to the 
 hospital, but both Burmese and Natives of India come to the hospital for 
 treatment. Outside the hospital a great many of them are treated by 
 myself, but there are more treated by private practitioners, I mean, not 
 Government servants. 
 
 Q. — Are there many Native practioners ? 
 
 A. — Yes, but a good many of them practise the European 
 method. 
 
 Q. — Do you think these opium consumers who come to the hospital 
 while they have no special disease may not have the state of their general 
 health considerably lowered by the practice of eating or smoking 
 opium 7 
 
 A. — I have seen no occasion for saying that the health of those who 
 come into the hospital has been lowered by the use of opium. 
 
 Q. — Then it is a practice to which you see no objection 7 
 
 A. — I have never seen any ill-effects in those who take it. 
 
 Q. — Would you recommend any young man in good health to 
 commence the practice of eating or smoking opium 7 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — Why not 7 
 
 A. — I would not recommend it any more than I would recommend 
 a person to use anything in excess. 
 
 Q. — Moderately 7 
 
 A — Moderately I do not see any objection to it at all, no more than 
 a moderate use of alcohol. 
 
 Q. — Have you found that the habit of taking opium is exceedingly 
 easy to give up 7 
 
 A. — I do not know that a man would find it more difficult to give it 
 up than in the case of an alcohol drinker. 
 
 Q. — You say, “the sudden deprivation of opium in the great pro- 
 portion of them did not seem to have any bad effects beyond distress.” 
 It did distress th(!m ? 
 
 — Yes, it distressed them by the sudden deprivation of a thing 
 they had been using. 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 Q. — You do not mention anything with regard to the older ones ? 
 
 A . — According to the length of time and quantity of opium tliaf 
 made the process of cutting it off gradual. 
 
 Q. — Why did you do that ? 
 
 A. — With the idea that probablv it might interfei'e with their health 
 in jail. 
 
 Q. — Was it to reduce their distress, or for fear that it might be 
 fatal ? 
 
 A. — To reduce their distress. I never saw a fatal case from its 
 deprivation. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — With reference to your jail experience, I 
 suppose the common practice is cut off the supply of opium altogether ? 
 
 A. — Yes, wlien I was there it was the rule to cut it off immediately. 
 In exceptional cases, if we found it was too much, we would knock it off 
 gradually, and not suddenly. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Have you met with any cases of Burmese 
 objecting to take opium as a medicine for fear of acquiring the habit? 
 
 A. — No, I never found them object to it. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray.— Q. — Is Arakaii a particularly malarious dis- 
 trict ? 
 
 A. — Yes, it is a very malarious district. 
 
 Q. — Do you attribute the more extensive use of opium among the 
 Burmese of Arrakan to the fact that it is a malarious district ? 
 
 A. — That is what I attribute it to. 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q.— When you were at Mandalay I believe 
 opium was prohibited ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — Have you any reason to believe that it was carried on secretly 
 by the Burmese ? 
 
 A. — Yes, it was. 
 
 Q — How did you ascertain that ? 
 
 A. — It was only by hearsay. I heard they used to smuggle it. I 
 heard that bundles of opium were brought i n secretly to Mandalay by 
 steamers coming' up from Rangoon. It was said that it was hrouglit 
 across from India by Assam overland. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q, — Is any supposed to have come from Cfniia? 
 
 A. — I have never heard of it coming, from that direction. 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — Do you think if opium is prohibited in 
 Burma that it will be smuggled in ? 
 
 A. — They would attempt to smuggle it in no doubt. 
 
 Eviendeuce of lifr. Leon? Shain Tuck. 
 
 By the Chairman. — I am a Chinese cutcJi merchant of SRangoon . 
 A cutch merchant is one who busy goods up-country and sells them 
 here. I deal in dyeing goods. 
 
 The witness then read the following statement : — I have lived in 
 Lower Burma all my life, and have observed the effects of opium amongst 
 Chinese and Burmese. Amongst the Chinese in Lower Burma about twenty 
 per cent of the men smoke opium, and very few women. I have never met 
 a woman who smoked, but I know that there are some. The Chinese do not 
 eat opium, except when they are unable to obtain it for smoking. Some 
 begin at about fifteen or sixteen years of age, but most at about twenty. 
 They almost always begin amongst their friends, from seeing others 
 smoke. The habit can be given up without much difficulty when a person 
 has not long been a smoker. I know of several who have had to give it up 
 in prison. There is no clear difference between moderate and excessive 
 opium-smoking. Those who take opium only occasionally do not suffer 
 much, those who take it regularly soon suffer greatly. If they cannot 
 get opium at the usual time, they shiver and sweat and are quite 
 unfit for work. They like more and more to smoke, and tliey cannot 
 work like those who do not smoke. Smokers who are poor and cannot 
 get enough money to buy opium take to thieving and other bad 
 practices. Those who are better off are not so much affected. A 
 friend of mine who has tried to break off the habit several times has 
 taken to it again, because friends have come and asked him to smoke with 
 them. He says it is no benefit to him, only spending money ; but he 
 cannot give it up. He says it is a bad habit. Among Chinamen who do 
 not smoke themselves the habit is always considered a disgraceful one. Its 
 effects are are also thought to be deadly poisonous. It will be a great 
 mistake to attempt to prohibit the sale of opium to Burmans and not to 
 Chinese ; the Chinese will smuggle it and sell to the Burmans. The 
 Chinese suffer as much as the Burmans from smoking opium, and it will 
 be a kindness to the Chinese to prevent them from procuring the drug. 
 The respectable merchants are all against the habit of smoking, though 
 some of the smokers might object to being deprived of the drug. 
 
 Q. — Were you born in China? 
 
 A. —Yes. 
 
 — Xo what religion do you belong ? 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 A. — I am a Buddhist. 
 
 Q. — Has any of your family ever smoked opium? 
 
 A. — No, none of my family, but lots of my friends and others. 
 
 Q. — You say it affect a man’s health very much ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Does it generally affect his power of doing business ? 
 
 A. — Smoking will always affect him. He must waste his time. 
 
 Q. — Is he less clear in his head ? 
 
 A. — It is only the smokers who tell about dreaming ; they are always 
 talking that they can get good sense from it, but when they are tight like 
 a drunkard who has been drinking, they dream. I consider it a had 
 habit. 
 
 Q. — Do many poor Chinamen who become beggars become quite 
 ruined by opium ? 
 
 A. — It must be so ; they spend money every day. They buy one 
 tola’s worth perhaps. They earn about two rupees, and they are obliged to 
 give for opium one rupee. They have not got sufficient for their own liv- 
 ing, and they are compelled to do all kinds of mischief. 
 
 Q. — Do they become beggars? How do they live ? 
 
 A. — Several of them have become beggars and have asked for help. 
 There is their own society and they go and stay there. I am speaking of 
 those who are unable to work. 
 
 Q. — The society supports them ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q, — Does the society give them opium ? 
 
 A. — No, it would not give them opium. Some people help them. 
 
 Q. — Out of one hundred smokers how many do you think get ruined 
 like that ? 
 
 A. — Gradually spending money must be ruining them. The man 
 who smokes must be ruined gradually. He spends every day about half 
 the income he gets and he must be ruined. 
 
 Q. — Some rich men smoke ? 
 
 A. — It would affect their incomes very greatly. 
 
 Q.— You mean that any poor man would be ruined ? 
 
 A. — The poor man would be greatly affected. 
 
 Q.— I think yoji said that poor men eat opium ? 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 A. — Wlien they are going on board steamers they are obliged to 
 swallow it : but if they are in their own house or go to a friend’s house 
 they always smoke. They enjoy smoking more than eating. A friend of 
 mine went to prison and he had to give it up because he could not get it 
 there. When lie came out of the jail, he was very stout and healthy. 
 But a few months afterwards his friends asked him to smoke, and he 
 began to smoke again. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Bid he keep up his health when he' began to 
 smoke again? 
 
 A. — I have seen him myself getting thin, and he was not so stout as 
 when he came out of jail. 
 
 By Sir William Eoberts. — Q. — I suppose smoking does not produce 
 much effect among the Chinese who are in good circumstances ? 
 
 A. — The wealthy people smoke just to enjoy themselves, in order to 
 pass the time. Lots of my friends have asked me to smoke too, It 
 would not injure rich people as quickly as it does the poor people. 
 
 Q, — But you think that at length it does injure their healtli ? 
 
 A. — In the long run it must be injurious. 
 
 Q. — Bo you know as a matter of fact that it does ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I have seen it with my own eyes. I can instance the case 
 of Park Chan who gave evidence yesterday. 
 
 [The witness then produced a copy of his statement with a written 
 foot note signed by about thirty Cliinese residents of Kangoon to the effect 
 that they agreed in the views expressed by him. He explained that hav- 
 ing received from Mr. Alexander a copy of Mr. Selby’s pamphlet on the 
 opium question, with Chinese illustrations depicting the downward 
 progress of the opium-smoking, he had gone round amongst his 
 friends, showed them the pamphlet, and obtained their signature to 
 the foot note. Amongst the singatures he said was that of Br. 
 Ah Hem, who gave evidence yesterday and who alleged that he had 
 been misrepresented by tlie interpreter. (It appeared subsequently that 
 Br. Ah Hem's signature was not in fact amongst those appended to the 
 foot note, and that Mr. Tuck was mistaken in thinking so.) Objection was 
 made by Mr. Mowbray. M. P. to recemng evidence at second hand from 
 persons not appearing before the Commission personally, and especially in 
 the case of a person who liad given evidence the previous day to the 
 contrary effect : the Commission ' therefoi’e decided not to receive this 
 statement and to omit all mention of it from fheir report.] 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 EVIDENCE TAKEN AT MANDALAY. 
 
 Evidence of Surgeon-ldajor Santra. 
 
 By the Chaii'man, Sir James Lyall. — I am Civil Surgeon at 
 Mandalay ? The conclusions I have arrived at are the result of 
 observations made during my long residence of nearly twenty years 
 in India (chiefly Bombay Presidency) and over fifteen years in Buma ; 
 and in the latter place being in charge of big jails for the last thirteen 
 years. The extent of the consumption of opium among the Natives 
 of India is just about the same as it was twenty years ago, but among 
 the Bnitnans it is no doubt increasing. Under moderation it does 
 not produce any ill-effect on the physical or mental health ; if any 
 thing, it improves the latter and affords greater staying power to 
 the body. Excess, no doubt, impaii-s appetite, and the individual gets 
 emaciated, but it never renders him so objectionable to society in general 
 as excessive drink does. As in everything else, perhaps there is a 
 tendency among a few of the Burmans to go to excess ; but the Natives 
 of India use it in moderation. By using it in moderation, their intellect 
 becomes clear and they are better fitted to attend to their work, either 
 physical or mental. In travelling and making long marches, involving 
 great fatigue and privation, they have found opium one of the most useful 
 articles to possess, more especially when they have to march through 
 malarious districts having a bad water-supply and scarcity of provisions. 
 It is one of the most effectual prophylactics against malaria and bowel- 
 complaints, and when attacked with these complaints it is a very good 
 preventive. These observations apply to both Burmese and Indians. 
 Kesults of sudden complete cutting off of opium have never proved serious 
 in my hands. In jails for years I have invariably stopped giving opium 
 to all prisoners immediately they are admitted into the prison, and no 
 doubt they have left off food for two or three days, have got diarrhoea, 
 and complained of pains and aches all over the body, etc. ; but these 
 symptons soon pass off and they do not feel any the worse for leaving it 
 off ■; but I believe immediately they go out of jail and begin to experience 
 the trials and troubles of this world, they again take to using it, and if 
 then cannot get opium, they take the alcohol, which in my opinion, works 
 a hundred-fold greater mischief than any amount of opium. 
 
 Q. — Where did you receive your medical education ? 
 
 A. — In Aberdeen and in London. I was also in Bombay for about 
 six months. I was three years in Aberdeen and two years in London. 
 Until I went to England, all my life was spent in the Bombay Presidency, 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 After passing in England. I came to Calcutta for a very short 
 time and then I came straight to Burma. I have been in Burma since 
 1877. 
 
 Q. — When you say “ the extent of the consumption of opium among 
 the Natives of India is just about the same as it was twenty years ago,” 
 you are speaking about the Natives of India in Burma? 
 
 A. — Natives of India in Burma as well as in India. In Burma 
 the majority of the Mahommedans and Hindus use opium habitually but 
 the Mahommedans use more than the Hindus. 
 
 Q. — The Coringi coolies use it a great deal, do they not ? 
 
 A. — Yes, but not to the same extent as the Mahommedans do, as 
 far as my observation goes. Most of them are artisans ; a few of them 
 ai’e traders. 
 
 Q. — l)o they smoke or eat opium? 
 
 A. — The Mahommedans generally eat it ; they smoke it too, but 
 they generally eat it. 
 
 Q. — Have you formed any opinion as to the relative effects of the eat- 
 ing habit and of the smoking habit ? 
 
 A. — It is a matter of degree, as far as my observation goes : smok- 
 ing prolongs the pleasure, eating is finished in a short time, the smoking 
 process goes on and the smoker spends more time over it. 
 
 Q, In your opinion, neither habit in moderation is prejudicial ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — Is excess commoner amongst smokers or amongst eaters? 
 
 A. I think excess depends more upon the pecuniary circumstances 
 
 of the individual. If the men have money there is a tendency to go to 
 excess. 
 
 Q. You say that in moderation you think it affords greater staying 
 
 power to the body ? 
 
 A. Yes. A man after walking ten or twelve miles feels tired and 
 
 he takes a little opium, and he rests, say, for a half or a quarter of an 
 hour and then he will be able to go on another four of five miles further 
 without feeling any discomfort ; whereas if he had not taken any opium, 
 he would quite collapse and he would not be able to go any further. I 
 am speaking more especially now of those who have been in the habit of 
 taking opium. 
 
 Q You say that there is a tendency among a few of the Burmans 
 
 to go to excess ; why do you think that shows itself especially among the 
 
 Burmans ? 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 A. — From ray knowledge of the Burmese, they are a very impulsive 
 sort of people. It is not only in eating and smoking opium alone, but 
 there is a tendency to go to excess in everything they do. 
 
 Q. — Does the same tendency show itself in drinking ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; if anything, there is a greater tendency to go to excess in 
 drinking than in taking opium. 
 
 Q. — How long have you been in Upper Burma ? 
 
 A. — For the last three years. Another thing I liave noticed is this, 
 almost all the^ prisoners admitted into tlie jail, after committing most of 
 the violent crimes, have been in the habit of drinking spirits. Prisoners 
 who. have been'admitted for petty thefts liave been opium-eaters. 
 
 Q. — Except in this tendency to excess on the part of excessive con- 
 sumers, have you noticed any other bad moral .effects of tlie] opium habit 
 upon the character of these people ? 
 
 A. — No, I have not. 
 
 Q. — With regard to men of business and traders, do you think it 
 interferes .with their in tellectuah capacity to do their business ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — Yorr say when opium is suddenly stopped, in the case of prison- 
 ers, you have noticed tliat they have diarrhoea, and complain of pains and 
 aches all over the body ; is that the case also with moderate consumers, 
 or is it the case only with excessive consumers ? 
 
 A. — Perceptible diarrhoea is apparent in even^moderate consumers, 
 but they do not^^leave off their food. I have to keep^them on very light 
 work. My remarksj refer to those who go to excess. Morderate eaters 
 or moderate smokers doinot leave off their food,! nor do they complain so 
 much of pains and aches all over the body. But they do get diarrhoea, 
 that is general. 
 
 Q. — How long does tlie diarrhoea last ? 
 
 A. — It lasts_twoior three.days."%It is^stopped by giving astringents. 
 
 Q. — During that time’you-have to'give'them light work ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Afteivthatare they .able .to do the same work as the -other 
 people ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — When they get out into the world from jail do they take to the 
 habit again ? 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 A. — Aes. When they came back to jail I qviestioned them whether 
 they went back to the opium habit after leaving jail, and they said “ yes 
 I asked them why they took to it again. They said they felt happier 
 and they did not feel the troubles and anxieties so much as before. 
 
 Q. — Uo they generally recognise that it is a bad habit? 
 
 A. — Some do, and some do not. I liave a prisoner now who says 
 if he went out he could not devote his attention properly to his work 
 unless he took opium. Others say they dislike it, but you cannot depend 
 irpon what they say. They know you do not like it, and they simply 
 answer you so as to fall into your views. 
 
 Q. — In the case of excessive opium consumers, have you ever had 
 to allow them for a time to take a certain amount ? 
 
 A. — No. I have given thenr very small doses along with other 
 astringents. About half a grain, or a grain, simply to help the action of 
 the other astringents for diarrhoea. 
 
 Q. — In the case of habitual excessive alcohol consumers do they 
 feel much craving for drink, when they cannot get it in jail ? 
 
 A. — They do. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q. — Your experience has, I presume, 
 been mostly among the Burmaus ? 
 
 A. — Amongst tlie Burmans latterly, but in the commencement of my 
 life I had experience amongst the Natives of India. 
 
 Q.— Are there a considerable number of them who consume opium 
 in Burma ? 
 
 A. — I should say about ten per cent. 
 
 Q. — Adults ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Even now ? 
 
 A. — Y’es ; it was not so much before, but it is increasing at present. 
 
 Q. — You have charge of jails : is there any hospital here ? 
 
 A. — Yes : I am in charge of the Civil Hospital, too. 
 
 Q. — Have you noticed whether these Burmans often find their way 
 into jail owing to the opium habit ? 
 
 A. — Some find their way into jail through petty thefts. 
 
 Q. — When they get poor they commit petty thefts to get opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Is that a more prominent feature amongst the poor who are 
 opium smokers, than amongst the poor who are not opium smokers ? 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 A. — No ; the thefts are quite as often amongst the poorer classes 
 who do not use opium. ^ 
 
 Q. — So that you do not think, even wlien they become poor, it 
 aggravates matters for them in that respect ? 
 
 A, — It is very difficult to say. The difference must be very un- 
 appreciable. 
 
 Q. — You say they get thin when they take too much. Has your 
 observation extended over a sufficient length of time in regal’d to the same 
 individual, to enable you to form an opinion as to whether that ema- 
 ciation is progressive ? 
 
 A. — It is progressive so long as they go on taking it. 
 
 Q. — Do you mean to say that a man who takes opium to excess get 
 thinner and thinner to the end of the chapter ? 
 
 A. — If he stopped he would begin to put on flesh : it is not quite 
 progressive. 
 
 Q. — I suppose the emaciation gets to a certain point and then stops? 
 
 A. — Yes ; that is so. 
 
 Q. — That is to say, they become spare, thin, wiry men ? 
 
 A. — That is what I mean. 
 
 Q. — They do not deteriorate mentally, though they become tliinner ? 
 
 A. — They do not -suffer mentally. As far as they are mentally con- 
 cerned, they make better overseers than men wlio do not consume opium; 
 but as far as tlieir physical strength is concerned, lifting heavy loads and 
 doing manual physical work, perhaps they wonki not be up to those who 
 do not take it. Mentally, as far as supervising and comprehending ins- 
 tructions which are given, they are better than others who do not take 
 opium. 
 
 Q. — They are sharper? 
 
 A. — Yes, they are sharper. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that perhaps it is the sharper fellows who do take 
 opium, and that it may be accounted for in that way ? 
 
 A. — -It is a conclusion to draw from the number of cases. There is a 
 greater percentage among the opium-eaters, who turn out to be very 
 sharp. 
 
 Q. — Have you known old men who are opium-eaters or consumers 
 amongst the Burmans ? 
 
 A. — Yes; I know a man now, a .few, who is over scventy-fli’e years 
 of age; he is carrying one of the largest businesses going. 
 
( 30 ) 
 
 Q. — Does he smoke or eat ? 
 
 A. — He eats. 1 should say about three or four grains a day. He had 
 to have Ins name registered, but he was rather ashamed of it. He was al- 
 most on the point of leaving Burma on account of the restriction, because , 
 he had to go and register his name in the Deputy Commissionei’’s Office, 
 He said it was a great shame, and that he did not care to do it. He said 
 that without taking it he could not carry on his business at all. 
 
 Q. — Have you had any experience amongst Chinese or people from 
 the Shan States ? 
 
 A. — I liave had no experience of the people from the Shan States, 
 except those few Shans who have come into jail but I have had experi- 
 ence. 
 
 Q. — The Chinese smoke ; do not they ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 — Is it your experience that they do not suffer in body or mind? 
 
 A. — They do not. 
 
 Q. — How have they come before you as prisoners ? 
 
 A. — They have come before me in my private practice, and a few of 
 them have come before me in jails. 
 
 Q. — I presume that you have seen deterioration of health, due to the 
 excessive use of opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I have. 
 
 Q. — Apart from poverty, and apart from any associated disease, 
 what symptoms would you bring home directly to the opium habit in 
 excess ? 
 
 A. — The man’s appetite fails, and the daily waste is not sufficiently 
 replenished. 
 
 Q. — The emaciation becomes progressive ? 
 
 A. — Yes, to a certain extent, and in the same way proportionately 
 with the general body waste, tbe organs waste, the viscera. I have not 
 come across any specific post-mortem appearance, no pathological appear- 
 ance, which I could attribute to opium, besides wasting. 
 
 Q. — But do you think that the opium habit carried to excess can 
 itself kill, as far as you know ? 
 
 A. — I do not think it would kill. 
 
 Q. — But indirectly I presume it puts a man in peril. If a man eats 
 or smokes opium to excess for a long time, I presume his life becomes 
 precarious and more liable to other complaints 7 
 
( Si ) 
 
 A. — If he does not take sufficient nourishment. 
 
 Q. — I want to isolate, as far as possible, the opium habit. Suppose 
 a man has command of all the food he wishes to have, and supposing he 
 is an excessive user of opium, does he put his life in peril ? 
 
 A. — I do not think so. 
 
 Q. — Not from inherent disease ? 
 
 A. — No ; in fact it protects him to a certain extent from some of 
 the diseases. 
 
 Q. — You mentioned opium as being a prophylactic. We know that 
 there is no prophylactic against fever. You mean by that phrase that 
 it assists and renders the attacks less frequent, or what do you mean ? 
 
 A. — I am in charge of the Military Police, Sikhs and others, when 
 they are transferred from one place to another. When they have to 
 march through malarious districts I find that there is a smaller percent- 
 age who take disease among the opium-eaters that among non-opium 
 eaters. I am speaking of fever and diarrhoea, and more especially when 
 there is a change of water. 
 
 Q. — Some of the Sikhs do not use opium ? 
 
 A. — Some do and others do not. 
 
 Q. — Both are Sikhs ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — So that the comparison would be fair, because in one case opium 
 was consumed, and in the other case opium was not ? 
 
 A. — Among those who eat opium the pci'centage of sickness is 
 smaller than among those who do not use it. 
 
 Q. — As far as your experience of Sildi soldiers goes, what is the 
 amount of opium they consume, Have you any idea ? 
 
 A. — Some of them consume from four annas’ worth a day. About 
 eight or ten grains. They take that in two doses. 
 
 Q. — Have you in your medical practice used opium as a drug in mala- 
 rial conditions? 
 
 A. — Yes, with quinine very often, and I liave found it answer better 
 than increasing the dose of quinine alone. 
 
 Q. — You have practised in India as well as in Burma ; has it 
 struck you that the malarial troubles are different here from those you 
 encounter in India, or are they the same ? 
 
 A. — Nearly the same ; I have not noticed any particular difference. 
 In some districts it may be a matter of degree. 
 
( 32 ) 
 
 By Mr, Pease. — Q.— You have had experience in England. Do 
 you observe any difference in the effect produced by opium upon Europ- 
 eans, Hindus, Chinamen, and Burmans ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say that I iiave seen any at all among Europeans. 
 Barring this tendency amongst the Burmans to go to excess, I have not 
 noticed any difference in the effects on different races. 
 
 Q. — Although you say taken in moderation it makes the intellect 
 clearer and enables men to do their work better, I also gather from your 
 evidence that you do not advise people to commence the liabit ? 
 
 A, — No, I would not advise them to do so. 
 
 Q, — I tliink you made a remark to the effect that tliese people know 
 that you do not like it, or some such expression as that ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. —You say that the Burmans do not take to excess when they 
 have not sufficient money. T suppose from that you mean that they 
 spend all the money they can over it ? 
 
 A. — Proportionately speaking, if they have sufficient money to look 
 after their wants they would go in for it ; I do not think that they would 
 deprive themselves of everything for the sake of opium. 
 
 Q. — Is it not tlie cause of a gi-ealt deal of poverty ? 
 
 A. — No, not in my experience. 
 
 Q. — But there are cases in which there is poverty wliich leads to 
 petty thefts ? 
 
 A. — Poverty in general leads to petty thefts. 
 
 Q. — Did I understand you to say that for moderate consumers who 
 are in jail you prescribe light work ? 
 
 A. — Yes, in the commencement. 
 
 Q. — Do you find a man who has often taken opium in moderation is 
 so uiucli unfit for his work tliat he cannot do it ? 
 
 A . — For two or three days. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray.— Q.— Is tliat when you liave knocked his opium 
 
 off? 
 
 A.— Yes. I knock it off entirely. When a man comes into jail, 
 no matter how much he has been in the habit of taking opium, I knock 
 it off at once. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — This case of the intellect being clearer is while 
 the man remains under the influence of the dose ? 
 
( 3B ) 
 
 A. — I mean to say when I am talking to prisoners who are opinm 
 consumers, their intellect is clearer than others, even when they are not 
 getting the drug. I can make better overseers from opium-eaters tlian I 
 can from those who are non-opium eaters : not in every case, but there is 
 a greater percentage. 
 
 Q. — When neither class are able to obtain opium ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — Are you in charge of the jail here now ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; I am in administrative charge, as well as medical charge. 
 I have been in charge of these jails for the last thirteen years. 
 
 Q. — Where have you been in charge of jails ? 
 
 A. — In Henzada in the Irrawaddy Division ; I liave also been in 
 Bassein, in the same Division, and in this jail in Mandalay. 
 
 Q. — You have been in Mandalay for the last three years ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — I take it that the evidence you have given ns to-day is the result 
 of your experience in the jails of Burma, both Lower and Upper? 
 
 A. —Yes. 
 
 Q. — I did not quite understand whether you said you tliought tlie 
 number of Burman smokers in LTpper Burma was on the increase ? 
 
 A — Not in Upper Burma only, but in Burma generally, Lower and 
 Upper. 
 
 Q. — Could you give us a percentage of what you think to be the 
 number of opium-consuming Burmans in ITpper Burma ? 
 
 A. — I should say about ten per cent in Lower Burma, and a little 
 less in Upper Burma ; but I cannot give you any definite information. 
 
 Evidence of Mr. I. E. Bridges, C. S., Commissioner for the 
 Eastern Division of Vpper Burma. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, the witness said : — I have been seventeen 
 years in Burma. I was for three years doing ordinary magisterial work 
 in the sub-division ; after that I was for nearly six years on settlement 
 work ; and then I was for two years Revenue Secretary. I came up to 
 jMandalay as Deputy Commissioner for one and a half years ; then I was 
 Chief Secretary for six months, next I was Deputy Commissioner again 
 for five months, and then I was appointed Commissioner for three years. 
 The number of Burmans who use opium in Upper Bumia is exceedingly 
 small. From enquiries I have made I think it is about one in five 
 thousand. In Lower Burma the number is much larger. 
 
( 34 ) 
 
 Q. — Was opiniu used at all by the Lo^Yel• Burmans before the 
 annexation ? 
 
 A. — Ves, when there were Chinamen the Burmans used opium. 
 
 Q. — Are there many Shans in your district ? 
 
 A. — Not Shans proper : they are what are called Shan Danus. They 
 are Shans who speak Burmese ; they are partly Burmanized. They live 
 in the territory between Burma and the Shan States proj^er. 
 
 Q. — Was opium prohibited to these Shan Danus iii the King’s time? 
 
 A. — Tt was nominally prohibited. But there was no real prohibition. 
 They were allowed to go at it as mnch as they liked. 
 
 Q. — The prohibition was actually with regard to the Burmans proper ? 
 
 A. — I think I may say it was. 
 
 Q — But not very effectually ? 
 
 A. — Not very effectually; they occasionally used to punish a man 
 when they caught him, but many of them smoked who were never 
 punished. 
 
 Q. — Does the same apply to liquor ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; only of course there were many more people who took 
 liquor. A very large proportion of Upper Bunnans took liquor when we 
 came into the country. From what I heard I should think about seventy- 
 five per cent of them took liquor : not always, but at times, at their Nat 
 festivals. It was the usual practice in the King’s time to allow liquor to 
 be manufactured, and liquor was drunk freely. This Nat worship prevails 
 a great deal in Upper Burma. It is their old religion, and they keep it 
 alongside of Buddhism. They have temples to the Nats, a few miles north of 
 Mandalay and in the pagodas at Pagan. They offer liquor to the figures. 
 In all irrigation works wlien the water is let out, offerings are made in 
 spirit to the Nats. In fact, the Burmans have asked me at Meiktila 
 to allow them to manufacture liquor. But it is forbidden now and I 
 told them they could not do it. In the King’s time the liquor was 
 manufactured from jaggery or palm-tree sugar and from rice. The stills 
 were more or less concealed except at these Nat festivals, when it was 
 done publicly. In Mandalay, in 188fi, I saw a number of people drink- 
 ing at these Nat festivals. On one occasion at the Amarapoora festival 
 Nat festivals. On one occasion at the Amarapoora festival I saw three 
 women di’unk. 1 have never seen such a thing in Lower Burna : these 
 women pushed up against me in the road. As a rule, Burmese women 
 keep out of the way. I asked the people what was the matter witli them, 
 and I was told that they were drunk. 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 Q. — Where did the opium come from that was obtained in those 
 days ? 
 
 A, — From Ynnnau, from the Chinese in Mandalay. Thei’e was a 
 large colony of Chinese in China Street. They were allowed to use 
 opium. According to what the King’s Ministers told me when we came 
 into Mandalay, there were about 150 Bormans who used opium. That 
 was their estimate of the number in Mandalay. 
 
 Q. — Did they smoke or eat the. opium ? 
 
 A. — Most of them ate it. They say only the richer people smoke 
 it, as it is more expensive. 
 
 Q. — What we call the Shan States were tributary to the Kings of 
 Bunna, were they not ? 
 
 A. — Yes, when we came in the King was trying to administer many 
 of these territorfes. He had his ministers (W uns) at the Courts of the 
 Sawbwas. They had a Burmese military commander at Mobye. Burmese 
 armies were constantly going through the Shan States, attacldng the 
 different people. 
 
 Q. — They did not interfere in internal administration much, I 
 suppose ? 
 
 A. — They levied Thathameda or income-tax. It is a kind of modified 
 income-tax. It is fixed at ten rupees a house. If there are a hundred 
 houses that means Rs. 1,000. It is divided according to the income of 
 the different people. 
 
 Q. — The Chinese wei’e openly allowed to have opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; Chinese and foreigners were allowed to continue their old 
 custom, and to drink their liquor. 
 
 Q. — What is your opinion as to the effect of opium on Chinamen, 
 as far as you have seen ? 
 
 A. — The majority of Chinamen use opium and are not affected 
 physically or morally by the use of the drug. They all work hard, and I 
 have never seen a Chinaman in jail for an offence against the Indian 
 Penal Code. 
 
 Q. — How does it affect the Burmese ? 
 
 A. — I have seen opium smokers, but I cannot tell them from other 
 people. I am unable to say that opium affects Burmans physically. In 
 the jails in Lower Burma, the Burman opium-eaters or smokers whom 
 I have seen did not appear inferior physically to non-opium smokers. 
 Burmans are, however, strongly affected morally by the use of opium. 
 
( 36 ) 
 
 They become lazy, give up all work, and take to gambling and petty 
 thieving. They do not commit any serious olfences or crime on account 
 of taking opium, 
 
 Q. — You say they take to gambling ? 
 
 A. — Burmans are naturally gamblers, and the opium-eaters and 
 opium-smokers go in more for gambling. 
 
 Q. — I suppose the class that are criminals would naturally take to 
 drinking and smoking ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q. — The poor man who spends more than he could afford in smok- 
 ing and drinking would naturally take to petty thieving ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q — Do you think there is any distinction in that respect between 
 the man wlio spends more than he can afford in opium and the man who 
 spends more than he can afford in liquor ? 
 
 A. — I do not think there is. 
 
 Q. — What is your opinion as to the effect of opium consumption 
 amongst the Shans ? 
 
 A. — I am unable to say that there is any effect upon them. In 
 1887 I was up in the Shan States for three months. The Shans there 
 were very hardy : they did long marches and carried heavy loads. From 
 what I was told, many of them were either ganja smokers or opium 
 smokers. 
 
 Q. — Does ganja consumption prevail in the Shan States 7 
 
 A. — Yes; they say it can be found almost in every village. It is 
 grown, but it does not grow wild ; it is cultivated ; they grow a few 
 plants near the different houses. 
 
 Q. — Have you never asked the Shans why they took opium ; have 
 they give any reason for it ? 
 
 A. — No, I have not asked them. 
 
 Q. — A note has been put in here with regard to the Excise estabhsh- 
 ments present and proposed. I see that it says, “ In addition to the 
 regular Police the village Police, and, in Lower Burma, the Thuggis, 
 the Revenue Collectors liave duties in connection with the detection and 
 suppression of offences against the opium law.” How long has it been 
 the case tliat the village Police police and Thuggis have had such duties ? 
 
 A. — I think for the last two or three years. No cases have been 
 brought to light by them. The Burmans are very much afraid of giving 
 
( 37 ) 
 
 information against each other : they are afraid of revenge and people 
 attacking them . 
 
 Q. — Are these village headmen paid by Government ? 
 
 A. — They are paid by the Thathamoda , — the land revenue. They 
 are generally hereditary men. The Thuggis, which is the Burman name 
 for headmen in Upper Burma, have many villages under them, but the 
 Ywathugyi has only one or two villages as a rule under him. 
 
 Q. — In 1892 a special form was prescribed for the appointment of 
 these officials to be Excise officers, and on the back of those forms was 
 written a short statement in popular language of their duties in connec- 
 tion with both liquor and opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; we have given those out to every man in the Bin*mese 
 language. 
 
 Q. — I see they are given much larger powers under this form of 
 appointment ? 
 
 A. — Arresting, and seizing and searching houses : they have very 
 small Magisterial powers. They can try petty thefts up to the value 
 of Rs. 5. and small assault cases. They can fine up to Rs. 5. 
 
 Q. — Have you heard of any case in your division in which they have 
 entered a house in search of opium ? 
 
 A. — No ; we have a special Excise establishment in my division. 
 They do all this. 
 
 Q. — Are these Thuggis people who would be likely to abuse their 
 powers ? 
 
 A. — I think not ; I think they are likely not to abuse them. 
 
 Q. — Do you think when the use of opium is prohibited except to 
 non-Burmans, it is likely that smuggling wdl take place ? 
 
 A. — I think a certain amount of smuggling will take place. We 
 have smuggling now to a certain extent. The smuggling comes from the 
 Shan States. We have seized opium in the Meiktila district and in the 
 Kyaukse district ; the opium in those cases came from the Southern 
 Shan States. 
 
 Q. — Is the frontier of the Burmese districts and the Shan States a 
 frontier where there are roads by which the hills can be crossed ? 
 
 A. — No ; there are a number of bye-paths. There are three large 
 tr ading routes into the Eastern division, and there are a number of bye- 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 paths that go off the roads, and you can get down into the plains at 
 different places. These bye-paths are only passable by men on foot. 
 
 Q.— So that smuggling in small quantities would be hard to stop ? 
 
 A. — It would be very hard to stop. 
 
 Q . — I suppose one man might carry a great deal of opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes, he could carry several viss of opium without any difficulty. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q. — You say the number of Upper 
 Burmans who use opium is exceedingly small, being only about one in 
 live thousand. Do you mean one in five thousand of the total popula- 
 tion ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; that is from enquiries I have made. 
 
 Q. — That would only mean about one in twelve hundred, or one in 
 a thousand adults ? 
 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. Q. — In your report which was given in on the 
 21st of January, 1892, you say that out of 104 men in four villages the 
 health and capacity of the majority had been affected by the use of tha 
 drug. Is that your experience generally ? 
 
 A. — No ; that is taken from the reports of the Deputy Commis- 
 sioner. 
 
 Q. — Do you think it a fair statement to make that the majority who 
 take opium have no capacity for work? 
 
 A. — From my own personal experience I cannot say that they are 
 affected. This is the opinion of the Deputy Commissioner, whose report 
 I was sending on ; I made no enquiries myself. 
 
 Q. — You further say nearly all have been affected by the use of the 
 drug, and several have taken to crime ? 
 
 A. — That is petty crime. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that probably that was rather an exaggerated 
 statement ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — You also say “ opium consumers are said to be of weak physique 
 and. to live on the earnings of their wives.” Do you think that is an 
 exaggeration ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — You say “ I do not think that we can expect any co-operation 
 from the people themselves in putting down the opium traffic during 
 
( (39 ) 
 
 the time of the King considerable assistance was obtained in the matter, 
 was it not, from the heads of the Buddhist church ? 
 
 A. — I never heard of it. 
 
 Q. — It was so stated in evidence in London ? 
 
 A. — Eehgiously all Burmans in theory are against both drink and 
 opium ; and the King repeatedly issued orders forbidding both drink and 
 opium. That was only theory : the practice was quite diffei’ent. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q. — That was more in the shape of pious 
 opinion ? 
 
 A.— Y es ; King Mindon Min constantly issued ordei’s against drink 
 and opium. 
 
 By Mr, Pease. — Q. — Mr. Adams in giving evidence said, “The 
 Buddhist Archbishop of the day (1876) showed me despatches in cipher 
 which he was then sending to the Court at Mandalay, addressed personally 
 to the King, detailing cases which had taken place, and various crimes 
 committed and the punishments inflicted by the Civil authorities. They 
 always acted as spies upon the doings of the people, and anything con- 
 trary to Buddhist law, apart from the national law, was at once reported, 
 and the priests themselves accused people to the Civil authorities.” 
 
 A. — All the older Burmans are using their opinion against it un- 
 doubtedly. When children take to the use of opium they reprove them 
 and tell them not to. 
 
 Q. — You say also “ I am of opinion that the prohibition of the use 
 of opium by Burmans in Upper Burma has been effectual.” Is that your 
 view at the present time ? 
 
 A. — I may qualify that a little by saying, except where there are a 
 number of Chinese. Where the number of Chinese has increased, there 
 they have introduced opium, that is, in larger towns. 
 
 Q. — Do you think there will be any disposition on the part of the 
 Shan Chiefs to co-operate in any movement for stopping the growth of 
 the poppy in their States ? 
 
 A. — I think not : they may say they will, but they will not, I 
 think. 
 
 Q. — Do you think the consumption of opium in the Shan States is 
 larger in tire neighbourhood of the caravan routes, tlian it is in the other 
 parts of the country ? 
 
 A. — All that I can say is that there is less consumption in the 
 Southern Shan States than in the Northern Shan States, because opium 
 is not grown in any quantity there : they consume ganja. 
 
( 40 ) 
 
 Q. — The caravan routes are through the Southern portion ? 
 
 A. — Both ; the route to Yunnan is through the Northern Shan 
 States. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — You are aware that your view, that prohi- 
 bition has been effectual in Upper Burma, is contrary to the opinions 
 which have often been quoted from the Excise Report of 1890-91 to the 
 effect that prohibition with regard to liquor and opium were nugatory ? 
 
 A. — With regard to liquor I do not think it has been effectual ; but 
 I think it has with regard to opium. 
 
 Q. — Is it not the case that the rules themselves have been better 
 since the Excise Report of 1890-91 was written, making not sale, but 
 also possession punishable ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Do you think that has tended in any way to make the rules 
 better enforced and more effectual ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say I think so. I think it is simply keeping opium 
 away from them that prevents them taking to it. We have very few 
 shops, and they have very little opportunity of getting it. There are 
 three shops in the Eastern Division. 
 
 Q. — Are those three shops supposed to be supplied exclusively with 
 Government opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — I suppose there is no restriction to selling in licensed shops 
 opium that is imported so long as duty is paid ? 
 
 A. — No, and confiscated opium is sent to them for sale. 
 
 Q. — So that in fact the preventive system which you now have to 
 keep up in the Eastern District on the Shan frontier is intended not to 
 prohibit the entry altogether, but to see that the opium which comes over 
 is, as far as possible, made to pay duty ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — If opium were totally prohibited and the shops were closed, 
 would you then have to keep a much larger preventive force ? 
 
 A. — Yes, we should have to keep a much larger preventive force. 
 All the Chinamen would leave the country, and our Military Police could 
 not stay here. The Chinese are the chief traders in the Eastern Division. 
 They have nearly all the kutch trade in their hands. They have also 
 some timber trade and all the cotton trade, 
 
( 41 ) 
 
 Q.—I may take it as your opinion, as responsible for the division, 
 that you do not wish to see any further restriction than those contained 
 in the regulations recently put forth ? 
 
 A. — No. I do not. 
 
 Q. — By the Chairman. — Is Yunnan or Shan opium readily dis- 
 tinguishable from Government opium ? 
 
 A. — Yes. I do not myself know what the difference is. 
 
 Evidence of Idr. Law Tan, Z. S. IT., given through an interpreter. 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — I am a merchant and Municipal Commis- 
 sioner at Mandalay. I have lived in Mandalay for over thirty years. Not 
 more than one in ten of the Yunnanese in Mandalay smoke opium, and 
 few of the better class of merchants. The Fokinese and Cantonese smoke 
 it to great extent, but not universally. In the time of King Mindon Min 
 the restrictions on the sale of opium were less stringently enforced than 
 at present. I think it a bad thmg to smoke opium. It is against the 
 traditional precepts of my people, and it is also bad for the smoker’s 
 health. Most Kachins smoke opium, and as they live in a cold climate 
 they are not so much affected by the practice as people who live in a hot* 
 climate. I have been Municipal Commissioner since 1888, and am the 
 only Yunannese merchant wlio is Municipal Commissioner. I was born in 
 Yunnan. I am forty-eight, and I have been here thirty-one years, having 
 come in the time of King Mindon Min. I have never been back to 
 Yunnan. All my people have died, and I have never gone back there. 
 
 Q. — Have you evef tried smoking opium ? 
 
 A. — No, I have never tried it. I do not like it. My grandfather 
 told me not to smoke it. W e have never smoked it in our family. 
 
 Q. — Does it commonly run in families to smoke or not to smoke, as 
 the case may be ? 
 
 A. — I think there is about fifty per cent who have not smoked from 
 father to son. 
 
 Q. — Do you think there is any difference in cleverness between the 
 merchants who smoke and those who do not smoke ? 
 
 A. — I think it is the same thing whether a man smokes or not. 
 
 Q. — In commercial honesty do you thing thei-e is any difference? 
 
 A. — They are indolent in mind — the people who smoke opium. I do 
 not think there is any difference in their honesty ; some are good and 
 some are bad. 
 
( 42 ) 
 
 Q. — In King Mindon Min’s time was there any restriction on the 
 Chinese using opium ? 
 
 A. — All that the King used to issue orders about was not to sell 
 opium to the Burmans, but the next day the Chinese would be selling to 
 the Burmans. It was enforced one day, and in a few days it was forgot- 
 ten. The Burmans smoke less now than they did in the Burmese times. 
 
 Q. — I suppose the Burmese only smoked in places like Mandalay ? 
 
 A. — They also smoked in the jungle, in the district outside Man- 
 dalay. 
 
 Q. — Do you know of any opium-smokers who have died from smok- 
 ing opium ? 
 
 A. — I have heard of men dying because they could not buy any 
 opium and they had been in the habit of taking it ; they died of dysent- 
 ery or diarrhoea when the opium was stopped. 
 
 By Mr. Pease, — Q. — There are three classes of Chinese, — Yunnan- 
 ese, Fokinese, and Cantonese, — in Mandalay ? 
 
 A. — Three-tenths Yunnanese and seven-tenths Cantonese and 
 Fokinese. 
 
 Q. — Would you be in favour of anything being done to prevent 
 those smoking who have not yet begun to do so ? 
 
 A. — It would be better to prevent opium-smoking amongst those 
 who have not yet 'begun. 
 
 Q. — Would you be in favour of a register being made for present 
 smokers, and that all others should be prevented from buying opium ? 
 
 A. — If people stay here for good it will be advisable to have the 
 names of smokers registered ; if they are only temporary persons who go 
 about here and there, it would not be advisable to register them. It is in 
 the discretion of the Government whether it would be advisable to have 
 their names registered or not. 
 
 Q. — Is that opinion the opinion of the Chinese generally: would the 
 the Chinese people agree with you in that ? 
 
 A. — The confirmed smokers will not like having their names registered 
 unless those who do not smoke and do not eat opium like the registration 
 of the smokers’ names: the smokers would not like it. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — In the days of King Mindon Min, where 
 did the opium come from that the people smoked ? 
 
 A. — From the Shan States, from the north, and from Bhamo. 
 Yunnanese opium came from the Northern Shan States and fr«m Bhamo. 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q.— -When you lived in Yimiian as a young 
 man was the poppy much cultivated there ? 
 
 A. — The poppy was not grown much in the Yunnan country. There 
 are wild tribes in a great part of Yunnan. 
 
 Evidence of Mr. Sidney Jennings, Inspector of Police. 
 
 By the Chairman. — I joined the Burma Police in May, 1888. I 
 served in the Thongwa district for about a year. In September, 1889, I 
 was transferred to Carmein, the most northern British post in Burma. 
 
 Q. — What people live in that district ? 
 
 A. — The Kachins. 
 
 Q. — Are those Kachins indeijendent ? 
 
 A. — They have drawn a line. 
 
 Q. — I suppose those inside that line are under our Administration, 
 and we only have political relations with those outside that line ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; there is no distinction between the Kachins inside the 
 line and those outside the line in character or in habits ? About eighty 
 per cent of them smoke opium. 
 
 Q. — Do you know if they eat opiirm at all, or do they only smoke ? 
 
 A. — They eat opium, but they are not looked upon very highly 
 if they do so. It is at night when they have finished their work that 
 tliey bring out their opium pipes. The man who eats opium does it on 
 the quiet. 
 
 Q. — He is not thought a good fellow ? 
 
 A. — Ko. 
 
 Q. — What do you think they take to it for ? 
 
 A. — They have very hard work all day. They are up at daybreak 
 and work until nightfall. They have no leisure of any kind, and they 
 have very bad food. Originally they copied the Chinese ; and since the 
 habit has been established, they cannot do without it : when they have 
 no opium they at once go sick. 
 
 Q. — You mean the men who liave acquired the habit ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — They go sick in what way ? 
 
 A. — They get fever and dysentery ; many of them die if they do 
 not get it. Being a Police officer I have had several men in the lock-up 
 who, as they got no opium, at once went sick. One of them died in 
 Mandalay because he could not get opium. 
 
 Q. — Do they suppose it is a preventive against disease ? 
 
( ) 
 
 A. — They always say so. They say at once, “ I shall get sick if 
 you do not give it to me.” I do not fancy they think much about it one 
 way or the other. 
 
 Q. — Beyond this liability to fall sick if they do not get it, do you 
 know of any other bad results of the opium upon them ? 
 
 A. — No, I do not. 
 
 Q. — I suppose some use it to excess ? 
 
 A. — Very few. The Kachins are not very inch, and they cannot 
 afford to buy it in large quantities. 
 
 Q. — Is the habit confined to the men ? 
 
 A. — No, the women smoke also. Not as much as the men ; about 
 twenty per cent smoke on the Carmein side, where I am ; on the Myitky- 
 ina side a good many women smoke. 
 
 Q. — Do they grow much opium in that country ? 
 
 . A. — On the Myitkyina side they do, and down by Endau Lake. 
 They do not grow enough for their own consumption. 
 
 Q. — Where do they get it from ? 
 
 A. — It crosses the confluence of the Mlikha and the Mikha. It 
 is brought by the Chinese caravans. A good many Kachins cross the 
 border and bring it over for themselves. I have myself met Kachins 
 coming ever, and have searched them and found opium, in balls. 
 
 The few cases of excess are chiefly among the rich men ; they never 
 do any work, and they keep to their houses. There is no real bad effect ; 
 but the men are not very strong. 
 
 Q. — Would it be possible to stop the opium coming over? 
 
 A. — Not at present. The force up there is. quite incapable of deal- 
 ing with it. There is over a hundred miles of Chinese boundary, and 
 opium is grown just over the border. There are no roads ; it is dense 
 jungle. The Kachin paths are very numerous. It is quite impossible to 
 deal with it now. 
 
 Q. — How do you think the Kachins would like it if any measures 
 were taken to stop it ? 
 
 A. — They would not like it at all. 
 
 Q. — Do not they admit in talking that it is a bad thing ? 
 
 A. — No, they do not. 
 
 Q. — What is their religion ? 
 
 A. — They worship Nats, 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 By Mr, Mowbi'ay. — Q. — Are your Police Military or Civil Police ? 
 
 A. — There is only one Civil Policeman in Carmein, the rest are 
 Military Police ; they are called Ghurkas, but they are really Assamese. 
 
 Q. — Are they opium consumers ? 
 
 A. — I have not noticed it amongst them. There is nowhere where 
 they could get it. There is only one shop at Mogaung. 
 
 Q. — Could they not buy it from the Kachins who grow it? 
 
 A.— Yes, they could ; but the Kachins will not bring it into Kamein. 
 My district is called the Mogaung sub-division. There are three sub- 
 divisions in the Bhamo district — Mogaung, Myitkyina and Shwegu. 
 
 Q. — Have you one of those three ? 
 
 A. — I had when I first went up ; then I was sent to Kamein as a 
 sort of Civil Officer. 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — Is Kamein in Mogaung? 
 
 A. — It is in the sub-division : it is north of Mogaung. My district 
 goes up to the Jade mines. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — What class of people work in the Jade 
 mines ? 
 
 A. — They come from Mandalay. There are Chinamen, Kachins, 
 and Kadus. 
 
 Q. — Do you know anything about the consumption of opium among 
 the people working in the J ade mines ? 
 
 A.—Ko, merely from rumour. Last year 10,000 viss were supposed 
 to have been brought to the mines. There was a shop of the Jade mines 
 two years ago, there is not now. 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q.— The Kadus are a small tribe living up in 
 that part. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — How far is your district from here ? 
 
 Q.— It takes three days by steamer from here to Bhamo, and from 
 Bhamo it takes five days by boat. 
 
 Q.~You said the death-rate would be enormous if the use of opium 
 -.were prohibited : we have had a great deal of evidence to show that 
 persons in jail and other places, though they suffer for a while, have not 
 been permanently affected by it ; can you tell us what has brought you to 
 that conclusion ? 
 
 A. The men that I ha\e had in the lock-up have' invariably gone 
 sick, and two of them have died from not having opium. 
 
( 46 ) 
 
 Q — Under medical attention ? 
 
 A. — No, tliere is only an Assistant Apothecary up there. 
 
 Q. — You come to your conclusion rather from your general experi- 
 ence than from statistics ? 
 
 A. — It is not extensive, because not many Kachins are locked up. 
 It is the prevailing belief amongst themselves that they will die. 
 
 By Sir William Boberts. — Q. — I believe there is only one shop 
 in your district? 
 
 A. — At present there is one at Mogaung. 
 
 Q. — The opium that comes from China comes in the crude state ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — It is not the smoking extract? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q. — Would that be made in the shop ; they boil it there? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — The Kachin countiy is a very malarious 
 country ; and the district of the Jade mines also. 
 
 Q. — Are the people allowed to get opium there? 
 
 A. — They are not allowed but we cannot stop it. If we could stop 
 it, they would not be allowed to get it. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q. — Amongst the Kachins I suppose the 
 adult males smoke opium the most ? 
 
 A. — Yes, about eighty per cent. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — Are the Police responsible for carrying out 
 these Excise laws ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — When you say you cannot stop these people in the Jade mines, 
 what efforts do you make ? 
 
 A. — The force up there is insufficient. Whenever we meet a cara- 
 van or anything of the sort we search it, and when we find opium it is 
 confiscated. There are many small roads, and the jungles are so dense 
 that nobody knows anything about them except the Kachins, and it is 
 impossible to get at them. 
 
 Q. — If any of your men find the people at the Jade mines using 
 opium, do they investigate where the opium came from ? 
 
 A.— -There is no Civil police up there ; we have not got as far as 
 that yet, 
 
( 47 ) 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — Are yoiir police Sikhs or what ? 
 
 A. They are called Gurkhas, but there are really very few Gurkhas 
 
 amongst them, the majority are Assamese. 
 
 Q. — Bo they consume opium ? 
 
 JTo, I have never noticed it. I have never seen them smoking ; 
 
 if they eat it they eat it on the quiet. 
 
 Q, I believe that two Yrrnnanese have come in from Bhamo to 
 
 give evidence ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. How did they come forward' to give evidence ? 
 
 A. They came from Bhamo. As I came down, the Beputy Com- 
 
 missioner told me to bring them with me ; beyond that I know nothing 
 about them. 
 
 Evidsncs of Eaji Shahsliiiddin, (ezamined through, an intorpreter)- 
 
 By the Chairman. — I am a Panthe' merchant. I have lived in 
 Burma for twenty years and in Mandalay since the occupation. Panthes 
 are forbidden to smoke opium and as a rule do not smoke, Panthes who 
 do smoke are men of rank. As regards the effect of opium on the 
 health of the consumer, well-fed persons may smoke opium without ill - 
 effects ; whereas ill-nourished persons are harmed by it. About half the 
 Y’unnanese in Burma or in Yunnan smoke opium. Men of substance 
 and position among the Yunnanese smoke opium ; but there is some 
 slight loss of reputation attached to the practice. The social stigma, sucli 
 as it is, is slight. Very few Chinese eat opmm, the majority of consumers 
 smoke it. In the King’s time opium was openly sold, without prohibi- 
 tion, by Chinese to Chinese. It was also sold secretly to Burmans. I 
 have been to the Kachin country. There half the Kachins smoke opium 
 and are strong and healthy. I do not think they smoke to excess. I 
 have heard that opium-smoking keeps off fever ; but I do not know 
 whether this is really the case. 
 
 Q. — Wliere was your home originally ? 
 
 A. — South of Tali-fxi. There are many Chinese and Mahommedans 
 in that part of the country. I left Yunnan after the I'ebellion. First 
 I went to live in Rangoon and then from Rangoon I came to live in 
 Mandalay. I was in Upper Burma, in the King’s time. I had my 
 residence in Rangoon, but I came here to trade. I sometimes stayed 
 here eight months and I went back and got married. I was permanently 
 here during the whole of King Thibaw’s reign. 
 
( 48 ) 
 
 Q, — Yon say that the Panthes are forbidden to smoke opinm : is 
 that a religious rule ? 
 
 A. — The Panthe religion forbids the smoking of opium. 
 
 Q. — Panthes are Mahommedans, are they not ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Amongst the Mahommedans of India and Persia opium is not 
 supposed to be forbidden ; how is it that it is forbidden amongst the 
 Panthes ? 
 
 A. — They think it is forbidden in the Koran. It is a religious 
 injunction with them. 
 
 Q. — When you were in Yunnan was there any poppy cultivation ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I saw a great deal grown in my own town. 
 
 Q. — Was not the cultivation of the poppy supposed to be forbidden 
 by the order of the Emperor of China in those days ? 
 
 A. — I heard once that the Emperor of China prohibited the culti- 
 vation of the poppy. I heard that in my childhood ; but ever since I 
 have known the country it has been cultivated freely. 
 
 Q. — You say that some Panthe men of rank do smoke ; I suppose 
 those are people who have no work to do ? 
 
 A. — I heard that when there were Panthe Princes, they used to 
 smoke opinm ; but I do not know it of my own knowledge. 
 
 Evidence of Mr- Yang Fu and Mr- San Tu examined throngli 
 an interpreter. 
 
 In reply to the Chairman, Mr. Yang Fu said he was a Yunnanese 
 of Bhamo, and had been in Burma for over ten years. He lived before 
 that in Moulmein and in Yunnan. He was not a Buddhist; he wor- 
 shipped Chinese gods, and was a Confucian. He had smoked opium 
 thirty-two years, and smoked about half a tical of opium a day, — eight 
 annas’ weight. He took to it because lie was suffering from sickness on 
 account of fever. 
 
 Q. — I)o you think it stops fever ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Is it the general opinion that opium is good for stopping fever ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — If opium were stopped wliat would he the result? 
 
 A. — The men who could not stop the practice would go back to the 
 Chinese country, and others would suffer the orders of the Government. 
 
( 49 ) 
 
 Q. — Of the Yunnanese who trade between China, how many smoke 
 and how many do not smoke ? 
 
 A. — More than half. 
 
 Q, — How is it that you come forward to give evidence ? 
 
 A. — The Deputy Commissioner called us. 
 
 Q. — Was a meeting called, or did the Deputy Commissioner call you 
 individually ? 
 
 A. — The Deputy Commissioner assembled the Chinese and told 
 them the Government wanted them to send some Chinese gentlemen to 
 represent them here. The Chinese chose six who went up to the Depirty 
 Commissioner ; and out of those six two were chosen ; we two were 
 chosen and we have been sent down. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — How many Yunnanese are there in Bhamo 
 — permanent residents ? 
 
 A. — About five or six hundred. 
 
 Q. — Are there many who come and go ? 
 
 A. — Yes ; more than a thousand people come down in the cold 
 weather. 
 
 Q. — If the Government said that no Yunnanese should have opium 
 unless their names were upon a list, do you think it would be possible to 
 carry that out in Bhamo ? 
 
 A. — If I could not stand the order, I would go back to my country ; 
 I would think about it. 
 
 Q. — Do you think if these temporary people who go to and fro 
 trading were not allowed to have opium that it would stop their coming 
 to trade ? 
 
 A. — Only the people who do not smoke would come : all the opium 
 smokers would stay at home. 
 
 Q. — What do the people generally trade in ? 
 
 A. — From Yunnan they bring cloths, silk, cotton, food, fruits, 
 walnuts, apples, pears, and they also bring salt pork. They take back 
 amber, jade, and lac. 
 
 By Mr. Pease. — Q. — Would you advise a young man in good 
 health to take opium ? 
 
 A. — No, I would not advise any young man to smoke opium. 
 
 Q. — Have you ever given up taking it yourself, and if so, for how 
 long ? 
 
( so ) 
 
 A. — 1 have stopped opium live or six times, and on one occasion 
 I stopped it for one year. Sometimes I stop it for two or three months, 
 and other times for five or six months. 
 
 Mr. San Tu in reply to the Chairman, said that he had smoked 
 opium for fifteen years. He smoked ten or twelve annas’ weight of opium 
 daily. He had been settled in Bhamo for three years. 
 
 Q. — Is there much poppy cultivated about your home in Yunnan? 
 
 A. — Poppy is grown on the hills. I have not seen the poppy culti- 
 vation, but I have heard that it is grown. It is only grown on the hills- 
 I come fi’om a village. 
 
 Q. — In other respects do you agree with the evidence given by Mr. 
 Yang Fu ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
 Q. — Mr. Yang Pu said he would not advise a young man who had 
 not taken opium to take opium ; but supposing the young man had to go 
 the .Jade mines or to go to a feverish place, would you then advise him 
 to fake opium pills, or to take opium in any shape or not ? 
 
 A. — It would not concern me if a young man went to the Jade 
 mines, I would not say anything. They could smoke if they liked. I 
 would not like if my son smoked. 
 
 Evidence of Eev. Id. S. Elkrpatric]:, MU. 
 
 By the Chairman. — I belong to the American Baptist Mission, and 
 am a Medical Missionary. 
 
 Q. — How long have you been in Burma, and in what districts have 
 you been ? 
 
 A. — I was in Toungoo for two years ; I have been living up in the 
 Shan States for three years, and mucli of my time has been spent travell- 
 ing in the Shan country. It is five }’-ears and six months since I came 
 to Burma. For ten years before I came here I was practising in Phila- 
 delphia in Medical Mission work. 
 
 Q. — Will you give us an account of your experience in Toungoo? 
 
 A. — Daily when living in Toungoo, in Lower Burma, I was inter- 
 ested in investigating the effects of opium-smoking on those who freely 
 indulged in the drug. I visited some opium farms, as they^are’called, 
 early in the evening, but I saw little of the drug consumed on the place. 
 Many were buying in small quantities, to be used at home. One day 
 the Inspector of Police told me that about midnight he was going to 
 visit some dens to find a notorious thief who had justpcome to town. 
 He asked me if I should like to see some of their work, and I told him 
 
( 51 ) 
 
 I should be veiy glad to do so. We spent two or three hours in visiting 
 several of these miserable dens. He found not only the man he wanted, 
 but two other bad characters. He arrested the tliree men that night. 
 
 Q. — What are these dens as you call them ? 
 
 A.— They are licensed opium farms. A signboard is in front, 
 saying Opium Farm, number so and so. 
 
 Q — Is Toungoo a big town ? 
 
 A. — There are about fifteen or twenty thousand inhabitants. 
 
 Q. — How many licensed shops do you suppose then are there ? 
 
 A. — I think there were three on China Street at that time. Several 
 that we visited that night and on subsequent occasions were not licensed ; 
 they were illicit places. The Police knew them very well. The Police 
 told me at that time that if they wanted bad characters they always 
 looked first for them in the opium dens. In one place I saw about 
 a hundred men and a few women taking the drug. Some were sleep- 
 ing in a dull stupor, others were quietly smoking, and some were 
 groaning with pain because they could not get the drug. There were 
 several people about asking for pice. Several were oirtside and inside, 
 and when they saw a white man they begged for pice that they might 
 have a smoke. Those who had been several years taking the drug 
 were in nearly every case thin in flesh, emaciated and nervous and 
 haggard-looking. Those who had only recently acquired the habit, of 
 course, were in a better condition. During the two years I was living 
 in Toungoo I often made these late nocturnal visits and saw many 
 physical as well as moral wrecks in these places. Many Burmans were 
 pointed out to me as at one time holding positions of honour and 
 responsibility, but becoming opium-smokers they had lost everything 
 and were then miserable beggars, asking for a few pice that they 
 might indulge in another smoke. Several men were pointed out to 
 me as having been once clerks in the Courts or attached to the Deputy 
 Commissioner’s Office, and several men who had held important positions 
 at some time or another were pointed out to me. 
 
 Q. — I suppose your knowledge of the number of licensed places at 
 that time was very vague, was it not ? 
 
 A. — It was simply from observation. I have seen the placards on 
 the places. 
 
 Q. — There are now twenty retail licensed shops in all Lower 
 Burma, and there were in the time you mention, 1888-89, only sixteen 
 
in all Lower Burma ; so there could hardly have been two in Toungoo ; 
 at the present moment there is only one ? 
 
 A. — I am sure from the placards I saw that there were two im- 
 mediately opposite the Burman Chapel. Two of those placards were up 
 “ Opium farms.” I visited several places with the Police on the night 
 I have mentioned, but how many of them were licensed I could not say. 
 
 Q. — You say that in one place you saw about a hundred men in the 
 place. W as that a licensed shop ? 
 
 A. — That was a licensed shop. It was immediately opposite the 
 Burman Chapel, where we had services nearly every day in the week. 
 We did not go into the other place that night where the placard was. 
 I think it was in the adjoining building next door. 
 
 Q. — How many of those hundred people do you think were Burmese 
 and how many Chinese ? 
 
 A. — There were very few Chinese. I could not say how many ; they 
 were mostly Burmese. 
 
 Q. — How many Indians were there ? 
 
 A. — There were some Natives of India : I do not remember seeing 
 any Chinamen except those connected with the place. There were fifteen 
 or twenty of them playing dominoes or some thing of the sort, but I do 
 not remember seeing a single Chinaman actually smoking. 
 
 Q. — You say that some people were groaning. How many people 
 were groaning ? Do you recollect whether it was one man, or do you 
 distinctly recollect seeing several groaning ? 
 
 A. — Several. 
 
 Q. — How do you know they were groaning for want of opium ? 
 Might they not be suffering from some complaint ? 
 
 A. — I asked the Inspector of Police, and he told me they were 
 groaning because of having pains ; they said they hadn’t opium enough 
 and they hadn’t any pice. They had terrible pains and they could not 
 get any opium. 
 
 Q. — You mean the gnawing pain which the habitual opium con- 
 sumer has ? 
 
 A. — Yes, that is what I inferred. I did not know the Burmese 
 language very well ; in fact, I do not know it now very well. This is 
 what the Inspector of Police told me ; he asked the question for me. 
 The Inspector’s name was Young. I think he is up in the Karen 
 station now. 
 
( 53 ) 
 
 Q. — Are Karens common in the Toungoo District ? 
 
 A. — There are a good many Karens. 
 
 Q.—Do they smoke much ? 
 
 A. — No ; I have never seen any of them iwho were addicted to 
 the habit. 
 
 Q. — They are much addicted to drinking, are they not ? Are they 
 put under discipline when they become converts, to prevent them drink- 
 ing? 
 
 A. — Certainly. They are immediately dismissed from the fellow- 
 ship of the Church if they are known to get di’unk, I was never 
 connected with the Karen district ; but I have travelled with some mis- 
 sionaries and know it to be a fact that if a man is known to be drunk 
 once, he is excluded from the Church. It is absolutely forbidden. 
 
 Q. — You have travelled in the Shan States ? 
 
 A. — Yes, for four years. I have been in almost aU the Shan 
 States, east and west of the Salween. I have not been across the 
 Salween. I have been through the Southern Shan States and in nearly 
 all of the Northern Shan States. 
 
 Q. — The people of the Shan States are great consumers of opium, 
 are they not ? 
 
 A. — My experience is that they are not, especially in the middle of 
 the Southern Shan States, except on the caravan routes and the main 
 routes like this road running from Yunnan and Thibaw and the road 
 from Meiktila to Fort Stedman and Mone and the Soutnern Shan 
 States. 
 
 Q.— I believe there are some parts of the Southern Shan States 
 where opium is largely cultivated ? 
 
 A. — Further north and east : it is in the Chinese quarters. 
 
 Q. — Have you been in these quarters ? 
 
 A. — I have never travelled in that part of the country. 1 have 
 never seen any large poppy fields : I have seen small patches of the plant 
 which were more for ornament. I have never seen it cultivated for com- 
 mercial purposes or use : never in any of the places I have travelled. 
 
 Q. — You say small patches : what size ? 
 
 A. — There would just be a few plants for the garden where the 
 people would have their mustard leaves and a few flowers around their 
 houses, 
 
 Q. — -You know that it is largely cultivated in some districts ? 
 
( 84 ) 
 
 A. — Yes, in certain districts ; but, as far as I know, it is more 
 north than east. There is not much raised in the Thibaw district and in 
 the south at Theinni. It is not much cultivated, as far as I know. 
 I have passed through at different times, and I have never seen it culti- 
 vated. I know they have opium for sale there, but it is not cultivated 
 commercially. 
 
 Q. — Your remark that it is mostly used near the caravan routes 
 refers to that part of the country where there is no opium grown ? 
 
 A. — It refers to those who are going and coming on this main line 
 of travel. In the jungle villages a little is used. The further you come 
 this way, the more it is used. Much more is used now than was used 
 four years ago when I first come over the road. 
 
 Q. — How can you tell that ? 
 
 A. — I judge that from the number of coolies who smoke. When I 
 first came, out of thirty or forty coolies, only two or three would be 
 opium-smokers. I carefully avoided the opium-smokers. The last time 
 I came from Moymyo I told my Shan man to avoid any opium-smokers. 
 Out of forty or fifty men he selected twenty, and the first night I found 
 sixteen of them smoking opium. 
 
 Q. — We know that opium has long been grown in the Shan States 
 and ill Y unnan, and that even in King Miudon Min’s time its use was 
 not prohibited, as far as Chinese or Shans were concerned. Have you 
 tany reason to give why the custom should be growing ? 
 
 A. — I only know what the people say ; they say they learn it in 
 Mandalay. They bring goods down here to sell and they get into the 
 habit, 
 
 Q. — Ho you think that is probable? 
 
 A. — I think so ; certainly it is the case in Thibaw. — When I went 
 here four years ago there were very few opium-smokers in the place. 
 The Thibaw Sawbwa told me when I was there, that amongst his ovm 
 people ill Thibaw there were very few who take opium, although I found 
 it common amongst the coolies. He regrets very much that it has come 
 into the place ; it has given great trouble. 
 
 Q. — Do many of these coolies you mention come into Mandalay from 
 the Shan States ? 
 
 A — Yes, a good many of them. They come on the road, carrying 
 their loads with them. They are petty traders. Some carry loads for 
 others. They get the leaves for making the cheroots and various things 
 up there, auj bring the.n down to sell. Taey take back other goods in 
 
( 55 ) 
 
 exchange and sell them on the road. You see Inuidreds of them in the 
 course of a day’s journey coming and going, especially during the rains. 
 
 Now, in the cold weather, when carts can go, there are comparatively 
 few of them : they are harvesting in the paddy fields and doing other 
 work; but during the rains great quantities of them are going and coming. 
 
 Q. — Is it more likely that the custom should spread into the Shan 
 States from one or two Hcensed vendors in Upper Buma rather than 
 from the people of the Shan States and of Yunnan, who have been 
 smoking for a long time and in large numbers ? 
 
 A. — In Thibaw and tliose adjacent places where, I know, the habit is 
 spinging up it comes from the Chinamen who send their agents down 
 here. I think it is at least eighteen months or two years since they 
 had a licensed shop in Maymyo. 
 
 Q. — Which opium is mostly consumed in Shan States — Slian or 
 Y unnan opium ? 
 
 A. — Crude opium comes down from China. Tlie Chinese traders 
 bring it down and sell it. These men come with their pack ponies and 
 mules, and bring nuts and fruits and opium down. They sell the crude 
 opium. In Thibaw I have seen them preparing the opium which is 
 smoked. The Chinamen have agents down here who take it up 
 there. 
 
 The witness was cross examined at some lengtli on this subject ; it 
 was pointed out to him that opium from Mandalay having paid a heavy 
 duty to Government and the farmer’s profit must be much dearer than 
 Native Shan opium. But he adhered to his statement, saying that he 
 knew one man who takes frequent trips to get the opium, to Mandalay 
 and that at Thibaw he had seen Chinamen bringing the opium down, and 
 cooking it there. The Sawbwa of Thibaw had lately given a license but 
 the licenses failed to make it a success. 
 
 Q. — In your hospital work have you seen anytliing of opium con- 
 sumers ? 
 
 A. — Yes, a great many cases are coming there now. Last year I 
 had moi’e than I have had recently, because the Myosa of Ngokele came 
 down with a large party of about 400 followers. He came down here on 
 the border between Burma and the Shan country, just outside the Bur- 
 mese district. His followers were largely Burmese ; he calls himself a 
 Shan. His followers are nearly all opium-smokers, and I had a great 
 many of them coming for treatment. When he was there I had four 
 times as many smokers coming to the hospital as I have now. 
 
 Q*— What did they come to the hospital for ? 
 
( 5 ^ ) 
 
 A. — They came for various diseases and troubles. A good many 
 came for medicine to cure tliem of the opium habit. They were slaves to 
 the habit'aiid they wanted to break tliemselves of it, and so they came 
 foi’ medicine. They heard that the white man liad medicine which could 
 make them sick of opium and loathe the habit. 
 
 Q. — How did you treat them ? 
 
 A. — With those who came and took regular treatment, I stopped 
 the opium gradually, gave them tonics and good food and kept them 
 away from opium. Several of tliem kept from it for several months, and 
 some have kept from it for eighteen months ; not having touched it all, 
 at least that is what they say, and I have every reason to think that ^ '■ 
 
 their statement is true. Others would come there and take medicine and 
 tonics for a few days, and when they got a craving for opium, they would 
 smoke past a little and then they would give ’way and smoke just as bad j j 
 
 as ever. Unless they are taken from their surroundings, it is almost 
 impossible for them to give up the habit. 
 
 Q. — Do you think opium-smoking has any cSect, physically or 
 morally, when taken in moderation ? 
 
 A. — That would depend largely upon what you mean by moderation. 
 
 Some men can smoke a comparatively large quantity, whilst a small 
 quantity will almost destroy others. 
 
 Q, Do you think it ends in destroying life ? 
 
 A. I have no doubt that it is the principal cause of death in many 
 
 cases. 
 
 Q. By making them more susceptible to other diseases, or 
 
 how. 
 
 A. I think it is directly duo to the use of opium in many cases. # 
 
 I have had numerous cases come to the hospital : they complain of 
 dvsentery. Some of them have had it for six months. I ask them 
 whether they are opium-smokers. Sometimes they deny it, but usually 
 they will say, “yes.” Task them how much they smoke, and they say 
 thev smoke ten annas’ worth, or as much as they can get ; that is gener- 
 ally their answer. I find dysentery very common among excessive opium- 
 smokers, and I have known many of them to die from it. I do not 
 know any other cause for it. They eat very little food. 
 
 I suppose dysentery is a very common disease in the country, is 
 
 it not ? 
 
 A. Yes. at certain seasons. Some years there is a good deal of 
 
 it, and some years there is very little. 
 
 »• 
 
Q. — Do you think that this is a special form? 
 
 A. — I tliink so. It occurs at any time of the year and without any 
 exciting cause, as far as I am able to determine. 
 
 Q. — Is the country very malarious ? 
 
 A. — Yes, all this part of the Shan country is malarious. 
 
 Q. — I suppose many of the people are soaked full of malaria ? 
 
 A. — Yes. Take, for instance, Thibaw city. Two-thirds of the 
 people in that city have malai-ious fever during the rains ; it is very 
 common. The rule is to have fever ; every one expects to have more or 
 less fever during the rains. 
 
 Q. — Do people take opium to relieve them of the fever. 
 
 A. — Amongst the Shans I have never known it to be done, but I 
 have known it in Toungoo. I have asked Burmans why they used opium, 
 and they gave that as an excuse. They said they had fever, and they 
 took it to relieve the pains. They then get into the habit of it and 
 cannot stop it. Opium is an anodyne : they say they have the fever just 
 the same, but it relieves the pain. 
 
 Q. — You do not think there is any idea in the country that it is a 
 protection against fever ? 
 
 A. — It is only within the last few months that I have heard of it. 
 I never heard it advanced by a Native. 
 
 Q. — I heard of it thirty years ago from the Natives of India. 
 
 A. — I have only had experience during the five years I have been 
 
 here. 
 
 Q. — You never heard of it before ? 
 
 A. — I first heard of it from those people in Toungoo who came to 
 the hospital. I also heard it from the people I saw in the opium places 
 there and the coolies and others who, I knew, were opium-smokers. It 
 is an excuse frequently made by those who use opium. I have never 
 heard from a Native that it is used as a prophylactic : it is simply to 
 relieve the pains when they have the fever. 
 
 Q. — They are not in the habit of taking prophylatics of any kind, 
 I suppose ? 
 
 A. — Many of them have come to me saying, “ I may be sick and 
 I want something that will keep it from me.” They want something to 
 keep them from sickness. 
 
 Q. — What are your views about the prohibition of opium ? 
 
( 58 ) 
 
 A. — I tliink it woiild be very desirable to prevent its being consumed 
 except for medicinal purposes. 
 
 Q. — You think prohibition should apply to all classes ? 
 
 A. — I tliink so certainly. It would prevent others from acquiring 
 the habit. Perhaps an exception might be made with the habitual 
 opium-smokers. Of course it would be a great hardship to those who 
 are thoroughly accustomed to it to break it off suddenly ; still, I believe in 
 most cases it would be a benefit. I have seen cases in jails and hospitals ; 
 there is no question that they suffer and that the craving is very great, 
 but I have never known any bad results come from breaking it off suddenly 
 when they liad proper care and treatment. 
 
 Q. — Is it not difficult to draw the line between medical use and the 
 use for mere pleasure and comfort ? 
 
 A. — I think it would be safe to leave that to the physicians. 
 
 Q. — Your exception would be when a man gets a medical prescrip- 
 tion ? 
 
 A. — I think that would be very safe. 
 
 Q. — Is that what you mean — is that how you would draw the line ? 
 
 A. — Yes, I think so. A man should have a prescription or it 
 could be done as it is in America, and, as I understand, it is in England ; 
 only those who are apothecaries should sell the drug ? 
 
 Q. — I do not know what the rules are in America, but in England 
 there is nothing to prevent a druggist or an apothecary from selling to 
 anybody who asks for the drug ? 
 
 A . — I thought there was. 
 
 Q. — Do you know what the rule is in America ? 
 
 A. — Druggists are not supposed to dispense it except in the case of 
 a physician’s prescription. Take for instance, the tincture Opii. They 
 give small quantities, or paregoric. The law prohibits it ; yet they do 
 dispense it. 
 
 Q. — I liave lieard that opium- eating is very common in some parts 
 of the Southern States of America ? 
 
 A. — I have never lived in the Southern States ; but I know in our 
 large cities the use of morphia is increasing and also the smoking of 
 opium. 
 
 Q. — Is that among Native-born Americans ? 
 
 A. — Yes. 
 
( 5^9 ) 
 
 Q,- — There are no "druggists or apothecaries in this country, except 
 perhaps in towns like Mandalay, are there ? 
 
 A. — As far as I know, there are no shops of that kind. Almost 
 always the medicines are dispensed through the hospital, through tha 
 Civil Surgeon. 
 
 Q. — Hospitals and dispensaries are only in a few places ? 
 
 A. — They are in the larger towns and larger stations. 
 
 Q. — They would hardly be able to supply the villages, would they ? 
 If a person could only get opium for medical purposes by going to a 
 town, it would not be a satisfactory arrangement : he would sometimes 
 have a very long distanee to travel ? 
 
 A. — There is .almost always some medical man, either a representa- 
 tive of Government, or someone else practising as a doctor in almost all 
 large towns. There are many Native physicians in the smaller towns — Bur- 
 man doctors. I do not know whether they would be safe parties to handle 
 a thing of that kind. They do not use it very largely in their medicines, 
 so far as I know. They do not use medicine as we do. They make up 
 their concoctions for all purposes They have teas, pills, powders, and 
 broths. They take tiger’s bones, hair, roots and herbs, and boil them 
 and stew them. You can get a pice worth which, they say, will cure 
 you of almost any disease. I have never known them to handle drugs, 
 except roots and things they get from the jungle, and these charms. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — Are the Shan States you have been 
 speaking of districts bordering on the Kachin territory ? 
 
 A. — Thibaw does. There are Kachins in the districts bordering on 
 Thibaw. In north Theinni half the population are Kachins. 
 
 Q. — I rather gathered from you that you thought that the consump- 
 tion in these Shan States, of which you have been speaking, is a thing 
 of modern growth ? 
 
 A. — Most Chinamen are opium consumers, and you will find them 
 all through the district. The opium habit is known all over the Shan 
 country. It is generally dn the country districts and villages — what we 
 call the jungle villages. 
 
 Q. — Dr. Cushing told us the other day at Rangoon that there was 
 formerly a large consumption of opium in the Shan districts bordering 
 on the Kachin territory, I suppose he was acquainted with the country 
 before you were ? 
 
 A. — Certainly : he has been here twenty or thirty years. 
 
 Q. — He said he could not speak of the condition of things recently : 
 he spoke as to former times ? 
 
( ) 
 
 A. — Even in North Theinni the Kachins raise opium on the hills 
 It is also raised in Tounghbang and Palanng. They raise opium up in 
 the hills, but round Thibaw none is raised. 
 
 By the Chainnan. — Q. — The Thibaw Sawbwa in givmg his evidence 
 before us expressed a readiness to stop the cultivation of opium ? 
 
 A. — He would be very glad (at least he has always told me so) to 
 prohibit it in his district as far as possible. 
 
 Q. — T)o you say you have seen no cultivation of opium in hi s 
 country ? 
 
 A. — I have never seen it raised about Thibaw. On the hills where the 
 Palaungs and the Kachins are, they raise opium. I do not know whether 
 any is raised in his country ; but I know there is not enough raised in 
 Thibaw to make it an object in any way. I have been almost all over 
 the Thibaw State, and I have never seen it growing ; but among the 
 Kachins in North Theinni 1 know that it is raised. I have known men 
 go from Thibaw to buy it. Most of it comes from away up towards the 
 Kunlon Railway. The people always go up there to get their opium 
 and bring it down : they do not get it in the immediate vicinity of 
 Thibaw. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray.— Q. — Have you ever heard why the Sawbwa of 
 Thibaw did not stop opium in his dominions when he expressed himself 
 anxious to stop it ? 
 
 A. — He said, “ There is a licensed shop at Maymyo just over the 
 border ; I cannot stop it.” He always told me from the first time I 
 talked to him about it, that he would be very glad to stop it if he could 
 get co-operation, but it is impossible for one man to stop it alone ; if 
 they would unite with him he would be very glad. 
 
 Q. — ‘You have told us that the use of the habit is very strong 
 amongst those people ; in fact, that even if they do give it up, they go 
 back to it again. 
 
 A. — Yes ; I have known them go back in nearly every case. 
 
 Q.— Do you really think that the stopping of the one shop in 
 Maymyo would counterbalance the strong habit which these people have 
 acquired of using opium ? 
 
 A. — I do not suppose it would, so long as they can to come Mandalay 
 to get as much as they want. 
 
 Q. — Do you think if the shop at Mandalay were closed as well as 
 the shop at Maymyo, that they would break the strong habit which you 
 have described ? 
 
( 61 ) 
 
 A. If that were done, Thibaw Sawbwa would, as far as possible, 
 
 prohibit it in his district and they could not get it. I think it would be 
 a great help. If a man has a craving for the drug, I do not suppose 
 the closing of one or two shops, or any number of shops, would break 
 his habit ; but it would make it more difficult for him to get it, and it 
 would prevent many others acquiring the habit. 
 
 Q. — Do not you think that opium grown in the other Shan States 
 would be perfectly certain to go into the Thibaw State if it were forbid- 
 den, and if they could not get any opium out of British Burma ? 
 
 A. — Not in large quantities ; I do not think it would. Now it is 
 sold in every bazar. You can buy it the same as rice or cutch or 
 betelnut. 
 
 Q. — You say you have seen it coming up from Mandalay ? 
 
 A. — You can see it almost every day. The traders come down from 
 here with prepared opium to sell. 
 
 Q. — You see it in the Shan States ; you do not mean to say you see 
 it on the way up ? 
 
 A. — I have seeji it brought to the bazars in the Shan States, China- 
 men come down and take it to the different villages a long way, — wherever 
 there is a bazar. The custom in the Shan States is to have a bazar 
 every fifth day in the large towns. The people come from all the sur- 
 rounding country to the bazar. The next day it will be in another village 
 and in another five days it will come round to the first village again. The 
 traders come from down country here. Tliey bring things they can sell, 
 they go to the bazars, and follow the bazars round in that way. The 
 people bring smoking opium to sell in the bazars. 
 
 Q. — This is what the traders themselves have told you? 
 
 A. — Yes. The Chinamen come down with their goods. I have 
 asked them where they got it from, and they said they got it from Man- 
 dalay. 
 
 By the Chairman. — Q. — It is against the rules in Mandalay to sell 
 quantities of opium ? 
 
 A. — I do not know ; I did not suppose it was against the rules, 
 I supposed they could buy as much as they wanted. 
 
 By Sir William Eoberts. — Q. — Would it be the smoking extract 
 that they took back ? 
 
 A, — Yes, not crude opium, but opium prepared in some way for 
 smoking. 
 
 Q. — Is it suggested that they had not sufficient skill in the Shan 
 States to prepare opium after the same manner: is this a superior article 
 prepared by superior skill ? 
 
( (52 ) 
 
 A. — I suppose that is the reason. I have knowu them take opium 
 and boil it in water, and they make some kind of preparation that they 
 smoke. I do not know how long it takes to cook it. I saw Chinamen 
 doing this in Thibaw. That was the time when the Sawbwa made the 
 trouble about it and forbade its being sold in the bazar, and tried to ex- 
 clude it. In a little while, however, I saw opium coming up from down 
 here. The Sawbwa said it was no use trying to forbid it. 
 
 By Mr. Mowbray. — Q. — If it be the case, as I believe it is, that the 
 most which can be legally sold in Mandalay is limited in quantity, and 
 if more than that quantity is taken into the Shan States, the failure is 
 in enforcing the law which now exists ? 
 
 A. — I cannot say about that, as I have never investigated the mat- 
 ter. 
 
 Q. — When we talk about the possibility of enforcing the general 
 law of prohibition, is it not very material to consider whether it is pos- 
 sible to enforce the modified law of prohibition which is at present in 
 force? 
 
 A. — My idea is that the modified prohibitioqp-which you have now 
 simply leaves these people a chance of getting round it. 
 
 Q. — It leaves a chance to break the law ? 
 
 A. — If it were absolutely prohibited, then it would be a contraband 
 article and it could be dealt with. Now they claim to get it in a proper 
 way, and I supposed they did. 
 
 By Sir William Roberts. — Q. — You said something about the action 
 of opium in cases of dysentery. I think you said in the case of excessive 
 opium-smoking you thought it could directly produce death ? 
 
 A. — I would diagnose tlie case as one of dysentery. Tliey have dys- 
 enteric stools and low fever. It is a chronic condition that goes on for 
 months. As a rule, these Shans and others who come to the hospital in 
 that way are frightened. They call it the opium dysentery. When they 
 get that they think nothing can save tliem. Their feet begin to swell 
 and in a short time they die. Sometimes they live one, two, or three 
 months. 
 
 Q. — Has it been your own conclusion that dysentery was really 
 produced by opium-smoking ? 
 
 A. — I have not been able to find that it came from any indiscretion 
 of diet, or anything of that sort. I think it is purely caused hy the drug, 
 because so many opium smokers are peculiarly subject to it. 
 
 Q. — You have not called attention to the matter in any medical 
 publication ? 
 
( 63 ) 
 
 A. — I have never’published it. 
 
 Q. — We have been enquiring along these lines and failed absolutely 
 to get any evidence that opium-smoking or opium-eating in themselves 
 produce any organic trouble. Since we have been in India, that is the 
 evidence we have had uniformly. The Surgeons in connection with the 
 hospitals absolutely deny any knowledge of tlie opium habit causing 
 organic disease, but they say it produces failure of appetite and loss f)f 
 flesh ? 
 
 A. — I have had numerous cases within the last two years — no less 
 than twenty-five cases of what I call opium dysentery. I cannot trace the 
 disease to anything else. 
 
 Q — You said that dysentery is very common in those regions 
 among all sorts of people : had you any marks by which you could dis- 
 tinguish those cases from ordinary dysentry? 
 
 A. — The opium dysentery is acute. 
 
 Q. — I mean ^yih|^ry among the people who took opium .’ 
 
 A. — I have had mOTy cases where a person had diarrhoea or dysen- 
 tery and had taken opium ostensibly for the disease. They said they had 
 heard that opium was good for it, and they had taken it in that way. 
 Afterwards they had become addicted to the habit. The disease would 
 only be of temporary duration. Those cases, however, which I spoke of 
 as opium dysentery, are organic cases that last for months. 
 
 Q. — Ordinary dysentery in a thing which lasts for many months? 
 
 A. — That is true, birt in the Shan States my experience with tlie 
 people is that it is an acute disease. I have veiy seldom known it 
 amongst those people run into a chronic stage. 
 
 Q. — You could not point out any special diagnostic mark by which 
 you could distinguish a case of opium dysentery from dysentery in an 
 opium-smoker ? 
 
 A. — No : the disease is almost identical, except that the disease in 
 tlm opium-smoker sometimes would be acute ; there is more pain witli it 
 and more fever, and very likely there would be nausea : whereas with 
 ordinary cases there is no nausea ; it is simply slight bloody stools oc- 
 curring frequently night and day, and the patients finally lose control 
 of the bowels, and when they get into tliat condition they consider them- 
 selves hopeless. 
 
 Q. — Have you made any post mortem examination in such cases ? 
 
 .A. — Several. 
 
 Q. — Could you distinguish the local lesions from those in ordinary 
 chronic dysentery 7 
 
( 6,4 ) 
 
 A. — No. I cannot say there would be anything different from. what 
 you would get in chr(5nic’ cases of ordinary dysentery. 
 
 Q. — Our difficulty, as doctors, is to distinguish between post hoc and 
 propter hoc : are you satisfied in your own mind that opium was a coin- 
 cident or an etiological factor ? 
 
 A. — I am inclined to believe that it is not a coincident. I am in- 
 clined to think that it was the cause of the disease. It causes more or 
 less constipation, which, I think, is the prime cause of the disease. 
 
 Q. — We have had tliis sort of evidence given us repeatedly, that 
 the opium habit carried far tends to make those who carry it to excess 
 more liable to dysentery ? 
 
 A. Yes, and opium-diarrhcea is very common among these cases. 
 
 Q. You do not think that would account for the cases which you 
 
 have seen that people being reduced to poverty and opium-smoking to 
 
 a low state of health would take dysentery more frequently than otlier 
 people? 
 
 A. That might be, but as a rule those cas^r ^leid to treatment in 
 
 the hospital ; but so far as I have seen in cases of opium-dysentery, it 
 is almost useless to try any treatment. 
 
 Q_ I suppose those are far-advanced cases ? 
 
 A. — Yes, as a rule. 
 
 Q Did I understand you to say that you do not admit opium 
 
 smokers to Church fellowship ? 
 
 A. We do not admit them. One man was dismissed from our 
 
 Church. The only case of discipline wb had last year was that of a man 
 who became an opium smoker since T baptised him in Thibaw. 
 
 Q_ Do you adopt the same rule with regard to drinkers of alcohol ? 
 
 A. In our Church covenant those are two points made. 
 
 Q Your duty would be the same with regard to alcohol as with a 
 
 opituu ? • 
 
 A. It would, with i-eference to these Natives in connection with 
 
 Church fellowship. 
 
 Q_ Of course you do not regard tobacco in the same light ? 
 
 A. — No. 
 
 Q, Is hhang looked upon in the same light ? 
 
 A. It is not used in the Shan States generally. I have never come 
 
 across it in my practice. I have never known a Shan to use it at all. 
 
 Printed by 
 
 Joseph CtTLSHAvr. Manager, Methodist Publishing House, Calcutta. 
 
^ppi^ENT TO “ The Friend of China”] 
 
 [May, M 895. 
 
 £OYAL COMMISSION 
 ON OPIUM. 
 
 Minute of Dissent 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 MR. HENRY J. WILSON, M.P. 
 
 " mxtb his Motes, . 
 
 MEMORANDUM ON THE ATTITUDE OF THE 
 AUTHORITIES IN INDIA, 
 
 AND 
 
 PROTEST AGAINST TREATMENT OF NATIVE COMMISSIONERS, &c. 
 
 poctrait anO Hable of Contents. 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR 
 
 THE SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPS^ESSION OF THE OPIUM TRADE, 
 Finsbury House, Blomfield Street, London, E.C,, 
 
 BY 
 
 P. S. KING & SON, PARLIAMENTARY BOOKSELLERS, 
 King Street, Westminster, S.AV 
 
 PRICB ONE PENNY. 
 
CONTENTS OF SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 I.— Minute of Dissent by H. J. Wilson, M.P. page 
 
 Paras. 1, 2. Introductory 1 
 
 ,, 3, 4. Classification of Witnesses 1 
 
 Para. 5. Change in Official Statements as to Opium 1 
 
 Paras. 6 to 10. Production of Opium 2 
 
 „ 11, 12. Compensation on Termination of Poppy Cultivation 5 
 
 Para. 13. Conflicting Policies ... 6 
 
 Paras. 14 -to 19. Export to China, &;c., the principal purpose for which Opium 
 
 is produced in British India 7 
 
 „ 20, 21. Modes of Use and Prevalence of Habit in British India ... 9 
 
 Para. 22. Use by the Troops 10 
 
 ,, 23. No Analogy between Alcohol in England and Opium in India ... 10 
 
 Paras. 24 to 30. Purposes for which Opium is consumed 11 
 
 Para. 31. Smoking Opium 12 
 
 „ 32. Physical Effects of the Habitual Use of Opium 13 
 
 ‘ „ 33. Moral „ „ 14 
 
 ., 34. Social ,. ,, ,, 14 
 
 ,, 35. Counteracting Effect of Kich Food — Excessive Use admittedly 
 
 injurious — Tendency to increase the dose 14 
 
 ,, 36. Comparative Effects on Europeans and Indians 15 
 
 ,. 37. Indian Missionary Opinion 15 
 
 „ 38. Kecommendation as to Restriction of General Use in India 16 
 
 Paras. 39, 40. Recommendation as to Prohibition of Opium-smoking 17 
 
 Para. 41. Burma ; Reforms reluctantly yielded by Indian Government ; 
 
 Recommendation as to E.xtension 18 
 
 „ 42. Malwa Opium : where Produced and how Taxed 19 
 
 Paras. 43 to 47. The Native States ; Nature and Object of Existing Arrange- 
 ments ; Practicability of Stopping Export ; Absurd Character of 
 
 Claims for Compensation 19 
 
 Para. 48. Conclusions ; Answers to Questions referred to Commission ... 21 
 
 „ 49. Reflection on Nature of Majority Report 23 
 
 ,’ 50. Reply to Observation by Majority 23 
 
 II.— Appendix —Notes to Mr. Wilson’s Dissent. 
 
 Note A. Resolution of House of Commons giving rise to Commission ... 24 
 
 „ B. Official Opinion of Opium 24 
 
 C. Short Description of Poppy Growth as Aff ecting Individual Ryot ... 25 
 
 „ D. Extract from Correspondence on Administration of Opium Depart- 
 ment, showing Diminished Popularity of Poppy Growth 26 
 
 „ E. On Difficulty of Maintaining Poppy Cultivation 26 
 
 ,, F. Official Inquiries on Complaints of Compulsion to Cultivate Poppy 26 
 
 „ G. Case of Potatoes Uprooted at Barni, near Patna 28 
 
 „ H. Condemnation of Opium by English Officials resident in China and 
 
 Java 29 
 
 „ .J. Chinese Official Condemnation of Opium 29 
 
 „ K. Condemnation of Opium by Missionaries in China .80 
 
 „ L. Quotations and References as to alleged Extensive Use of Opium 
 
 and Political Danger from Interference 30 
 
 „ M. Average of Opium takon by Adult Male Consumers 31 
 
 „ N. Table showing Consumption of Opium by Provinces 32 
 
 „ 0. Table showing extremes of Large and Small Consumption in selected 
 
 localities .' 33 
 
 ,, P. Licentious Purpose for which Opium is consumed 34 
 
 Q. Quotations and References as to Physical Effects of Opium 34 
 
 „ R. „ „ Moral „ 35 
 
 ,, S. ,, ,, Social „ 36 
 
 „ T. Pro-Opiumists’ Evidence as to Effects of Excessive Use 36 
 
 „ U. Difficulty of Discontinuance of Habit 37 
 
 „ V. Comparative Effects on Natives of Europe and India 37 
 
 „ V.V. Quotations and References as to Prohibition, except for medical use 38 
 
 „ W. Further Evidence as to Opium-Smoking 39 
 
 „ X. Opium Revenue 40 
 
 Y. Medical Evidence against new I'heory that Opium is Prophylactic 
 
 against Fever 40 
 
 Z. Letter showing that Majority did not desire Mr. Wilson’s suggestions 
 
 on Draft Report ... 40 
 
 III. — Memorandum by Mr. Wilson on the Attitude of the 
 
 Authorities in India 41 
 
 IV. — Further Protest by Mr. Wilson 46 
 
MR. HENRY J. WILSON, M.P. 
 
ROYAL COMMISSION ON OPIUM. 
 
 Minute of Dissent, by Mr. Henry J. Wilson, M.P. 
 
 1. As I am unable to concur in the report prepared by my 
 colleagues, it is necessary that I should submit a statement of my 
 own views upon the principal subjects of the inquiry. I desire to 
 do so as briefly as possible. 
 
 2. The resolution of the House of Commons in pursuance of Note a. 
 which the Commission was appointed was proposed by Mr. 
 Gladstone, and carried by 184 to 105. The minority, consisting 
 mainly of those who may be described, for brevity’s sake, as the 
 Anti-opium Party, desired the appointment of a Commission for a 
 
 very different and more useful purpose than that which was finally 
 recommended by the resolution of the House. 
 
 3. The 722 witnesses who appeared before us may be roughly 
 divided into three classes, 19 1 who disapprove of the general use 
 of opium, or are opposed for various reasons to the present opium 
 system, or anti-opiumists ; 487 more or less approving that system, 
 or pro-opiumists ; and 44 neutral or unclassified, including those 
 who appeared purely for statistical or other evidence of a restricted 
 character. 
 
 4. The anti-opiumist witnesses who were Natives of India were, 
 generally speaking, not equal to the pro-opiumists in wealth and 
 social position, but were not on that account less able to repre- 
 sent the habits and opinions of the great mass of their fellow- 
 countrymen. This class includes a majority of the native journal- 
 ists, lawyers, teachers, and professors. Of qualified non-official 
 native medical practitioners, a considerable majority were either 
 anti-opiumists or somewhat undecided in their views. An 
 enormous majority of the medical and other Christian missionaries 
 who appeared before the Commission also gave anti-opium evidence. 
 
 The pro-opiumists, on the other hand, represented the great 
 majority of the official classes, both European and Native, includ- 
 ing military medical officers, together with many titled personages, 
 landowners, and persons who considered that their financial 
 interests were at stake. 
 
 5. A change appears to have come over official statements in 
 reference to opium within the last few years. These were, until 
 very recently, almost invariably condemnatory of the drug. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 B- Illustrations of this are given in the Notes, and it will suffice to 
 
 make here one quotation only. On the 24th October, 1817, the 
 Directors of the East India Company, writing to the Governor- 
 General, referred to their desire “ to restrain the use of this 
 pernicious drug,” and went on to say, “ were it possible to 
 “ prevent the use of the drug altogether, except strictly for the 
 “ purpose of medicine, we would gladly do it in compassion to 
 mankind.” 
 
 It will be seen from the evidence, some of which is hereafter 
 referred to, that a very considerable body of officials now adopt a 
 decidedly altered tone. No definite cause has been assigned for 
 this change, but it is impossible to dissociate it from the financial 
 difficulties of India, and from the pressure of the anti-opium 
 movement in England having been increasingly associated with 
 the discussion on the reduction of Indian expenditure. 
 
 Production of Opium. 
 
 6. The production of opium in British India is not specially 
 mentioned in the reference to the Commission, but it seems 
 desirable to make some allusion to it. 
 
 So far as British India is concerned, the interest may be said to 
 be almost confined to what is commonly known as the “ Bengal 
 Monopoly System,” * under which the cultivation of poppy is 
 (for the convenience of surveillance) concentrated in two areas, 
 known as the Behar Agency, with its head-quarters and factory at 
 Patna, and the Benares Agency, with its head-quarters and factory 
 at Ghazipur. The cultivation is by Act XIII. of 1857 restricted 
 to cultivators who have received license to grow poppy. 
 
 Voi. IT, p. 325. On the average of the last three years (1890-1 to 1892-3), as to 
 
 which returns were supplied, 243,605 acres of poppy were grown 
 in the Behar Agency, and 229,574 acres in the Benares Agency, 
 making together 473,179 acres. 
 
 Taking the average of the same three years, the licensed 
 cultivators, numbering 1,247,941, delivered to the officials 78,944 
 maunds of opium, or about 57,995 cwts., for which they received 
 Rs. 15,774,607, say, ;^854,457,t including certain advances made 
 before sowing or delivery. 
 
 From these figures it will be found that the average cultivator 
 delivered about 5*20 lbs. and received Rs. 12 '64, say 13s. 8^d.t 
 5234-s, 10,807-8, 12,226, It is claimed that the cultivator is greatly benefited by getting 
 i2,(,63, 13,679, 19,535. advance “ without interest,” but this advance is under 6s. and 
 
 * The “ Bengal Monopoly System ” provides 98 per cent, of the opium 
 produced in British India. The remaining 2 per cent, is produced in the 
 Punjab and Ajmere-Merwara. As to opium produced in the Native States, 
 see pars. 42 - 47 . 
 
 t Here and elsewhere the value of the rupee has been taken at Is. Id. 
 English. 
 
3 
 
 for only part of the year, so that at 5 per cent, per annum the 
 interest would amount to less than 2^d, per cultivator. 
 
 See Note C. 
 
 7. It is said that there was a time when the poppy was a 
 generally remunerative, and, therefore, popular crop. But it is 
 certain from the correspondence which took place in 1881 
 between the Secretary of State and the Government of India, 
 that it was not then by any means universally popular. 
 
 In 1883 a Commission was appointed to inquire into the 
 administration of the Opium Department, and from official cor- 
 respondence .which arose out of the report of that Commission it 
 is perfectly clear that in some districts many of the ryots were 
 reluctant to undertake the cultivation of the poppy. 
 
 The Commission of 1883 made numerous recommendations for 
 improving the position of the poppy cultivator, but most of their 
 recommendations have been neglected by the authorities. 
 
 There is still difficulty in obtaining the quantity of ground 
 desired by the Government, and methods, which in India are 
 called “ persuasion ” and in England compulsion, have to be 
 * resorted to. 
 
 The evidence showed that this compulsion is greater in the 
 Behar than in the Benares Agency ; it is natural, also, that it 
 should be greater in the places where the poppy is least productive. 
 
 It is the duty of the zilladars, the lower officials of the Opium 
 Department, who are distributed all over the opium districts, to 
 induce the people to apply for licenses and advances and to bring 
 them to the weighment places. 'Mr. Gregory called this “ coolie 
 driving ” (a), and although he afterwards said it meant only to 
 collect them (d), I fail to reconcile this kind of driving or collect- 
 ing with anxiety on the part of the people to obtain the alleged' 
 privilege of cultivating (c). 
 
 The most conclusive evidence on this subject is furnished by 
 what has happened since the Commission left India. The Indian 
 Revenue Department’s Resolution No. 2208, 20th April, 1894, 
 comments on the decrease in the area of cultivation, giving among 
 other reasons the competition of other crops, and states “ that the 
 “ price of opium paid to cultivators will have to be increased in 
 “ order to keep pace with the rise of prices of other produce.” In 
 accordance with this, the price paid to the cultivators has been 
 raised 20 per cent., viz., from Rs. 5 to Rs. 6 per seer. This pro- 
 ceeding in the present condition of Indian finance is in curious 
 and suggestive contrast with the official evidence presented to the 
 Commission as to the profitable, and therefore popular, character 
 of poppy cultivation. 
 
 8. The official witnesses denied that compulsion was practised (,^). 
 Mr. Forbes, who holds the important position of Commissioner of 
 Patna, staled (d) “ as far as I know the cultivators grow it entirely 
 
 Note C. 
 
 Return, C. 3378. “Opium 
 negotiations with China," 
 1882. Vol. IL, 5300 10 
 
 5304- 
 
 Vol. V., App, I. 
 Note D. 
 
 13.521 to 13,534. 
 
 2767, 6282, 10909, 13 397, 
 11,362-3, 19,093. 
 
 Note E. 
 
 ( a ) 13,457. 
 
 (i) 13.579. 
 
 (c) 2927, 3249, 19,343 4, 
 19.535-7. 10,795-6, 
 14,942, 19,126. 
 
 (i) 2920, 19,131, 19,537. 
 ( d ) 10,829. 
 
4 
 
 (f) 12,079, 5399- 
 
 (/) 12,156. 
 
 (g) 12,079. 
 
 Note F. 
 
 Report, 1883, par. 638. 
 
 (c) 10 851, r2,336, I2,t49. 
 
 (rO 12,325. 
 
 ft’) to, 899, 10,901. 
 
 (/) I '.355-89. 12.396-454, 
 
 20,444.* 
 
 of their own free will.” He also said that the charge of compul- 
 sion had taken the officials by surprise (e). “ The charge, in my 
 
 “ opinion, arises entirely from the ignorance of the gentlemen, who, 
 “ no doubt in good faith have conceived an entirely mistaken 
 “idea of the relations between ourselves and the inhabitants 
 “ generally of the country ” (/). 
 
 Yet at the same time he informed the Commission that, in 
 consequence of a rumour from Calcutta only a week before, he 
 had been making special inquiries into the allegations, and that in 
 that short time he had heard of three cases, as to which he under- 
 took to make further and strict inquiry (^). 
 
 It appears from Lord Brassey’s remark (Q. 12,081) that Mr. 
 Forbes had already spoken to him on the subject, and it was dis- 
 missed at the time by Lord Brassey’s statement to Mr. Forbes : — 
 
 “You have assured me that you will not allow the matter to be 
 neglected, and that if there is anything wrong the man shall be 
 punished.” 
 
 The result of these inquiries has been communicated by Mr. 
 Forbes since our return to England, and will be found in Appendix 
 XXXII., Vol. V., a perusal of which, and of Note F., will show 
 that a zilladar, or inferior officer of the Opium Department, was 
 seriously implicated in one case, that Mr. Christian, sub-deputy 
 opium agent of Shahabad, was compromised in two cases, and 
 Mr. Skrine, who holds the important office of Collector of 
 Bhagalpur, was guilty of direct interference and pressure for the 
 purpose of promoting opium cultivation. 
 
 There is no evidence that any official has been subjected to any 
 censure or discipline. 
 
 9. Exactions of every kind are practised by the zilladars and 
 other subordinate officials on the ryots. The Commission of 
 1883 reported, “Every seer of opium which a cultivator delivers 
 “ pays toll to the amlah (subordinate official), and from every 
 “ rupee which a cultivator receives a per-centage is deducted for 
 “ their benefit.” It was admitted by official witnesses that illegal 
 exactions have continued (<:), that little attempt is made to 
 detect them (d), and it is too plain from Mr. Wace’s cautious 
 answers, that even some European officials (e) are not altogether 
 free from suspicion. 
 
 10. Cases were reported to us {/) showing that the officials of 
 the Opium Department, not content with the severe law providing 
 ample punishment for offences, take upon themselves to summarily 
 destroy the crops of cultivators who have, or who are supposed to 
 have, neglected to grow the full quantity of poppy for which they 
 have taken advances. One very interesting and suggestive case 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 * The petition, which is not printed, alleges that part of a wheat-field was 
 unsowed ” by officials of the Opium Department. 
 
s 
 
 of this kind, of which full particulars are given in the Notes, was 
 proved beyond all doubt, and no attempt was made to disprove 
 the others. 
 
 Resolution of Revenue Department, No. 2208, of 20th April, 
 1894, states that in nearly 70 per cent, of the cases of alleged 
 infraction of the opium laws in the Aliganj Sub-Division in the 
 year 1892-3, “departmental punishment was inflicted on the 
 ^‘offenders, who were all opium cultivators, instead of sending 
 them up to the criminal court.” If this means that cultivators 
 have been summarily punished as in one of the cases above 
 referred to, it is much to be regretted that the Government of 
 Bengal should, since the Commission left India, have expressed 
 its approval of “ the course adopted in the Aliganj Sub-Agency of 
 ^‘punishing opium cultivators departmentally.” 
 
 Compensation on Termination of Poppy Cultivation. 
 
 11. Some of the Government witnesses (a) as well as persons 
 financially interested (^) suggested that if the Bengal monopoly 
 system should be terminated, compensation ought to be paid to 
 the zemindars and ryots. It has become common to speak of 
 ^‘prohibition” in connexion with this matter, but it must be 
 remembered that prohibition has already been enacted by the 
 Opium Acts of 1857 and 1878 (>:), and cultivation is punishable 
 except in the case of persons duly provided with annual licenses 
 under stringent conditions. 
 
 Cultivation has been terminated through the greater part of 
 British India by general prohibitory enactment. It has also been 
 terminated frequently and extensively simply by the non-issue of 
 licenses. This course has sometimes been adopted, wholesale, in 
 a given locality for the purpose of “ facilitating excise ” (<:), or, 
 because it is “ unremunerative to the Department ” (^f). This 
 termination by the non-issue of licenses has also been continually 
 practised when the accumulation of reserve stock, the falling off of 
 the export trade, or other reasons, rendered such a course 
 desirable in the interests of Government (e). 
 
 In none of these different cases has any compensation whatever 
 been made by Government either to the zemindars or to the 
 ryots (/). 
 
 12. It was also contended by some witnesses that termination of 
 poppy cultivation must needs be accompanied by reduction both 
 of land revenue (^) and of rents payable by the ryots (A). But 
 repeated questions failed to elicit evidence of a single case of 
 reduction of rent, (j) and only one instance was laid before us (so 
 far as I know) in which a reduction of land revenue (A) was said 
 to be consequent on termination of poppy cultivation. In this 
 solitary case the reduction was not made till after the lapse of 
 
 Note G. 
 
 ( a ) 2080, 5254, 14.398. 
 
 26,832. 
 
 ( i ) 14,441, 13,943-60. 
 
 ( c ) Vol. II., pp. 527 and 
 S 3 I- 
 2943- 
 
 ( e ) 19,117, 14,932- 
 
 id ) 19,109. 
 
 ( e ) 2943 and 3019. 
 
 i /) 3020, 2122, 13,754. 
 19,153, 14,938, 5775 - 
 
 ( g ) 13,694, 17,369. 
 
 (*) 5333, 10,821, 6095. 
 
 ( j ) 5306-9, 6130, 5569, 
 
 6172, 8514-5, 14.371- 
 ii ) Vol. IV., p. 5 1 2, par. 12. 
 
6 
 
 • 2086. Hansard, Vol. 
 P- 343- 
 
 2o88. Hansard, Vol. 
 P; 323- 
 
 2086. 
 
 20; 7. 
 
 3087. 
 
 2089. 
 
 some 14 years, during which period many other causes may have 
 affected the assessment. 
 
 Conflicting Policies. 
 
 352. 13. In the opium debate in the House of Commons, on the 
 
 loth April, 1891, the late Mr. W. H. Smith, the then Leader of 
 the House, stated, “ The course which this Government has 
 “ taken, and which all Governments have taken during the last 
 “ few years . . . has been to diminish the area of cultivation 
 “in India”; and Sir James Fergusson, speaking on behalf of the 
 352. India Office, said : “ I freely admit that the Government of India 
 “ have never denied that it would be very desirable that this 
 “ source of revenue should be altered. They have taken means 
 “ to reduce it. They have diminished the number of licenses^ 
 “ and they diminished the area on which the poppy was grown. 
 “ One million acres * less are now under poppy in Bengal than 10 
 “ years ago.” 
 
 Sir David Barbour, Finance Member of the Governor-General’s 
 Council, having had his attention called to these utterances, said 
 in reference to Mr. Smith’s statements : “ I should hardly say that 
 “ he is speaking there of the policy of the Government of India. 
 “ I should say he was speaking of the policy of the Home 
 “ Government, and, I must say, I was not aware until that state- 
 “ ment was made that it was the policy of the Home Government.’^ 
 He also said : “ As regards the export of opium from Bengal, the 
 “ policy has been for some time to sell about the same amount 
 “ every year, neither diminishing that amount nor increasing it. 
 “This means, of course, that the average area under cultivation 
 “ would remain about the same, rising or falling a little according 
 “ to circumstances.” In reply to other questions, he said : “ It is 
 “ not to be wondered at that members of the Government at 
 “ home should not be perfectly informed of the facts. ... I 
 “ believe that on various occasions inaccurate impressions have 
 “ been conveyed to ” the House of Commons. 
 
 From this it will be seen that the important statements made 
 by Ministers in the debate in question were entirely -erroneous as 
 to the policy really being pursued. They were also erroneous as 
 to the actual facts. The average area under cultivation for the 
 decade ending 1862-3 was 338,153 acres; 1872-3, 475,048 acres ; 
 1882-3, 518,625 acres; and for 1892-3, 512,663 acres. 
 
 The resolution proposed by Mr. Gladstone and adopted by the 
 House of Commons on the 30th June, 1893, was based upon the 
 same kind of erroneous information, because it pressed “ on the 
 “ Government of India to continue their policy of greatly diminish- 
 
 * Hansard gives “ one million acres,” which, is evidently a mistake. Other 
 reports give lOU.OOO. 
 
7 
 
 “ ing the cultivation of the poppy, and the production and sale of 
 “ opium.” Two different Ministries, and two different Parliaments, 
 were entirely misled as to the action of the Government of India. 
 
 The principal Purpose for -which Opium is produced 
 IN British India. 
 
 14. The main purpose of the production and sale of opium in 
 British India unquestionably is to supply the Chinese and other 
 Eastern markets. 
 
 The average production of opium in British India during the 
 last three years as to which returns were supplied was 54,707 cwts., 
 of which 49,512 cwts., or 90*5 per cent, was “ intended for export 
 “ to China and the Straits Settlements, technically known as 
 '‘’■provision opium ” ; the remainder “ intended for consumption in 
 “ India, technically known as opium,” was 5,195 cwts., or 
 9'5 per cent Of that which is exported to the Straits Settlements, 
 a large proportion is re-shipped to China. Practically the whole 
 of the Government opium thus sent to China and other Eastern 
 countries is used for the purpose of smoking. That this practice 
 of smoking is in the highest degree prejudicial, morally and 
 physically, to those who indulge in it is established beyond all 
 reasonable doubt. 
 
 15. English officials resident in China and the far East have for 
 the last 100 years continuously referred to opium smoking as a 
 cause of moral and physical destruction. (See Note H.) 
 
 The Chinese Government and Chinese officials have used 
 similar, or even stronger language. (See Note J.) 
 
 From the time when the earliest Christian missionaries became 
 acquainted with the habits of the Chinese, down to the present 
 year, they have persistently borne testimony to the same deplorable 
 facts. (See Note K.) 
 
 The oral (a) and written (<5) evidence presented to the Com- 
 mission is overwhelming in its force against the opium habit in 
 China. Sir Thomas Wade (e) who said that “ the treatment of 
 “ the question by the Anti-opium Association engages me on the 
 “ other side ” said also at the same time “ no man who has lived 
 “ the time that I have in China, and who has been in contact with 
 “ Chinese of all kinds, can deny that the excessive use of opium 
 “ in that country is an exceeding misfortune to that country.” 
 Such extenuating evidence as reached us is mainly negative in its 
 character, and vague in its terms. The evidence of medical 
 missionaries (Dr. Maxwell, Rev. Hudson Taylor, M.R.C.S., and 
 others), after years of daily contact with the people, was not only 
 definite and specific, but is in the main confirmed by the written 
 opinions of other medical men received by the Commission. The 
 majority of the English officials in China who sent answers to the 
 questions agree in this condemnation. One of the questions sent 
 
 'S'-oLIL, p. 345, pars. 6-7. 
 
 Note H. 
 
 Note J. 
 
 Note K. 
 
 ( a ) 165,214,287,380,430, 
 450, 49S, 549, 609, 639, 
 673, 75 '- 790. 82s, 1509. 
 1638, 1863, 1961. 
 
 (i) -Vol. V., pp. 212-343. 
 (4 1285. 
 
 214, 380. 
 
8 
 
 was whether, if the Indian opium supply was stopped, the people 
 would take to alcohol. The replies, in the proportion of about 
 40 to 6, are that it would not have this effect. 
 
 It would occupy too much space to refer at length to the 
 consular, missionary, and other evidence from China, which will 
 be found in Vol. V., App. XXVI., but it is abundantly manifest 
 that opium in China is a gigantic national evil. 
 
 16. It is, therefore, impossible to avoid the conclusion that it 
 is altogether unworthy for a great dependency of the British 
 Empire to be thus engaged in a traffic which produces such wide- 
 spread misery and disaster. It is known that the cultivation of 
 opium is now largely carried on in China, with the connivance, if 
 not the express permission of the authorities, and without throw- 
 ing any doubt on the sincerity of the desire of Chinese statesmen 
 to rid their country of the blight of opium, it is impossible to say, 
 especially in the present condition of the Chinese Empire, whether 
 the cessation of importation of Indian opium would be accom- 
 panied or followed by any serious attempt on the part of the 
 Chinese Government to exclude opium from other sources, and 
 to prohibit its cultivation within the limits of their own empire. 
 But however that may be, a traffic which is contrary to the princi- 
 
 *2 ”• pies of humanity cannot be justified on the ground that, if we do 
 
 not engage in it, it will fall into the hands of others who have no 
 such scruples. 
 
 17. The effects of the consumption of opium in the Straits 
 Settlements and other places in the east are substantially the same 
 as already described in the case of China. A similar objection, 
 therefore, exists to its production and sale for these other localities 
 and nationalities. 
 
 18. The result of careful consideration of this part of the 
 subject is that in my opinion the opium trade with China and the 
 far East should be prohibited. 
 
 19. Sir James Fergusson, speaking as Under Secretary for 
 Foreign Affairs on behalf of the Government, declared on the 
 loth April, 1891, in the House of Commons, that — 
 
 Hansard, Vol. 352, p. 316. “ The Chinese at any time may terminate the treaty on giving 
 
 “12 months’ notice, and to protect themselves they may increase 
 “ the duty to any extent they please, or they may exclude it 
 “ altogether. This, I think I may say, that if the Chinese 
 “ Government thought proper to raise the duty to a prohibitive 
 “ extent, or shut out the article altogether, this country would not 
 “ expend one pound in powder and shot or lose the life of a 
 “ soldier in an attempt to force opium upon the Chinese.” 
 
 Vol. I., App, IV. Exception was taken to the accuracy of the first part of this 
 
 statement by some of the witnesses opposed to the trade. A 
 memorandum from the Foreign Office shows that Sir James 
 Fergusson was mistaken in saying that China could free herself 
 
9 
 
 from all treaty obligations in the matter by giving 12 months’ 
 ■notice. The remainder of Sir James Fergusson’s statement is 
 sufficiently explicit as regards the policy of Her Majesty’s 
 Ministers at the time, but it is very important that the British 
 Government should make a definite declaration in that sense to 
 the Chinese Government. 
 
 The Consumption of Opium in British India, 
 
 20. Opium is consumed in three ways (a) : — I. By eating (d) 
 in the form of small portions, or pills ; II. By drinking decoctions 
 of the crude drug, known as kasumba (c) and anial pant ; or an 
 infusion of poppy heads, or capsules, called post (d) ■ III. By 
 smoking preparations of opium, known as chandu (e) (the Chinese 
 form) and madat, or madak (/), or gooli {g). The first method 
 {eating, or more correctly, swallowing) is that by which far the 
 greatest quantity of opium is consumed. 
 
 The evidence laid before us as to the prevalence of the opium 
 habit was very contradictory. Many witnesses, including some of 
 the most important officials, gave evidence which tended to show 
 that the habitual use of opium is widely prevalent amongst the 
 various populations. This view was urged upon us by repeated 
 statements that the consumption is so necessary to the happiness, 
 well being, and even life of the people that it would be impossible 
 to contemplate prohibition, or even any, serious increase of restric- 
 tion of the supply, because the result would not improbably be 
 such general discontent as would amount to serious political danger. 
 (^See Note L.) 
 
 Evidence of a directly contradictory character was given by 
 many other witnesses, including a considerable proportion of 
 natives of India, who may reasonably be supposed to be better 
 acquainted with the habits of their relations, friends, and neigh- 
 bours than officials, and especially highly placed officials, can 
 possibly be. In order to arrive at some conclusion upon this con- 
 flicting testimony, it will be convenient to form some opinion as to 
 what may be considered an average consumer’s daily dose, and 
 then to examine the actual statistics of consumption. 
 
 21. The particulars given in the Notes show that the average 
 quantity taken daily by each adult male consumer is about 20 
 grains. Taking this in conjunction with the evidence of many 
 Government witnesses as to the very wide prevalence of the habit, 
 the impression conveyed to the mind must be that there is a con- 
 sumption far in excess of anything that is shown by the actual 
 statistics. 
 
 An examination of the statistics for each province shows that in 
 Assam, where the consumption is largest, the quantity of opium 
 issued is only sufficient to supply 20 grains daily to one person out 
 of 52 of the entire population, while in the province of Madras, at 
 
 (a) 26040,21.116,25,903. 
 ib ) 26,060, 20,323. 
 
 ( d ) 26,040, 26,802. 
 id ) 20,212,20,323. 
 
 W 13,480-4,26,040,27,389. 
 (/) 26,060. 
 
 (g) 4512. 
 
 Note L. 
 
 Note M. 
 
 Note N. 
 
Note O. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 127. 
 20,323. 
 
 Ca) 872, 1559. 
 
 ( 4 ) 14,110-2. 
 
 (c) 14,117, 18,641. 
 
 (d) 18,688, 17,017. 
 
 (e) 18,704, I 4 ,i 47 > 
 
 19.893. 17.059. 
 
 7,108, 17,017. 
 
 (/) 14,163. 
 
 (g) Vol. II,, p. 453, 
 
 10 
 
 the other end of the scale, the supply is only sufficient for one 
 person out of 521 of the population. 
 
 But greatly as the provinces differ from each other, various 
 localities in these provinces differ still more widely, for while in 
 Calcutta the consumption is equal to 20 grains daily for one person 
 out of 26, in Tippera it will only provide the same quantity for 
 one person out of 8,588. 1 
 
 It is clear from the Notes above referred to, and from the 
 evidence on which they are founded, that the popular ideas which 
 seem to prevail among Europeans in India are entirely irre- 
 concilable with the actual facts. j 
 
 Even if it could be shown that the average consumption of ( 
 individuals is less than 20 grains, the argument is not materially 
 affected. Moreover in these calculations no allowance is made for 
 legitimate medical use, nor for the practice which is said to prevail 
 of giving opium to animals. 
 
 Use of Opium by the Troops. 
 
 22. A general impression has prevailed, and important 
 witnesses (a) gave evidence as to the general use of opium by 
 the native troops, and especially by the Sikhs. The evidence 
 taken in India shows this to be a delusion. Major-General Sir ^ 
 Robert Low, K.C.B., in command of the Oudh District, stated (^} 
 
 that the highest number of opium-eaters reported in any one regi- 
 ment under his command was 20; in the Ghoorka regiment only 
 two consumers ; and in another, none. Evidence was given by 
 other military witnesses as to the consumption of Opium by Sikhs 
 in 12 corps. As to two of these (r) it was stated that opium was 
 consumed by all. In two cases (d) the proportion appears to 
 16943’ average about 33 per cent. In eight cases (e) the proportion 
 varied from i'3 per cent, to 6’5 per cent, or an average of 3'i per 
 cent. Colonel Jamieson, although a decided pro-opiumist, 
 admitted (/) that the Rajputs in his regiment, as a rule, do not 
 take opium. Official information (^) shows that while 23 
 regiments, including two Sikh regiments, made no arrangements 
 for the supply of opium while on service, 3 lbs. were taken by the ^ 
 23rd Bengal Infantry as sufficient for two years, and small 
 quantities taken by the 32nd Bengal Infantry and the 3rd Sikh 
 Infantry were brought back untouched. 
 
 No Analogy between Alcohol in England and Opium 
 
 IN India. 
 
 23. In whatever way the statistics are looked at, they show that 
 there are in India vast tracts where a mere fraction of the 
 population are consumers of opium. In England, on the other 
 hand, the great majority of the people are more or less consumers 
 of alcohol. Any attempt therefore to treat the case as analogous 
 
is entirely fallacious ; in the one case we have a nation of 
 consumers, in the other a nation of abstainers 
 
 Purposes for which Opium is consumed. 
 
 24. It may be plainly stated at the outset that there is a general 
 consensus of native opinion {a) in almost all parts of India against 
 the habitual use of opium by the healthy and able-bodied. 
 
 25. The importance of opium, as a remedy in certain diseases, 
 has never been disputed. It is daily used in many parts of India, 
 not only for specific ailments, for which it would be prescribed by 
 European practitioners, but in many other cases, with the object 
 of relieving pain, although it may have no permanent effect on the 
 cause of the pain. The theory was advanced by some witnesses 
 (J?) that the habitual use of opium for non-medical purposes must 
 have originated in the case of each consumer for the purpose of 
 repressing some positive ailment, or to avoid disease which climatic 
 or other conditions render probable. In accordance with this 
 theory evidence was given before us {c) as to the belief of the 
 natives, in many malarious districts, that opium is a prophylactic 
 against fever, and that such belief was shared by many Europeans, 
 (d) principally military medical officers. On the other hand, this 
 view was strongly controverted by other witnesses, (e) including 
 medical practitioners, both European and Native, who disputed 
 the value of opium as a prophylactic against malarial fever, or as 
 a remedy in the disease, and as regards many parts of India there 
 was no such belief amongst the natives ( f). It was clearly 
 established by the evidence that the habit of consuming opium is 
 practised by a certain portion of the inhabitants in many parts of 
 India for purposes which have no relation to the actual presence 
 or even fear of disease. Many men begin the consumption of 
 opium at about the age of 40, {g) under the impression that the 
 system is stimulated and the declining bodily powers preserved by 
 its use. Under these circumstances, it does not appear to incur 
 popular disapproval. 
 
 26. There is a special and licentious purpose for which opium 
 is taken, and when it is habitually used by young and healthy men 
 it is usually for this purpose, which is universally reprobated as 
 vicious and degrading. {See Note P.) 
 
 27. Opium is in some districts frequently taken by persons 
 requiring to make special or unusual exertion {h) in enterprises 
 involving fatigue and exposure, while others entirely deny that 
 any advantage is derived from such use, {J) and on the contrary 
 maintain that the stimulation which it affords is merely temporary 
 and delusive. This idea as to the benefit of opium under such 
 conditions is similar to the belief which formerly prevailed in 
 England as to the use of alcohol in the like circumstances, but 
 
 ( a ) 13.336. 17. 513-4 18,836. 
 
 20,133, 24,937, 28,061, 
 ana many others. 
 
 (d) 13.089, 17,283. 28,107. 
 21,878, 2147, 4992. and 
 many others. 
 
 ( c ) 3657. 19,528. 25,583, 
 
 27,574. 
 
 id ') 2188, 3404, 3606, 
 21,901-2, 28,141, 9516-7. 
 
 («) 4710-5. 13, ”6. 5837. 
 
 16,558, 16,902, 19,203, 
 
 and many others. 
 
 (./) 8642,4280,9132,9852. 
 13,382-3, 18,195, and 
 many other?. 
 
 (5) 3943. 12,576, 4060, 
 
 26,061, and many others. 
 
 Note P. 
 
 { h ) 10,038, 15,762, 19,192, 
 20,990. 
 
 U ) 8596-9, 8612, 9848, 
 
 18,253, 19,029, 23,457. 
 
 and many others. 
 
12 
 
 20,982, 21,577, 23,6561 
 24,659- 
 
 (A) 23,104. 25,367, 13 994, 
 15,672, 11,808, 3502, and 
 many others. 
 
 (a) 16,266, 21,577, 23,261, 
 25,876. 
 
 (i) 16,902,21,298, 23,491a, 
 26,619, 25,894. 
 
 (/) 24,671, 25,865, 26,674. 
 
 Vol. IV., p. 498. 
 
 (m) 16,231, 20,990, 21,987, 
 (k) 22,776, 23,750, 26,429. 
 
 (a) 3510, 16,546. 
 
 (4) 16,766-7, 28,082, 18,564, 
 27,065. 
 
 (<r) 27,388, 3843, 15,698, 
 19.527, 16,012, 17,705. 
 (1/) 27,467, 20,698, 11,858, 
 21,870, 21,812. 
 
 («) Vol. II., p, 396. 
 
 5008, 15,170-72, 16,684-709, 
 26,948. 
 
 Secretary of State’s letter, 
 Vol. II., p. 396. 
 
 which the experience obtained in Arctic and other arduous enter- 
 prises has now proved to be delusive. 
 
 28. The drug is also used in some provinces and castes as a 
 mark of friendship and hospitality in connexion with family and 
 social ceremonies. 
 
 29. To infants from the time of birth until they are three or 
 four years of age opium in minute doses is habitually given in 
 many parts of India, {k) partly with the impression that it protects 
 them against disease, but chiefly in order to keep them quiet, and 
 prevent them from crying in the absence of the mothers when 
 engaged in household or field work. 
 
 This practice is defended (a) in general terms by several 
 witnesses, and strongly condemned {b) by many who are specific 
 in their enumeration of the evils which follow. The best excuses 
 offered are the poverty and the ignorance of the parents. 
 
 In Bombay there is an extensive use of Bala Gooli, (/) that is, 
 pills made of opium mixed with other drugs and spices for the use 
 of children. This is at present carried on under the sanction of 
 the authorities, which in my opinion should be withheld. 
 
 30. The practice of drinking the decoctions or infusions of 
 opium, already alluded to, is somewhat restricted. It appears to 
 be mainly confined to Rajputana and the Punjaub, and to be 
 chiefly associated with social and ceremonial observances {m). 
 There is some evidence that this use is declining {n). 
 
 Smoking Opium. 
 
 31. The smoking of chandu and madak is usually a social (a), 
 as distinguished from a personal, habit, and appears to be 
 principally confined to the cities and large towns {b). It is 
 almost universally admitted to be injurious and demoralising, is 
 practised by the vicious and degraded (c), and is generally 
 reprobated {d). 
 
 In view of the evils attending the habit, smoking on licensed 
 premises was forbidden throughout British India {e) on the 25th 
 September, 1891. 
 
 Evidence was given that smoking clubs, so-called (though 
 without any pretence of paid membership), existed before the 
 issue of this prohibition, and have multiplied since. Very little 
 effort had apparently been made to suppress them. There appears 
 to be no reason why the authorities should not have taken steps 
 to acquire any further powers which were needed for this purpose 
 as they were invited to do by the Home Government. 
 
 Three missionaries and a newspaper editor at Bombay having 
 exposed certain incidents connected with the sale of opium were 
 proceeded against for defamation by the manager of the opium 
 former in that city. At one of the trials which took place after we 
 left India, Mr. Cooper, the presiding magistrate, stated in his 
 
^3 
 
 judgment, “it is admitted that during the last Mahim fair, 
 
 “ there were five or six of these clubs opened at Mahim, 
 
 “and the statement in the article regarding the mismanage- 
 “ ment of these clubs appears to be true.” In the course of 
 these proceedings, the following remarkable evidence was given 
 by the chief opium inspector at Bombay : — “There are about 150 
 “ clubs at Bombay. ... I do not think the opium-smoking 
 “clubs at Bombay and at Mahim are undesirable. ... I 
 “ do not think the opium-smoking establishments should be shut 
 “ up, therefore we have not tried to shut them up.” It is notice- 
 able that since the imprisonment of the missionaries the opium 
 officials at Bombay have instituted proceedings against several of 
 these so-called clubs, and have obtained convictions against them. 
 
 The question of dealing with unlicensed opium-smoking clubs 26,218, 26,948. 
 in India has been compared to that of preventing illegal sales of 
 alcohol in clubs in England. There is this important difference, 
 that the question in England is how to prevent the consumption 
 in unlicensed places of beverages which are not disapproved by 
 public opinion generally. In India it is a question of stopping 
 a practice under all circumstances which incurs almost universal 
 reprobation. 
 
 Physical Effects of the Habitual Use of Opium. 
 
 32. A large body of evidence of a conflicting character was Note q. 
 given on this subject. Many medical and other witnesses stated 
 that the habitual use of opium in any form for other than medical 
 purposes is decidedly deleterious. 
 
 Other witnesses, including a majority of the official doctors, 
 deny that there are any evil consequences from opium-eating in 
 moderation, some maintaining that it produces no evil effects and 
 others alleging that it is actually beneficial. 
 
 Allusion has already been made (paragraph 25) to the contro- 
 versy as to the value of Opium as a prophylactic against malarial 
 fever. Copious references to important medical evidence will be Note y. 
 found in the Notes, showing that this prophylactic theory is an 
 entirely new one ; not taught in the medical schools ; never heard 
 of by many practitioners ; that opium is not used or recommended 
 by many of those who have heard of the theory ; that many 
 practitioners who profess to believe in it prefer other remedies ; 
 that other practitioners, both pro-opiumists and anti-opiumists, 
 deny altogether that opium does possess any such prophylactic 
 properties ; and that vast numbers of the people have no know- 
 ledge of or belief in opium as a preventive of fever. 
 
 It is incredible that if the highest medical and other authorities 
 in India seriously believed in this prophylactic use of opium that 
 they should have allowed so many members of the medical 
 service to remain in ignorance of it. The opinion of the Govern- 
 
14 
 
 Consumption of Opium 
 in India," C. — 6562, 
 1892, p. 52. 
 
 (f) 2173-6, 12,902, 20,331, 
 23,606, 27,916, and many 
 others. 
 
 Note R. 
 
 Note S. 
 
 8770. 
 
 10,868, 4200, 4235, 
 
 12,391-2, 26,770, 19,331, 
 27,102, 23,511, 25,954, 
 27,569, 28,114. 
 
 Note T. 
 
 ment of Madras was indicated when a complaint was made that 
 they were teaching the people of certain tracts to rely on opium as 
 a febrifuge, for they replied that so far from that “ we are doing all 
 “ we can to gradually wean them from their hereditary habit of 
 “ using it on all occasions.” 
 
 It is admitted on both sides that habitual consumers, who are 
 unable to get the usual dose at the usual hour {e), besides suffer- 
 ing pain and inconvenience, are for a time incapacitated wholly or 
 partly for the discharge of their ordinary duties. 
 
 Moral Effects of the Habitual Use of Opium. 
 
 33. As to the moral effects there is the same diversity in the 
 evidence, for while a large number of witnesses declare that the 
 use of the drug is detrimental morally, leading to idleness, in- 
 activity, weakening of control over the will, and bad habits 
 generally, other witnesses maintain that in their experience these 
 results have not been observable. 
 
 It is obvious that the positive testimony of those who have 
 witnessed the evil of which they speak is not displaced by the 
 evidence of any number of witnesses who have not observed the 
 injurious effects of the drug on other people. It is admitted on 
 all hands that the opium habit obtains an imperious sway over 
 those who become subject to it. It is surely playing with words 
 to contend that a mastery so powerful is not lowering to the moral 
 nature of man. 
 
 Social Effects. 
 
 34. Violent crimes are not attributed to opium, but there was 
 a good deal of evidence that there is, in the case of the habitual 
 consumer, an imperious craving for the periodical dose which 
 constantly leads him, when he is poor, to resort to petty thefts in 
 order to obtain money for the purpose of getting opium. 
 
 This allegation again was denied by certain Government wit- 
 nesses, but we had no evidence that it is the practice to inquire 
 into the original cause of petty theft ; indeed one witness distinctly 
 stated that it was not. 
 
 Other Considerations. 
 
 35. It is universally admitted, even by pro-opium witnesses, 
 that the injurious effects of opium appear much sooner and more 
 markedly in the case of the poor than of the rich, because the 
 latter are able to provide themselves with abundance of good and 
 rich food, which appears to counteract the action of the opium. 
 
 Nor is it denied by pro-opium witnesses that excessive use 
 produces evil results both physical and moral. It is clear from 
 the evidence that the excessive use is largely a matter of time, 
 
15 
 
 because as soon as a moderate dose fails in its effect, as it usually 
 does sooner or later, the quantity must be increased. 
 
 The fact of this tendency to increase the dose was attested by 
 the evidence of a large number of witnesses on both sides. The 
 anti-opium witnesses were practically unanimous on this point, 
 and were supported by not a few of those who defended the 
 practice of eating opium. But other pro-opium witnesses denied 
 this tendency to increase beyond a given point. How this point 
 is to be determined, except indeed by dangerous experiment, was 
 mot explained. 
 
 The difficulty of discontinuance or even diminution of the 
 habitual dose becomes greater in proportion to the length of the 
 period of indulgence, until at last cessation becomes almost 
 impossible. 
 
 Comparative Effects of Opium on Natives of Europe 
 AND OF India. 
 
 36. The question has been raised as to whether the consump- 
 tion of opium is a matter of race, whether there is any reason why 
 opium is consumed more in the East than in the West, and 
 whether there is any difference in the tolerance (to use the 
 medical term) of the inhabitants of Europe and of India. 
 
 The evidence presented to us shows that if there be any 
 ^difference, Europeans possess greater tolerance. 
 
 Indian Missionary Opinion. 
 
 37. In some Christian denominations in India there is actual 
 prohibition, and in others a general understanding against the 
 admission into church membership of converts who indulge in 
 opium. This fact is strong proof of the sincerity of the opinions 
 of the missionaries of those denominations, for it is obviously 
 not to their interest to unduly restrict the number of their con- 
 verts, and it is clear that they would not do it but for substantial 
 reasons. 
 
 Several memorials were forwarded to the Commission from 
 missionaries and others interested in mission work. Some of 
 them (a) expressed strong views against the use of opium and the 
 present opium system, these views being supported by some of 
 the signatories appearing personally as witnesses. Other memorials 
 (d) took a less unfavourable view, and it is important to observe 
 that none of those who signed these latter memorials offered 
 themselves as witnesses, and consequently were not subjected to 
 any examination of their views and means of knowledge. 
 
 Of the 45 missionaries and others closely associated with them 
 who appeared before us as witnesses, and submitted to the test of 
 cross-examination, 41 (c) condemned the use of opium, two (d) 
 may be said to have occupied neutral or indefinite positions, and 
 
 5832, 8805, 15.145, 17,177, 
 19,032, 25,522, 2151, 
 
 25,960, 26,613, and niany 
 others. 
 
 12,484, 15,912, 19,228. 
 
 Note U. 
 
 Note V. 
 
 2302-4. 
 
 23,329. 
 
 (a) Vol. IL, p. 314. 
 Vol. II., p. 460. 
 Vol. V., p. 137. 
 
 ( 3 ) Vol. II., p. 438. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 138. 
 
 (c) 2238, 2589, 2756, 6921, 
 11,015, 13,988, 21,382, 
 
 21,463, 23,308, 23,332, 
 23,456, 25,521, 26,434, 
 26,539, 27,822, 4278, 
 7739, 10,611, 19894, 
 21,297, and 21 others. 
 
 id ) 8652, 17,246. 
 
( e ) 5457, 16,902. 
 
 Note V. V. 
 
 Vol, II,, pp. 427 and 467. 
 Vol. II., p. 429. 
 
 16 
 
 two Others, (e) one of whom declared himself an “ abolitionist on 
 “ purely moral grounds,” to some extent defended or at least 
 extenuated the use of opium. 
 
 See also Vol. I., Q. 26. 
 
 Recommendation as to the Prohibition or Restriction of 
 THE General Use of Opium. 
 
 38. The balance of evidence shows that the non-medical use 
 of opium is usually injurious to the consumer, and I am of opinion 
 that much may be done to discourage the common use of the 
 drug. 
 
 The Minutes of Evidence contain a large body of testimony show- 
 ing that prohibition or restriction would be approved by the mass of 
 the people in many parts of India. More than a hundred 
 witnesses (three-fourths of whom were natives of India) were in 
 favour of prohibition, in addition to a number of others who 
 desired some form of restriction, short of prohibition. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of any further restriction propounded 
 by some of the witnesses appear to me greatly exaggerated. 
 
 It is contended that, were further restriction attempted, it would 
 be impossible, except in the large towns, to find persons to whom 
 the sale for medicinal purposes could be entrusted. But the 
 present regulations authorise the issue of druggist’s and doctor’s 
 licenses, and these are granted to hakims and vaids practising 
 eastern systems of medicine. In Bengal alone, 1,264 of these 
 licenses were issued in 1892-3. 
 
 As the people of India are in the main abstainers from the drug, 
 and its consumption is not general, except in certain districts, some 
 form of local veto on the common sale, ought, I think, to be 
 adopted. It might also with great advantage and with popular 
 approval be made applicable to alcohol. 
 
 I would further recommend a change of system by which the 
 present opium contractors or vendors, who profit directly in pro- 
 portion to the amount of opium they sell, should be replaced by 
 official vendors, with fixed salaries. 
 
 So far from having any inducement to push the sale of the drug 
 they should be directed, as far as possible, to discourage the non- 
 medicinal use, and regulations should be laid down authorising 
 them to refuse to supply persons whose relatives or friends com- 
 plain that it is improperly used. All opium sold should be 
 labelled “ Poison,” as in England, and should be accompanied by 
 a caution, printed in the vernacular and in English, against its use 
 for non-medical purposes. These official vendors would usually 
 be natives of India, on moderate salaries. They should be located 
 in places suitable for supplying the legitimate medicinal require- 
 ments of the people and be vigilantly supervised. 
 
 The alterations suggested, if properly carried out, would un- 
 
17 
 
 doubtedly be an important step towards the reduction of the 
 consumption. 
 
 Recommendation as to Prohibition of Opium Smoking. 
 
 39. Although very diverse views were laid before the Com- 
 mission as to the habitual use of opium by eating and drinking, 
 there was a striking consensus of disapproval of smoking as an 
 injurious and degrading practice. Not only did the anti-opium 
 witnesses attribute the worst effects of opium to the habit of 
 smoking, but practically the whole of the witnesses who justified 
 or palliated the practice of habitually eating moderate quantities 
 emphatically condemned smoking in all its forms, as being 
 unquestionably injurious and pernicious, and constituting a low 
 and vicious habit. 
 
 Most of these pro-opium witnesses were in favour of further 
 reduction of the facilities for smoking, and some of them approved 
 of its total prohibition. 
 
 Surgeon Lieut.-Colonel Crombie said : — 
 
 “ I think there is a consensus of opinion among all, including 
 “opium-smokers themselves, that the chandu and madak manu- 
 “ factures should be abolished.” 
 
 The Hon. A. Cadell, member of the Revenue Board, North- 
 West Provinces and Oudh, while approving of opium eating, 
 said : — 
 
 “ Opium-smokers are, if belonging to the upper classes, 
 “ debauchees, and if belonging to the lower classes, disreputable 
 “persons, with a tendency to crime, caused not. by any tendency 
 “ of opium in that direction, but by the irresistible character of 
 “ the vice and by the necessity felt to gratify a vice which is an 
 “ expensive one. . . . There is also a general feeling among 
 
 “ the more respectable classes against opium smoking.” 
 
 See Note W. 
 
 40. Regarding the evidence on this particular subject as 
 remarkably distinctive in its unanimity and conclusiveness, I 
 consider that nothing short of absolute prohibition will satisfy the 
 requirements of the case. The only proper action of the Govern- 
 ment in accordance with public opinion should clearly be — 
 
 I. To discontinue all licenses in respect to preparations of 
 opium for smoking. 
 
 II. To make unlawful — 
 
 {a) the manufacture, sale, purchase, or possession of chandu, 
 madak, and other preparations of opium for smoking 
 purposes ; 
 
 {b) the manufacture, sale, purchase, or possession of materials, 
 utensils, or apparatus for making or smoking such 
 preparations of opium ; 
 
 {c) the association of two or more persons at any place for 
 
 c 
 
 2761, 3510, 4921, 5001, 
 5913. 3843J ^ 341 , 10,840, 
 14,228, 15,723, 19,594, 
 19,757, 20,047, 25,288, 
 28,025, 4448, 21,590, 
 
 2i,8i2, 21,655, 26,271, 
 
 14,416, 16,009, 16,688, 
 17,422-3, 18,536-8, 
 22,033, 26,057, 21,870. 
 
 35 ^ 9 - 
 
 19.097, 
 
 19.098. 
 
 Note W. 
 
6658, 6691, 6777 - 8 , 75 * 5 , 
 8341 - 2 . 
 
 II., p. 354, pp. 463-79. 
 
 6659, 8021. 
 
 Vol. II., p. 537, par. 5. 
 Vol. II., p. 545, par.'26. 
 Vol. II., p. 635, Rules 23, 
 24. 
 
 2108. 
 
 18 
 
 the purpose of smoking opium or any such prepara- 
 tions. 
 
 The administration and enforcement of such a law prescribing 
 proper penalties for breaches thereof ought to be easy and 
 effectual, for the evidence of any actual offence must be readily 
 obtainable. 
 
 The fear has been expressed that a prohibitory measure of this 
 character would open the way to inquisitorial and domiciliary 
 visits by the police, and their possible bribery by the more 
 influential and wealthy opium-smokers. But the existing law is 
 similarly open to be used in an objectionable way, and absolute 
 prohibition is not liable to any greater objections than those which 
 apply to more partial and inadequate measures of repression. 
 
 Burma. 
 
 41. The case of Burma is exceptional and must be referred to 
 separately. 
 
 Most of the British officials in Burma have frankly recognised 
 the evil effects of the consumption of opium in that country, as 
 well as the practically unanimous opinion of the Burmese people 
 against its public sale, and notwithstanding serious revenue con- 
 siderations, have strongly advised restriction or prohibition. The 
 Government of India has yielded slowly and apparently with 
 reluctance to the advice given by its own officers in Burma, and 
 to representations made from Great Britain. New regulations 
 came into force on the ist January, 1894. As a general rule the 
 possession of opium, except for medical purposes, is now forbidden 
 to Burmans. This rule is absolute in Upper Burma. In Lower 
 Burma natives were allowed some months during which they 
 might register themselves as consumers, and thus become entitled 
 to purchase opium. The desire of the authorities in Burma that 
 registration should be made compulsory for foreigners as well as 
 for Burmans ought, in my opinion, to be acceded to. In some 
 districts the sale of the drug to foreigners and registered Burmans 
 is still in the hands of farmers. In other districts a system of 
 retail sale by official vendors is being tried. This will, I think, 
 be found to be a distinct improvement upon the old system of 
 licensed shops. In every other practical way the consumption of 
 opium should be restricted to the legitimate medical requirements 
 of the people. 
 
 Sir David Barbour, in speaking of the special measures which 
 had been taken to check the consumption of opium in provinces 
 where its use was believed to be excessive (including Burma), said 
 “ I am not at all sure now that those measures have not been 
 “ carried too far, but they have been adopted to a great extent in 
 “ deference to English public opinion.” 
 
 The whole history of the sale of the drug in Burma under 
 
19 
 
 British rule ; of the protests of the people of that country against 
 
 it ; and of the reluctance of the Indian Government to listen to Voi. il., p. 650, par. 7, 
 
 their entreaties, furnishes, in my opinion, most powerful testimony 
 
 to the need and to the value of the expression of English public 
 
 opinion in these matters. 
 
 The Burmans are clearly entitled to demand that their wishes 
 should be respected, and their right to the protection they have so 
 long asked for should be fully recognised. 
 
 Malwa Opium. 
 
 42, The term Malwa Opium is employed to describe the opium 
 produced in the Native States in the west of India, either for con- 
 sumption in India or export from the port of Bombay. 
 
 A great part of this opium is produced in the ill-defined tract 
 of land known as Malwa, comprising several Native States, the soil 
 and climate of which are said to be specially favourable to the 
 growth of poppy. 
 
 The extension of British territory in India has been so managed 
 as to cut off the poppy-growing States from communication with 
 the sea ; and the transit of opium through British territory has 
 been prohibited, except under an elaborate arrangement of passes, 
 granted by British officers on payment of a heavy duty, and by 
 certain duly authorised routes. This pass duty is not the subject 
 of any agreements or treaty stipulations, but is imposed at the will 
 and pleasure of the paramount power. It was fixed on the ist Voi. ii., p. 347. 
 October, 1862, at Rs. 600; was raised on the i6th July, 1877, to 
 Rs. 650; on the 15th September, 1879, to Rs. 700; on the 28th 
 June, 1882, it was reduced to Rs. 650; on the 5th July, 1890, 
 further reduced to Rs. 600 ; and on the 1894, 
 
 was raised to Rs. 650. The amounts realised from this source, 
 together with the quantity of opium, are as follows : — 
 
 Average of 3 years. 
 
 Rx. 
 
 Chests. 
 
 Duty per Chest. 
 Rs. 
 
 1883-84 to 1885-86 
 
 2,498,455 
 
 41,008 
 
 650 
 
 1890-91 to 1892-93 
 
 1 , 753,110 
 
 32,510 
 
 600 
 
 Vol. II., pp. 342 and 347, 
 
 These figures are in part taken from a table which will be found 
 in Vol. II., p. 347, which shows that while the quantity of opium 
 exported from Bombay has been considerably declining, that 
 w'hich is diverted for local consumption has been somewhat 
 increasing. 
 
 The Native States. 
 
 43. No good purpose would be served by a detailed statement 
 of the treaties and agreements made in regard to opium with the 
 
20 
 
 1543- 
 
 2082. 
 
 Vol. IV., p. 495. 
 
 20,794, 20,839. 
 
 22,201. 
 
 Vol. IV., p. 117. 
 22.935. 
 
 16,265. 
 
 16,271. 
 
 numerous Native States. They are described in App. X., Vol. II. 
 By pressure, which they were not in a position to resist, most of 
 these States have been induced to consent to arrangements the 
 aim of which has been to safeguard and increase the revenue 
 which the East India Company and the Indian Government have 
 obtained from opium. In many cases it has been arranged that 
 the rulers of Native States shall prohibit the cultivation of the 
 poppy, and so regulate the traffic in opium as to increase the 
 revenue of the State at the expense of their subjects. There is no 
 evidence that in any of these States compensation has ever been 
 given to cultivators or traders whose interests have been interfered 
 with. 
 
 44. As to the power to stop the transit of opium through 
 British territory. Sir Lepel Griffin said, “ Of course you can pro- 
 “ hibit the export.” Sir D. M. Barbour said, “ I think the export 
 “ to China could practically be stopped,” but he was confident 
 smuggling into British territory could not. The Hon. W. Lee 
 Warner, in his memorandum, lays down that “ interference with 
 “ the internal affairs of Native States has been justified in the past, 
 “ either (a) when adopted in the interests of the States, or (d) 
 “ when adopted in the interests of the British Government.” He 
 marshals instances “under class (a) ” into six recognised grounds, 
 including “ (vi.) to check offences against natural law or public 
 “morality.” The suppression of seizing people for sorcery, and 
 abolition of suttee, are given as instances.* Mr. Warner holds 
 that opium does not come under any of these heads. Colonel 
 Trevor, agent to the Governor-General, Rajputana, was asked, 
 “ would not it be an injustice not to allow ” the produce of the 
 States to be transmitted through British territory, and replied, “ I 
 “ do not quite see that. If you think a thing is bad, you are not 
 “ bound to give a passage through your territory.” 
 
 45. Certain Native States, including such important ones as 
 Indore, Baroda, and Bhopal, consider that interference or prohibi- 
 tion in regard to opium would be outside, or contrary to, treaty 
 engagements. Some of the Sikh States, on the contrary, took a 
 difibrent position. General Sardar Ratan Singh, of the Jind State, 
 said, “ if the Government prohibits the use of opium in British 
 “territory, similar orders could be issued in the Jind State.” He 
 was not sure whether such a thing would be viewed as interference. 
 
 * In India, as elsewhere, officials are too much disposed to dread reforms 
 and innovations. The case of suttee affords an illustration. Hunter, in his 
 Indian Empire, page 475, says : “ In spite of strenuous opposition, both from 
 “ Europeans and Natives, Lord W. Bentinck carried a Eegulation in Council 
 “ on the 4th of December, 1829, by which all who abetted suttee were declared 
 “ guilty of culpable homicide.” Hunter also refers to other reforms which 
 “ were distasteful to the covenanted service, and to the officers of the Army,” 
 and adds that Lord Bentinck “ was supported by the Court of Directors, and 
 “ by the Whig Government at home.” 
 
21 
 
 Lala Dewa Singh, of the Nabha State, was asked what compensa- 
 tion, if any. His Highness’ State would be fairly entitled to in the 16,289. 
 event of prohibition, and replied, “ As the prohibition is entirely 
 “ beneficial to the people, this State does not wish for any com- 
 “ pensation for the loss of revenue resulting from such prohibition.” i®>372. 
 
 Pandit Sarup Narian, of the Faridkot State, gave a similar answer. 
 
 46. The fact that in the face of a greater falling off in the 
 supplies of Malwa opium than of Bengal opium the Indian 
 Government has, since the visit of the Commission, materially 
 increased the payment to the Bengal cultivator and put an 
 additional burden of duty on the Malwa produce, shows more 
 clearly than any official evidence that the right of dealing at will 
 with the export trade. Native as well as British, is quietly claimed 
 and exercised by the paramount government. 
 
 47. It is not possible to treat the suggested claims for compensa- 
 tion placed before the Commission seriously. Though compiled 
 at the instance of the Indian Government and revised by its 
 political officers, they neither deserve respect nor criticism. A few 
 illustrations must suffice. The Tonk State in claiming Rs. 132,900 
 for loss of land revenue, Rs. 59,919 for Customs revenue, and 
 Rs. 94,600 for traders’ profits, claims Rs. 104,030 for compensation 
 
 for money lenders ! One item in Colonel Abbott’s summary is, Voi iv., p. 394. 
 
 extra expense of living on account of great rise in price of opium ” 
 
 Rs. 489 . 873 - 
 
 In the State of Bundi, the average out-turn for the 12 years 
 ending 1892-3 is given at 1,007 maunds ; for the last half of that 20.922* 
 period at 371 maunds. (In the last year it was only 93 maunds.) 
 
 Yet compensation is claimed for an annual trade of 2,000 maunds, 20,945. 
 and Colonel Abbott reports that the “ Political officer, Lieut.- Voi. iv., p. 395* 
 “ Colonel Thornton . . . considers the Durbar’s estimate of 
 
 “ the losses, direct and indirect, both to itself and its subjects, as 
 “ accurate as it is possible to make them under existing circura- 
 “ stances.” 
 
 In the Central Provinces, Sailana claimed Rs. 160,475 for land 
 revenue. Lieut. -Colonel Robertson estimates it at Rs. 60,000. Voi. iv., p. 407. 
 The State claims Rs. 128,380 for cultivators. He reduces this to 
 Rs. 40,000. Of Multhan the same officer writes, “Losses to Voi. iv., p.407 
 “ cultivators and traders were not given by the State, they were 
 “ assumed by me.” 
 
 It is clear that the evidence thus brought before us can be of 
 no assistance if claims in equity should be seriously advanced by 
 these States. 
 
 Conclusions. 
 
 48. The form of the questions submitted to the Commission 
 makes it difficult to give categorical answers, but in reference to 
 the paragraphs thereon, I reply : — 
 
22 
 
 Note X. 
 
 I. — (a) That the growth of the poppy and manufacture and sale 
 of opium in British India should be prohibited, except 
 for medical purposes. 
 
 (^) Such prohibition should not be forcibly imposed on the 
 Native States, but the example of the British Govern- 
 ment should be supported by such influence as may 
 legitimately be employed. 
 
 II. The existing arrangements with the Native States in respect 
 
 to the transit of opium through British territory depend 
 absolutely on the will of the paramount power, and 
 appear to have been dominated throughout by the 
 financial policy of British India. When the Chinese 
 trade from British India has been brought to an end, 
 as I hold it certainly should be, and when licenses to 
 cultivate are no longer granted, licenses for the transit 
 of opium through British territory may justly be with- 
 held.* There is no legal claim for compensation. 
 Any equitable claims must be tested by further inquiry 
 and reliable evidence. 
 
 III. — (a) There is no precedent for compensation to landlords 
 
 or cultivators on the termination of opium cultivation, 
 and there would be no claim for compensation for 
 withholding further licenses. 
 
 (S>) Adequate information was not placed before us as to 
 the cost of additional preventive measures, but the 
 general statements that were made appear greatly 
 exaggerated. 
 
 (c) The revenue derivable from opium has been for 
 some years declining, and can no longer be safely 
 relied upon. (See Note X.) 
 
 IV. — It is desirable to replace the present opium contractors 
 
 and vendors by official vendors, with instructions and 
 discretion to restrict the sale. I recommend the 
 entire prohibition of smoking. 
 
 V. — The consumption of opium obtains more or less extensively 
 
 amongst the races and in the localities most fully 
 represented before the Commission. Little or no 
 evidence was tendered from large districts where its 
 non-medical use is little known. It is clear that the 
 Opium habit, so far from being common amongst the 
 people generally, is relatively exceptional in British 
 India. It is a vice in Calcutta and the large towns, 
 but certainly not of the majority of the populations. 
 It is common among the Rajputs, and to a less extent 
 the Sikhs, but the sweeping statements made as to its 
 
 Legitimate medical requirements are not here alluded to. 
 
23 
 
 universal use by them are quite untenable. Women 
 are seldom addicted to the habit. The moral effect 
 is hurtful in tarnishing and weakening the will power 
 of the user : the physical effect is generally injurious 
 in proportion to the amount taken, and to the inability 
 of the consumer to protect himself against it by plenty 
 of good food. 
 
 VI. — (a) The people of India do not, so far as regards the 
 greater part of that country, regard the use of opium 
 for non-medical purposes favourably. 
 
 ( 3 ) The people of India maintain that they are already 
 taxed to the very limit of their ability, and that they 
 are unable and unwilling to submit to any additional 
 burdens. 
 
 Serious consideration should promptly be given to the question 
 of reducing the expenditure now borne by the people of India. 
 
 49. In these pages I have given my conclusions on the evidence 
 presented to the Commission. As stated in a Memorandum 
 accompanying this Dissent, I do not think that the whole of the 
 facts were presented to us with the impartiality and completeness 
 due to such an inquiry. The Report adopted by my colleagues 
 appears to me to partake more of the character of an elaborate 
 defence of the Opium trade of the East India Company, and of 
 the present Government of India, than of a judicial pronouncement 
 on the immediate questions submitted to us. On this ground also, 
 as well as for the reasons already given, I am unable to join in it. 
 
 50. One of the last paragraphs in the Report (No. 274) refers 
 to me, and includes the following sentence : — “ We regret that in 
 “ the discussions which took place during the preparation of our 
 “ Report we were not placed in possession of the views of our 
 “ colleague.” 
 
 It will be seen by a letter to the Chairman from myself, a copy Note z. 
 of which is appended, that I was distinctly precluded by him from 
 taking part in the discussions referred to. At the first subsequent 
 meeting of the Commission, I referred to my letter, and to Lord 
 Brassey’s desire that I should refrain from discussion. Lord 
 Brassey intimated that I had correctly stated his wishes. I do 
 not therefore understand the propriety of this reflection, by the 
 majority, on the course which I took at the Chairman’s direct 
 instance and request, with the concurrence of four other colleagues. 
 
 i8th March, 1895. HENRY J. WILSON. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 TO MR. WILSON’S DISSENT. 
 
 Note A. to par, 2 . — Resolution of the House of Commons (30TH June, 
 1893) WHICH LED TO THE APPOINTMENT OF THE COMMISSION. 
 
 “ That having regard to the strong objections urged on moral grounds to the 
 “ system by which the Indian Opium Revenue is raised, this House presses on 
 “ the Government of India to continue their policy of greatly diminishing the 
 “ cultivation of the poppy and the production and sale of opium, and desires 
 “ that an humble address may be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her 
 “Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to report as to : — 
 
 “ I. Whether the growth of the poppy and manufacture and sale of opium 
 “ in British India should be prohibited except for medical purposes, 
 “and whether such prohibition could be extended to the Native States. 
 
 “2. The nature of the existing arrangements with the Native States in 
 “respect of the transit of Opium through British territory, and on 
 “ what terms, if any, these arrangements could be with justice 
 “ terminated. 
 
 “ 3. The effect on the finances of India of the prohibition of the sale and 
 “export of opium, taking into consideration (a) the amount of com- 
 ‘ ‘ pensation payable ; (d) the cost of the necessary preventive 
 “ measures ; (c) the loss of revenue. 
 
 “ 4. Whether any change short of total prohibition should be made in the 
 “system at present followed for regulating and restricting the opium 
 “ traffic, and for raising a revenue therefrom. 
 
 “ 5. The consumption of opium by the different races and in the different 
 districts of India, and the effect of such consumption on the moral 
 and physical condition of the people. 
 
 “6. The disposition of the people of India in regard to (a) the use of opium 
 “ for non-medical purposes ; ( 3 ) their willingness to bear in whole or 
 “ in part the cost of prohibitive measures.” 
 
 Hansard, vol. 68, p. 380. 
 
 Hansard, vol. 68, p. 382. 
 
 Note B. to par. 5. — Official Opinion of Opium. 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel James Tod, political agent to the Western Rajput States, in 
 his work on the “Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan,” written in 1820, 
 published in 1832, writes : — 
 
 “ This pernicious plant has robbed the Rajput of half his virtues.” (Vol. I., 
 p. 644.) . . . 
 
 “This drug, which has tended more to the physical and moral degradation 
 “of the inhalritants than the combined influences of pestilence and war.” 
 (Vol. H., p. 630.) 
 
 “Execrable and demoralising plant” (poppy). (Vol. II., p. 634.) 
 
 Mr. C. A. Bruce, superintendent of the tea plantations in Assam (prior to 
 1840), refers to opium as the — , 
 
 “ Dreadful plague which has depopulated this beautiful country , . . 
 
 “ This vile drug has kept and does now keep down the population . . . 
 
 “ Few but those who have resided long in this unhappy country know the 
 “ dreadful and immoral effects which the use of opium produces on the native.’’ 
 
 Mr. A. Sym, ii years in the opium district of Gorakhpur, and for a time in 
 charge of the opium agency there, wrote in 1840 : — 
 
 “ The health and morals of the people suffer from the production of opium. 
 “Wherever opium is grown it is eaten, and the more it is grown the more it is 
 “ eaten, ... its pernicious effects are visible on the population of the opium 
 
25 
 
 ■“ districts, particularly in the neighbourhood of the depots . . . One opium 
 “cultivator demoralises a whole village.” 
 
 A esolution by the Government of Bombay in i88i — 
 
 “ Ordered that the following letter be addressed to the Government of 
 
 India : — 
 
 . . on the question of the expediency of permitting the cultivation of 
 “ the poppy in Sind. . . . 
 
 “III. I am at the same time to state that this Government consider there 
 “are very strong objections to the introduction of an industry so demoralising 
 “in its tendency as opium cultivation and manufacture into a province where 
 “it is at present unknown. . . . It has already been tried in Gujarat, and 
 
 “ the result was widespread corruption and demoralisation. 
 
 “At present the consumption of opium in this Presidency is very limited, 
 
 “ but if the cultivation of opium and manufacture of opium were permitted, 
 
 ■“every village might have its opium shop, and every cultivator might contract 
 “ the habit of eating a drug which is said to degrade and demoralise those who 
 “ become addicted to it. On the ground of public morality, therefore, his 
 “ Excellency the Governor in Council would strongly deprecate the grant of 
 ■“permission to cultivate the poppy in Sind, or in any other part of this 
 “ Presidency.” 
 
 Note C. to par. 6. — Short Description of the Growth of Poppy as 
 IT affects the Individual Ryot. 
 
 [The figures are not the same as in par. 6, because there the agencies are 
 dealt with together, and here separately.] 
 
 /w Benares Agency, 
 
 In the month of September he proceeds to the head-quarters or weighment 
 place of the district in which he lives, a distance, on the average, of about 20 Q. 2955. 
 miles, to receive license to cultivate a specified plot for the growth of the poppy, 
 the plot being usually only a small portion of his farm or holding, averaging '61 
 of a bigah, equal to '38 of an acre, or 1,839 square yards. He receives at the 
 same time the first advance of Rs. 3'66 (or, taking the rupee at 13d., 3s. iiid.), il., p. 320. 
 being at the rate of Rs. 6 per bigah. Returning home, he prepares his ground 
 and sows the poppy seed. 
 
 When the crop is a few inches above the ground he sometimes, not always, ^20. 
 gets a further advance, not exceeding Rs. i'22, or is. 3fd., being at the rate of 
 Rs. 2 per bigah. In February or March when the seed capsules or heads are 
 formed, he lances or slits them, and carefully scrapes off the exuding juice or 
 opium, which is preserved in earthen pots until April, when he again travels 
 with it to the weighment place, where he delivers it to the officials of the 
 Opium Department. 
 
 The average weight received from each cultivator is 277 seers, or 5 lbs. 
 
 II '17 ozs., and the payment on account which he then receives averages, say, 
 
 Rs- 7 ’93) or 8s. yd. 
 
 The opium is then forwarded to the factory at Patna, in the case of the 
 Behar Agency, or to Ghazipur in the case of the Benares Agency. The 
 “consistence” or proportion of moisture in the opium is there ascertained. 
 
 An account is made out, and in July or August the cultivator, travelling again 
 as it appears to the weighment place, receives the Balance due to him, 
 averaging, say, Rs. i’o6, or is. i|d., the price being calculated at the rate of 
 S Rs. per seer, equal to 2s. 4|d. per lb. av. for opium of 70 degrees of 
 “consistence.” A somewhat higher or lower price will be paid in case it 
 contains more or less than 30 per cent, of water. The total average amount 
 paid to each ryot for opium is 15s. 
 
 In the Patna Agency, 
 
 In the Bihar or Patna Agency the ryot is in a worse position. He has to 
 deliver his opium with 5 per cent, less moisture. Other arrangements of the 
 
26 
 
 Agency are less favourable to him. The land is less productive. The total 
 amount of opium he weighs in is only 4 lbs. 1170 ozs., for which he receives 
 only I2s. 5 Jd. 
 
 Vol.';V., p. 5 - Note D. to par. 7 . — Extract from Correspondence on the 
 
 Administration of the Opium Department. 
 
 “ The railways and other means of communication which have been opened 
 “ out, and the ever growing demands of the commerce of the country, have 
 “ completely changed the state of affairs. Opium has lost its place as the most 
 
 P^''- ^4- “ lucrative crop a cultivator can grow. . . . The Board are of opinion that 
 
 “ much may be done to improve the popularity of the opium cultivation. 
 
 P^f- . . . In conclusion I am to state that the policy the Board would 
 
 “recommend may briefly be summarised as follow : — I. An adequate price to 
 “ be paid for crude opium, to be settled from time to time with reference to the 
 “ competition of other crops. . . . IV. Adequate salaries to be paid to 
 
 “ the native establishment and the abolition of all illegal gratification strictly 
 “ enforced.” 
 
 (Letter from Officiating Secretary to the Board of Revenue, Lower Provinces, 
 to the Secretary to the Government of Bengal, 19th January, 1884.) 
 
 Note E. to par. 7 . — On Difficulty of Maintaining Poppy 
 Cultivation. 
 
 Mr. Kemble, opium agent, of Bihar, in his Annual Report of the Agency for 
 the year 1890-91, says : — 
 
 “ There can be no doubt that since the opening of the Bengal and North- 
 “ Western Railway the difficulty of maintaining the cultivation of such a 
 “ delicate crop as poppy has largely increased.” (Par. 7.) 
 
 He adds that competition of other crops 
 “ is becoming so keen that our department now have difficulty in maintaining 
 “ their position.” (Par. 8.) 
 
 Mr. Rivett-Carnac, opium agent, Benares, in his Annual Report for 1890-91, 
 speaks of certain districts where the cultivation of the poppy is popular, but of 
 others where the cultivators have “ for the present lost heart,” and of other 
 cultivators as “ gradually withdrawing from the industry.” (Par. 6.) 
 
 Similarly in his Report for the year 1891-92, Mr. Kemble (Bihar) says — 
 
 “ We cannot be surprised at the disinclination generally of the cultivators to 
 “ take advances. . . . The other main cause which tended to reduce the 
 
 “settlements was the difficulty in obtaining good lands for our cultivation, 
 “ owing to the competition of other crops.” (Par. 8.) 
 
 He quotes Mr. Christian, an officer of long experience, as saying , — 
 
 “ The good lands are no longer under the poppy cultivation, but have either 
 “ gone to indigo or other better paying crops. The crops that are competing 
 “ with poppy, in fact, I ought to say, that have swamped and overcome it, are 
 “tobacco, potato, haldi, chillies, and other garden produce.” (Par. 9.) 
 
 In his Report for 1891-92 Mr. Rivett-Carnac again discusses the competition 
 of other crops, but takes a less gloomy view of the prospects of the opium 
 department, than his colleague, Mr. Kemble. 
 
 Note F. to par. 8.— Official Inquiries on Complaints of Compulsion 
 (or Persuasion) in regard to the Cultivation of Poppy. 
 
 In the first case referred to by Mr. Forbes, Mr. Lyon, settlement officer, 
 
 . had reported that certain officers had been bringing pressure to bear. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 357. A deputy magistrate, Maulvi Syed Ali Hosain, who was directed to make 
 
 an inquiry on the subject, gives the statements of a number of ryots. 
 
 “ Bansi Mahton states: My brother is khattahdar of this village. His 
 “ name is Tulsi . . . the former zilladar (since transferred) induced us to 
 
27 
 
 “ cultivate poppy, and told us to try for this year. The land is not capable of 
 “producing opium ... he (the zilladar) took my brother to Hajipur ; 
 
 “my brother was unwilling to go, and he said that we would not grow 
 “ opium. ... He (the zilladar) did not threaten us with punishment if 
 “ we did not grow, but he pressed us to do so by taking my brother to Hajipur 
 “for receiving dadni (advance).” 
 
 Shaik Hidayat Ali, says that the Zilladar Rheda Bux — 
 
 “ Insisted Tulsi to receive dadni (advance for poppy) ... he stayed 
 “three or four days to persuade us to grow opium ... he did not beat 
 “ any of us . . . his fault was to compel khattahdar to receive advances, 
 
 “ we had since fear that if we did not cultivate we would be falsely proceeded 
 “against by zilladar.” 
 
 Gudri Mahton, referring to the zilladar, says : — 
 
 “ I cannot say that he told each and every villager to grow opium, but he 
 “ did me.” 
 
 Tulsi Mahton says : — Vol. V., p. 358. 
 
 “ He (the zilladar) told me that we must grow opium. He advised us to 
 “ cultivate poppy, as we had no mind to grow this year. He said that I must 
 “go to receive advances.” 
 
 Other ryots made no complaints. Some said they cultivated willingly. It 
 was suggested by them, or to them, that the zilladar stayed so long in the 
 village because it was raining. 
 
 The Deputy Magistrate, reporting on the case, says : — 
 
 “What the zilladar seems to have done was that he insisted a little too 
 “much upon the khattahdar to receive dadni (advances), and holding out good 
 “ hopes for the poppy growth owing to rains,” and he points out “ that there 
 “ was no kind of violence used by him in compelling them to grow opium. 
 
 It is instructive in the face of these statements that Mr. Hare in enclosing 
 the report and depositions, says ; — 
 
 “ No touch or trace of any attempt at compulsion appears. ” Vol. V., p. 356. 
 
 Mr. Forbes in his letter says that — 
 
 “ Market garden produce has admittedly of late years begun to compete 355 . 
 
 “ successfully with opium. Cases of this kind must therefore be expected to 
 “ occur.” 
 
 This seems to show that compulsion, which is called in India “ persuasion,” 
 is expected as a matter of course. 
 
 The Second Case referred to by Mr. Forbes. 
 
 Rai Jai Prakash Lai Bahadur, C.I.E., dewan (chief officer) of the Dumraon Vol. V., p. 359. 
 Raj, was interviewed on the 28th and 29th of August, 1893, by Mr. Christian 
 sub-deputy opium agent of Shahabad, and Mr. Sen, assistant sub-deputy 
 agent, in reference to the “ reluctance of the cultivators to engage the full 
 area ” desired or required by the Opium Department. It was arranged that 
 the dewan was — 
 
 “ To use his influence with some of the ryots of the Raj to induce them to Vol. V., p. 355. 
 “ continue the cultivation ... by using influence he only meant persua- 
 “sion ; that he had merely asked the ryots of certain villages for his sake to 
 “try cultivation for one year (this year) longer, and that they had consented 
 “ to do so.” 
 
 It is further explained that this influence or persuasion was exercised by a 
 circular letter issued to the tahsildars of the Raj, directing them to use their 
 endeavours to help poppy cultivation. 
 
 A copy of this circular has been asked for, but has not yet been produced. 
 
 It appears further that Mr. Christian had a conversation himself with one of Vol. V., p. 359 
 
28 
 
 Vol. V., p. 355, par. 4. 
 Vol. V., p. 372. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 355, par- 5 - 
 
 Vol. V., p. 360. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 361. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 361- 
 
 Vol. V., p. 356. 
 
 12,396 to 12,454- 
 
 12,269. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 140. 
 
 these tahsildars, who explained “the kind of help given by the Raj.” So far 
 as I understand, it amounts to this : that land was to be taken from one man 
 and given to another for opium, if he would grow poppy ; that if one man 
 possessed a well another was to be allowed to take water from it to grow poppy, 
 and that rent was to be reduced by the middleman to a ryot who would grow 
 poppy. 
 
 Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the dewan was, as Mr. 
 Forbes states, unwilling to give evidence. His position was extremely 
 embarrassing. 
 
 Mr. Dane says that the dewan “ attended at Bankipur on the first day that 
 “ the Commission sat there ” (January 3rd). If this means that he was present 
 at the sitting and was ready to be called it does not accord with Mr. Forbes’ 
 statement. 
 
 Mr. Dane and Mr. Forbes agree that this important witness was present on 
 a later date (January 6th). On neither occasion was his presence known to the 
 Commission generally. It was most important that he should be heard, and 
 no explanation has been given as to why any member of the Commission was 
 kept in ignorance of his presence. 
 
 The Third Case referred to by Mr. Forbes. 
 
 Mr. F. H. B. Skrine, collector of Shahabad, and subsequently of Bhagalpur, 
 had an interview about the middle of August, 1893, with Mr. Christian, sub- 
 deputy opium agent, already referred to, who desired — 
 
 “ My co-operation in restoring the area under poppy to its normal. He told 
 ‘ ‘ me that . . . the opium agent of Behar, had instructed him to consult 
 
 “ me on the subject.” 
 
 Mr. Skrine undertook to issue a circular, but delayed it for about a fortnight, 
 when he was reminded of his promise by Mr. N. C. Sen, assistant sub-deputy 
 agent. He says : — 
 
 “ Thereupon I addressed a circular . . . to the sub-divisional officers of 
 
 “ Bhabua, Buxar, and Sasaram, and the manager of D. & D. Kumar’s Ward 
 “ Estate, in which I informed them that it was the policy of the Government 
 “ to extend opium cultivation inwards and Government estates. I asked them 
 “ to give the sub-deputy opium agent a list of villages in their charge which 
 “ contained land suitable for sowing opium, and to instruct their tahsildars to 
 “ use their utmost efforts, in co-operation with the sub-deputy opium agent, to 
 “ induce our ryots to take opium advances.” 
 
 Mr. Skrine, being called to account, makes various statements in palliation 
 of his conduct, which he does not attempt to defend, and Mr. Commissioner 
 Forbes admits that — 
 
 “Things were pushed further than they ought to have been.” Mr. Skrine’s 
 orders being “ such as I should certainly not have approved had they come to 
 ‘ ‘ my notice ; nor are they warranted, so far as I am aware, by any instructions 
 “ that have ever been issued by Government or by the Board of Revenue.” 
 
 Note G. to par. lo. — Potatoes uprooted at Barni, near Patna. 
 
 On the 19th December, 1893, Gennoe, assistant sub-deputy opium agent, 
 destroyed a plot of potatoes at the village of Barni, near Bankipore, on the 
 allegation of a zilladar that this was land on which the cultivator had engaged 
 to grow opium. Evidence to this effect was given before us on the 6th January, 
 1894, by my son and Mr. Gupta. 
 
 On the same day we were informed by Mr. Tytler, sub-deputy opium agent, 
 in the presence of Mr. Forbes, the Commissioner of Patna, Mr. Rivett-Camac, 
 opium agent at Benares, and other officials, that it is not lawful under any 
 circumstances to pull up the crops. 
 
 At the request of the Commission a further inquiry was subsequently made, 
 and the report of this inquiry has been forwarded to us since our return from 
 
29 
 
 India. The report shows that as a matter of fact the cultivator had committed 
 no offence whatever. Mr. Wace says : — 
 
 “ I have very little doubt that he lost his potatoes because he did not fee 
 “ the zilladar.” 
 
 The Assistant Sub-Deputy Agent attempted, in a letter sent by him to Mr. P- * 42 - 
 
 Wace, to justify his action by reference to a rule and a form in the Opium 
 Manual. Mr. Wace points out that the rule does not cover this case, that the Vol. V., p. 141. 
 form is irrelevant, and that the official in question had not availed himself of Vol. V., p. 142. 
 an opportunity given him to produce witnesses on his own behalf. 
 
 Note H. to par. 15. — Condemnation of Opium by English Officials 
 RESIDENT in ChINA AND JAVA. 
 
 Sir George Staunton, who was in China from 1792 to 1816, referred to 
 opium as “an article of vicious luxury,” and said : — 
 
 “The best lands of India might have been made to produce that which was 
 “ beneficial to man, instead of being devoted to the cultivation of such a 
 “ pernicious article.” 
 
 Sir Stamford Raffles, who died in 1826, said : — 
 
 “ The use of opium, it must be confessed and lamented, has struck deep into 
 “ the habits, and extended its malignant influence to the morals of the people, 
 “ and is likely to perpetuate its power in degrading their character and ener- 
 “ vating their energies, as long as the European Government, overlooking 
 “ every consideration of policy and humanity, shall allow a paltry addition to 
 “ their finances to outweigh all regard to the ultimate happiness and prosperity 
 “ of the country.” 
 
 Mr. Montgomery Martin, Colonial Treasurer at Hong Kong, refers to 
 opium as — 
 
 “ Desolating China, corrupting its Government, and bringing the fabric of 
 “ that extraordinary Empire to a state of more rapid dissolution.” 
 
 Sir Harry Parkes refers to opium as “ a baneful article.” — See his life by 
 Stanley Lane Poole, Vol. I., p. 421. 
 
 Mr. L. E. Oxenham, late British Consul in China, says : — 
 
 “ Do the Chinese, . . . desire the continuation of the trade now ? 
 
 “ Would the Chinese Parliament vote for such a traffic ? No one with any 
 “ knowledge of China would answer in the affirmative. The opium is equally 
 “ denounced by the Government, by the Confucian literati, and by the 
 “ Buddhist and Taoist priesthood.” — “Society of Arts Journal,” April, 1892, 
 p. 485. 
 
 Note J. to par 15. — Chinese Official Condemnation of Opium. 
 
 Sir Robert Hart, G.C.M.G., who is in the service of the Chinese Govern- 
 ment as Director of Customs, in the special report on opium issued in 1881, 
 said : — 
 
 Hansard, 1840, vol, 53, 
 P. 743- 
 
 Report H. of C. on China 
 Trade, 1847’ 
 
 Society of Arts Journal, 
 1892, p. 485, 
 
 “ Chinese who have studied the opium question are opposed to a traffic 
 “ which more or less harms smokers. . . . They do not find in . . . 
 
 “ the revenue produced . . . any sufficient reason for welcoming the 
 
 “ growth of the trade, or for desisting from the attempt to check the consump- 
 “ tion of opium.” 
 
 The Chinese Foreign Office wrote to Sir Rutherford Alcock in July, 1869 : — 
 
 “ That opium is like a deadly poison, that it is most injurious to mankind. East Indian Finance Com* 
 “ . . . The officials and people of this Empire ... all say that mittee, 1871. 
 
 “ England trades in opium because she desires to work China’s ruin, for (say 
 “they) if the friendly feelings of England are genuine, since it is open to her 
 “to produce and trade in everywhere else, would she still insist on spreading 
 “ the poison of this hurtful thing through the Empire ? ” 
 
“ China, Commercial 
 Social," vol. IL, p. 
 
 Vol. I., p. 33. 
 Vol.- 1 ., p. 39. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 353. 
 
 1637- 
 
 3774 - 
 
 '6047. 
 
 16,849. 
 
 30 
 
 Sir Rutherford Alcock, at that time Her Majesty’s Minister at Pekin, said in 
 reference to this ; — 
 
 “ He had no doubt that the abhorrence expressed by the Government and 
 “ people of China for opium was genuine and deep-seated.” 
 
 In a letter in the “Times” of July 29th, 1881, Lii Hung Chang, then 
 Grand Secretary and Viceroy of China, said : — 
 
 “ I may assert here once for all that the single aim of my Government in 
 “ taxing opium, will be in the future, as in the past, to repress the traffic . . . 
 “never to desire to gain revenue from such a source.” 
 and Mr. Montgomery Martin, Colonial Treasurer of Hong Kong, states that the 
 '* 7 * Emperor of China had remarked : — 
 
 “ It is true I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing poison. Gain- 
 “ seeking and corrupt men will for profit and sensuality defeat my wishes, 
 “ but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of 
 “ my people.” 
 
 Note K. to par. 15 . — Condemnation of Opium by Missionaries 
 IN China. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Medhurst, one of the earliest missionaries of the London 
 Missionary Society, which was the first Protestant Society to enter China, in 
 his “ China ” (London, 1838), says : — 
 
 “Those who have not seen the effects of opium-smoking in the eastern 
 “ world, can hardly form any conception of its injurious results on the health, 
 “ energies, and lives of those who indulge in it. . . . In proportion as 
 
 “the wretched victim comes under the power of the infatuating drug, so is 
 “ his ability to resist temptation less strong, and debilitated in body as well as 
 “ mind he is unable to earn his usual pittance, and not infrequently sinks under 
 “ the craving of an appetite which he is unable to gratify, . . . Those who 
 “ grow and sell the drug, while they profit by the speculation, would do well 
 “^to follow the consumer into the haunts of vice, and mark the wretchedness, 
 “ poverty, disease, and death which follow the indulgence, for if they did but 
 “ know the thousandth part of the evils resulting from it they would not, they 
 “ could not, continue to engage in the transaction.” 
 
 Numerous testimonies were communicated to the Commission by the Secre- 
 tary of the Church Missionary Society, and by the Secretary of the China 
 Inland Mission, all testifying to the evil effects of opium. 
 
 See also an important memorial signed by 17 Chinese Missionaries of all 
 denominations (including two Bishops), and all of more than 25 years’ standing 
 in China. 
 
 Note L. to par. 20 . — Quotations and References as to alleged 
 EXTENSIVE Use of Opium and Political Danger from Inter- 
 ference. 
 
 Sir Joseph Fayrer, K.C.S.I., M.D., says : — 
 
 “It is well known that over large areas of country in India, by tens of 
 “thousands of people, opium in moderation is habitually used by the natives.” 
 
 Dr. K. C. Bose, President of the Calcutta Medical Society, says : — 
 
 “ Amongst the permanent residents of Calcutta only 10 per cent, of the 
 “ people actually take Opium, whilst amongst those who come from other 
 “ portions of the country nearly 20 per cent, use opium in some shape or other.” 
 
 Rai Sheo Bux Bogla Bahadur, merchant and banker, representing the 
 National Chamber of Commerce, says : — 
 
 “ About 70 or 80 per cent, of both Rajputs and Sikhs ” take opium as a daily 
 ration. 
 
 Surgeon-Colonel Cleghorn, M.D., Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals in 
 the Punjab, says : — 
 
 “ I fancy that about 50 or 75 per cent, of the inhabitants of Lucknow take 
 “ Opium.” 
 
31 
 
 Mr. J. J. S. Driberg, Excise Commissioner of Assam, says : — 
 
 “ Bearing in mind the conditions of the climate, and the fact that opium 9019. 
 “has been consumed in the Province from time immemorial, so that it has 
 “ now become a necessity of life, it is certain that any attempt to stop con- 
 “ sumption, or even to limit or reduce it, more than has been done in the past 
 ■“ ten years, would have a disastrous effect on the physical condition of the 
 “ people.” 
 
 “ Then you say that stopping it would depopulate whole tracts ? — Yes.” 9583- 
 
 Sir Charles Crosthwaite, K.C.I.E., Lieut. -Governor of the North-West 
 Provinces and Oudh, says : — 
 
 “There is no doubt that the people use opium very largely, not in great i 4 , 8 i 3 - 
 “ quantities, but very widely. I think nearly all of them give it to their 
 
 children, and believe that it is necessary. . . 
 
 “ My opinion is that we could not actually prohibit the use of opium except 14,798. 
 
 for medical purposes without a very large and oppressive force, and without 
 “ an inquisition into the habits of the people, which would be very unpleasant 
 ■“ to them, and would make the Government, I think, exceedingly unpopular.” 
 
 The Hon. D. R. Lyall, C.S.I., Member of the Board of Revenue, Lower 
 Provinces, says : — 
 
 “ I hold that, in a political point of view, total prohibition would be so 3191* 
 ■“ dangerous, and would alienate so large a body of Her Majesty’s subjects in 
 “ India, as to be impossible. . . . The dissatisfaction would be enormous, 
 
 “ and I am not prepared to say that, fanned as it would be by professional 
 “ agitators, it would not amount to disaffection, and require the presence of 
 “ more British troops in India.” 
 
 The Hon. T. D. Mackenzie, Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium, and 
 Abkari, Bombay, says : — 
 
 “ In my opinion to prohibit the sale of opium in British India, except for 26,149. 
 “ medical purposes, would be to invite a general rising all over the country 
 “ against what would be regarded, and, in my mind, justly regarded as cruel 
 “and causeless oppression.” 
 
 ' See also Q. 4999, 6059, 14,059, IS,700, 15,703, I 9 ,S 30 , 20,425, 27,029, 
 27,036, &c. 
 
 Note M. to par. 21. — Average of Opium taken by Adult Male 
 Consumers. 
 
 The analysis of the evidence of 85 witnesses shows that : — ■ 
 
 The average of what 31 witnesses consider strictly moderate use is 
 
 ,, ,, 34 ,, customary use 
 
 ,, ,, 20 ,, excessive use 
 
 Grains. 
 
 777 
 
 IS’I2 
 
 41 '00 
 
 Thus the 85 witnesses give a gross average of 
 
 18-53 
 
 Average of Dr. Huntly’s record of ... 
 „ Surg.-Lt.-Col. Hendley’s re 
 
 5, Dr. Ram Roy’s record of... 
 
 Gross average of 
 
 
 Grains* 
 
 
 100 cases 
 
 = 20-89 
 
 Vol. 
 
 4,409 „ 
 
 = 2I’S 
 
 Vol. 
 
 215 „ 
 
 = 26-4 
 
 Vol. 
 
 4,724 „ 
 
 = 21-7 
 
 
 In view of these figures, it will probably be pretty near the mark to take 20 
 •grains as the fair average daily consumption of each adult male consumer ; and 
 that this is not, in the opinion of the authorities, an unreasonable or excessive App. XXVII., 
 
 •allowance is clear from the fact that 20 grains is the authorised ration to soldiers p, 452, 6510-3. 
 
 •on service, and the further fact that in Burma 45 grains a day appears to be the 
 •official estimate for each smoker. 
 
NOTE N. TO PAR. 21,— Table showing Consumption of Opium by Provinces, 
 
 Columns 2 to 6 are to he found in official statements; Columns 7 to 11 are calculations therefrom. 
 
 Consumption 
 is equal to 
 20 grains 
 
 daily to 
 
 One Person 
 
 out of 
 
 
 l£5COu:5^t'-'— 'OCOCON 
 
 1 I-H r-« fH C<| CO lO 
 
 1 
 
 270 
 
 589 
 
 Daily Dose 
 for 
 
 I per cent, 
 of 
 
 Population. 
 
 0 
 
 aa^O5O5COiOM^'7^t^q0 
 
 4^do'^'Nc^'La5cb4tH'^co 
 
 0 CO rH I-H i-H 
 
 1 
 
 b- 
 
 
 Annual 
 
 Consump- 
 
 tion 
 
 of Opium 
 per Head. 
 
 05 
 
 ^'^a5'^*«!H'^COC<li-lrHi-H 
 
 1 
 
 t- 
 
 (M 
 
 — 1 « 
 
 To each Shop. 
 
 Population. 
 
 06 
 
 05C^OOC<)GO|^*>>— tC005 
 OOrHt'-XOrr'lOOSlOlO 
 
 c^c^od'oTi-T^cTcrc-r'^'^r 
 
 1-1 I— ( -sti ^ fO CO 
 
 1 
 
 20,965 
 
 1 
 
 o3 
 
 •+3 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 'a 
 
 0 
 
 fcJD 
 
 .9 
 
 'o 
 
 Area, 
 
 
 OQ 
 
 -Slot-.— (Cscqooh-oscoo 
 
 glOC005JOCDl005^t>M 
 
 02 
 
 1 
 
 t- 
 
 In 1892-93. j 
 
 Amount 
 
 of 
 
 Opium 
 
 issued. 
 
 
 .i-HCCOfMC^COM^t^i-HO 
 
 0QTtH>GOlCa5'^CO--Ht-l>. 
 
 ijari>rco'od'irrc<r'^t-^arar 
 
 ^OcoOi-HINiOtXMiiO^ 
 
 .H ^ ^ 
 
 833,031 
 
 • 
 
 Shops. 
 
 lO 
 
 <M 001000 fOC 00010 '^ 
 
 OOt-.-^OCOCOlOCOCSCO 
 
 00 't* CO CO C^CO^CO J-H 0 
 
 ?— t (N l-H 
 
 •*— ++C45>^ 
 
 10,118 
 
 Average of British India 
 
 Bengal (ex 
 
 0 
 
 a 
 
 0 
 
 
 5,476,833 
 
 2,897,491 
 
 16,985,270 
 
 2,871,774 
 
 20,860,913 
 
 *10,046,540 
 
 342,64,264 
 
 12,650,831 
 
 71,346,987 
 
 35,630,440 
 
 212,021,333 
 
 Area. 
 
 c6 
 
 QQ 
 
 .3'^00lOa5l>OC0t>C005 
 .p-O'— 't-COCOOCOt— I'^co 
 
 g 0 b- 05 It- ^CO 
 
 C^t:St:St:ScSr^CO^^r^ 
 
 I|>'^1-HCOC00510'^ 
 m rH» 
 
 783,988 
 
 Province. 
 
 
 Assam ... 
 Berar - - - 
 
 Bombay 
 
 Sindh - - - 
 
 Punjab - 
 
 Central Province - 
 N.W. Provinces - 
 Oudh - - - 
 
 Bengal - - - 
 
 Madras - 
 
 Total - 
 
 In 
 
 order 
 
 of 
 
 Col. 9 . 
 
 - 
 
 I— l(NCO'^lO'^l>C0050 
 
 * Excluding Proprietory Estates, f Including 518 temporary LicenseSf J Excluding 1,264 druggists' Licenses. § Including 20 poppy-head Licenses, 
 
NOTE O. TO PAR. 21. 
 
 Table showing Extremes of Large and Small Consumption in Selected Localities. 
 
 
 w .n 0 
 
 No. 
 
 of 20 
 
 Grain 
 
 doses. 
 
 
 lOiOOiOCCCO 
 
 MINI 
 
 00 
 
 1 — f lO 
 
 To each Shoj 
 
 Amour 
 
 Dailj 
 
 Day; 
 
 Ann 
 
 Oz. av. 
 
 
 0^ b- CO 05 00 
 
 1 1 1 1 1 1 
 
 Tt^ 00 
 ^5 
 
 Yearly 
 
 Amount 
 
 sold. 
 
 CO 
 
 rH 
 
 g 00 0 05 (N 0 
 
 1 1 1 1 1 1 
 
 w CO CO CO t> 
 
 ;OCO »-H 
 
 10 2 
 
 166 1 
 
 
 3 
 
 (X 
 
 c 
 
 0 
 
 (M 
 
 00 CO CO lO CO 00 
 »0 CO CO 0 CO CO 
 
 COOCOt-COlO 1 j 1 j 1 
 
 pH 00 
 
 Ol>» 
 
 C^pH 
 
 
 Ph 
 
 
 
 CO »0 lO cq 
 (M rH 
 
 
 
 JO jno uosjsd 9U0 
 oj suiujS oz oj 
 
 jEnba SI uoijduinsuo^ 
 
 - 
 
 C0Ob-00C<I05OC<J00C0C0QC5 
 C^0>Tt<00G<lC0r-(Ob-tX>05C0 
 05C0O00 CO 1 — 1 05 
 
 i-Tod'co' 
 
 < 
 
 8 SI I 
 
 ON 
 
 oo 
 
 •nopiEindoj *ju 3 D 
 
 I 9 d I JOJ SSOQ XlIBQ 
 
 10 
 
 f^OCNr^’ * i^C0O5* 
 
 10 I-H (N 
 
 |> 
 
 QO 
 
 hH 
 
 c 
 
 •p^ 3 TJ Jsd 
 
 uoijdnitisuoQ fBnuuy 
 
 05 
 
 -^t-G<liOi-Hi-HXNe0O5iO'^ 
 
 f*5 ^ ^ lO ^ ^ b" CO 
 
 OOr-t- 00 0 
 
 (N rH 1-1 
 
 6-33 
 
 176-82 
 
 
 2 
 
 'o 
 
 GO 
 
 C005i0C0<MS^t>-C0OC000l0 
 .05C0<Mi-(b-C0l0b-<N'^C0*— ' 
 
 rH b» 00 ^ 1 — 1 rH f=H 
 
 CO ^ fH 
 
 395 
 
 16,386 
 
 In 1892-3. 
 
 c 
 
 p 
 
 0 
 
 a 
 
 c 
 
 l> 
 
 UOOOO rH-^OOOO 
 
 in05l>t>C0 0 05 b- 00 
 
 ^ 0<<N 1 |CO>-((Ni-< <N 
 
 505'HHC<ie^ C005CQO*^C0 
 
 3i— iC^05 -^T— 
 
 beers. 
 
 192 
 
 7,966 
 
 
 No. of 
 Shops. 
 
 CO 
 
 3S|^”g 1 1 1 1 1 1 
 
 05 lO 
 
 CO 0 
 
 
 c 
 
 0 
 
 
 10 
 
 Ob-t>»OOOCO'^lOCO'— 'CO 
 10C^C<IC005COi— flOCO-^»— ICO 
 h^OOi-h05005:000'^05(?^i— ( 
 
 pH 
 
 (M 
 
 00 b- 
 
 
 3 
 
 0 , 
 
 0 
 
 Ph 
 
 
 b-00'^00 05C'5C<JO'^'N’— 'b^ 
 00 b^05 CO CO 05 05 r^b- 
 
 pH oTpH pH 
 
 COhH 
 
 Ttl CO 
 
 a 
 
 Page. 
 
 
 i-l CO 
 
 S = = =6 ==« - = •' 
 
 ^ 00 
 
 (M 
 
 05 
 
 pH 
 
 
 Vol. 
 
 CO 
 
 2r::jj>= = E>-'KK5: 
 
 t— I 
 
 :: ' 
 
 District. 
 
 i 
 
 <N 
 
 Calcutta 
 
 Jessore 
 
 Dacca (Div.) 
 Tippera 
 Katnagiri ... 
 Broach 
 
 Damon 
 
 Wardha 
 
 Ballia 
 
 Benares 
 Hardoi 
 Lucknow ... 
 
 1 Jhan^ 
 
 Ludhiana ... 
 
 
 Province. 
 
 
 - 
 
 Bengal ... 
 
 If ••• : 
 
 Bombay ... 
 
 Central ... 
 
 N.'^.p. ’.!! 
 Ou& !!! 
 
 ff ••• 1 
 
 Punjab ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 6327. 
 
 6334- 
 
 24,119- 
 
 15,672. 
 
 16,262. 
 
 88o5. 
 
 5833- 
 
 13,099* 
 
 19,907. 
 
 16,551. 
 
 Note P. to par. 26 . — On Licentious Purpose for which Opium is 
 
 Consumed. 
 
 Numerous witnesses declared that a special purpose for which opium is 
 taken is for prolonging sexual indulgence. 
 
 Dr. Mahendra Lai Sircar, C.I.E., says : — 
 
 “ The chief of these pleasures which allures men to the use of the drug is 
 “ what I may call sexual endurance. 
 
 “ They (smokers) told me that this invariably was the origin of . . . the 
 “ pernicious habit.” 
 
 Assistant-Surgeon Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Junagadh State, says : — 
 
 “ Opium is commenced for sexual enjoyment.” 
 
 Mr. Jagat Narian, B.A,, pleader of Lucknow, says : — 
 
 “ It is taken for immoral purposes by 80 per cent, of the opium-eaters here.” 
 
 See also 2594, 12,654, 13,994, 18,210, 26,286, 26,542, and many others. 
 
 General Sardar Ratan Singh, member of the Council of Regency of the 
 Jind State, says : — 
 
 “ Those who commenced the use of opium for the sake of pleasure in their 
 “youth are looked down upon by society, and are considered as using it for 
 “ licentiousness.” 
 
 See also 18,313, 2594, 18,264. 
 
 Note Q. to par. 32. — Quotations and References as to Injurious 
 Physical Effects of Opium. 
 
 Rai Lai Madhub Mookerjee, Bahadur, L.M.S., President of the Calcutta 
 Medical School, says : — 
 
 “ It produces slow, steady, and certain degeneration of the human system, 
 “ abundantly evidenced by the digestive disorders and emaciation that attend 
 “ its use.” 
 
 Nil Ratan Sircar, M.A., M.D., Fellow of the Calcutta University, Lecturer 
 on Forensic Medicine in the Calcutta Medical School, says : — 
 
 “ The power of resistance of disease generally becomes diminished, and the 
 “opium-eater becomes pre-disposed to some diseases; for example, cold, 
 “ bronchitis, diarrhoea, dysentery, and dyspepsia.” 
 
 Mr. Isan Chandra Roy, M.B., says : — 
 
 “ The attenuated body, the peculiar withered and blasted countenance, with 
 “ a characteristic gait, will reveal the opium-eater at a glance. His digestive 
 “ organs become highly disordered, and he scarcely eats anything. His 
 “ mental and bodily powers are destroyed. In fact he becomes impotent.” 
 
 The Rev. Colin S. Valentine, LL.D., L.R.C.P., and L.R.C.S.E., &c., 
 Principal of the Agra Medical Missionary Training Institute, when asked, 
 “■What are the results of the habit, physical, mental, and moral?” replied: — 
 
 “Deterioration in all three points. The appetite is taken away, the 
 “ digestion is impaired, there is congestion of the various internal organs, 
 “ congestion of the lungs, constipation and diarrhoea consequent upon it, pains 
 “all over the body, A man in the habit of eating opium is upon a lower 
 
 standing than a man in perfect health,” 
 
 Brigade-Surgeon J. H. Condon, M.D., M.R.C.S., &c., says: — 
 
 “Physically, it reduces strength, though like alcohol it gives a sort of 
 “ fictitious strength for a short time ; after a time varying with the amount 
 “ eaten daily, they become emaciated and debilitated, miserable-looking 
 
35 
 
 *' wretches, and finally die, most commonly of diarrhoea induced by the use of 
 “ opium.” 
 
 Brigade-Surgeon Lieut. -Col onel A. Cameron, M.D., says: — 
 
 “ Even when used in moderation for non-medical purposes, the habit is not 
 “to be defended. Unless required for some bodily ailment a man is better 
 “ without it. Its habitual use, except in the smallest quantities, causes 
 “ emaciation and enfeeblement of the body, saps the energy, and dulls the 
 “ mental faculties.” 
 
 See also Q. 4042-4, 4718, 9360-3, 16,282, and many others. 
 
 Quotations and References as to Non-injurious Physical Effects 
 
 OF Opium. 
 
 Surgeon Major R. Cobb, M.D., says : — 
 
 “ I believe the moderate use of opium to be quite an innocuous habit.” 
 
 Surgeon-Colonel R. Harvey, M.D., M.R.C.P., &c., says : — 
 
 “ The moderate way in which the great majority take it not only does them 
 “no harm, but does them a great deal of good.” 
 
 Mr. Sita Nath Roy, banker and zemindar, and secretary to the Beiigal 
 Chamber of Commerce, says : — 
 
 “ The general impression, bordering on conviction, is that the moderate use 
 “ of opium is beneficial ; that it is a panacea for many diseases, and that its 
 “ tendency is to prolong life.” 
 
 Brigade-Surgeon Lieut. -Colonel Purves, F.R.C.S.E., says : — 
 
 “I generally agree that the moderate use of opium in this country is rather 
 “ beneficial than otherwise.” 
 
 See also 9524, 12,610, 15,907, 19,228. 
 
 Note R. to par. 33. — Quotations and References as to Injurious 
 Moral Effects of Opium. 
 
 Dr. Mookerjee says : — 
 
 “ Its mental and moral effects are none the less harmful, and none the less 
 “ marked. It most certainly tarnishes the moral nature of man, weakening his 
 “ mental control over his will, and thus causing him to be the prey of the 
 “ evil and vicious habits of lying and stealing.” 
 
 Brigade Surgeon Lieut. -Colonel Cameron, M.D., says that : — 
 
 “ The general opinion amongst natives themselves is that in positions where 
 “energy, alertness, a clear head, or a good memory is required, an opium- 
 “ eater is not to be trusted.” 
 
 Ram Kali Chaudhuri, retired Subordinate Judge, and late member of the 
 Legislative Council of the North-West Provinces and Oudh, says : — 
 
 “ The results of the habit of opium -eating, whether considered physically, 
 “ mentally, 6r morally, are bad and condemnable. The consumer, as a general 
 “rule, becomes both physically and mentally weak and inactive, and as. a 
 “consequence loses courage, and his moral conduct suffers so far as it depends 
 “on the energy of body and mind, such as the performance of duties requiring 
 “activity. In the early stage of the habit sexual virtue is disregarded, where 
 “the initial motive was to increase sexual vigour.” 
 
 Dr. Manohar Prasad Tewarie, L.M.S., says : — 
 
 “ Its use in any of its forms deadens the intellect, impairs the physical and 
 “moral sense, induces laziness, immorality, and debauchery.” 
 
 See also 9129, 9962, 10,496, 11,684, 18,706, and many others. 
 
 12,572. 
 
 3704. 
 
 3420. 
 
 2706. 
 
 3662. 
 
 8805. 
 
 i2,573’ 
 
 13,191. 
 
 15,146. 
 
36 
 
 14,414- 
 
 14,226. 
 
 I3.io6. 
 
 13,191- 
 
 5080. 
 
 5463- 
 
 14,226. 
 
 18,736. 
 
 25,989. 
 
 Quotations and References as to Non-injurious Moral Effects.. 
 
 The Hon. Sri Ram Rai, Bahadur, M.A., B.L., member of the Lieutenant- 
 Governor’s Council, says : — 
 
 “ In no way, so far as my experience goes, does it lead to moral degradation.” 
 
 Surgeon-Major J. Anderson, M.B., says : — 
 
 “ In my experience it does not in any way lower the moral tone, nor does it 
 “develop a propensity for gambling or sensuality.” 
 
 See also 26,757, 19,228, 23,303, &c. 
 
 Note S. to par. 34. — Quotations and References as to Injurious 
 Social Effects of Opium. 
 
 Dr. Isan Chandra Roy says : — 
 
 “ They must satisfy their opium craving ; they are necessarily driven to have 
 “ recourse to all sorts of vicious acts, such as petty thefts, pickpocketing, &c.” 
 
 Judge Ram Kali Chandhuri (already quoted) says : — 
 
 “ Where there is little or no means, the habit leads the consumer to commit 
 “ petty thefts and trickeries.” 
 
 See also 12,569, 3413, 9173, 25,490, 16,902, and many others. 
 
 Quotations and References as to Non-injurious Social Effects 
 
 OF Opium. 
 
 Sir John Lambert, K.C.I.E., Commissioner of Police in Calcutta, says : — 
 
 “ I fail to discover any connexion between opium and crime of a serious 
 “ nature.” 
 
 Mr. James Monro, C.B., formerly Commissioner of Police in Bengal, now 
 engaged in missionary work, says : — 
 
 “ The conclusion which I came to from wide experience was that so far as 
 “regards crime, opium has no perceptible influence in causing it.” 
 
 See also 3184, 14,414, I9,749, I9,797, 25,583. 
 
 Note T. to par. 35. — Pro-opiumists’ Evidence as to Physical Effects 
 OF Excessive Use. 
 
 Surgeon-Major J. Anderson (already quoted) says : — 
 
 “ When taken to excess it causes both moral and physical deterioration. It 
 “ produces emaciation, gastric disorder, loss of appetite, gives premature senile 
 “ expression, and no doubt shortens life. Morally, over-indulgence makes the 
 “ victim idle and timid, and engenders a habit of exaggeration.” 
 
 Surgeon-Major G. W. P. Dennys, Civil Surgeon in the Punjab for man7 
 years, says : — 
 
 “ A confirmed excessive opium-eater is generally a physical and mental 
 “wreck, emaciated to an excessive degree, and incapable of performing any 
 “ordinary work. He is a deplorable object to behold. . . . Excessive 
 
 “ opium-eaters have no stamina whatever, and succumb to comparatively 
 “ trivial ailments.” 
 
 Mr. G. B. Prabhakar, L.R.C.P., a medical practitioner of Bombay, says : — 
 
 “ Opium when taken in excess impairs the digestive system in general, 
 “ engenders lazy habits, causes dulness of intellect, and produces ansemia and 
 “ emaciation.” 
 
 See also 12,608, 24,675, 25,657, 26,022, &c. 
 
37 
 
 Pro-opiumists’ Evidence as to Moral Effects of Excessive Use. 
 
 Lieut. -Colonel A. J. F. Reed, in command of 29th Punjab Infantry, says 
 “ The habitual {i.e., excessive) opium-eaters are marked men in the regiment, 18706. 
 and are not trusted like the rest.” 
 
 Surgeon-Major T. R. Mulroney, M.D., referring to those taking opium in 
 large doses, says : — 
 
 “They are regular drunkards, a depraved lot, generally belonging to the 15.948. 
 ■“ criminal class, thieves and burglars.” 
 
 See also 24,087, 26,022, &c. 
 
 Note U. to par. 35. — Difficulty of Discontinuance of Habit. 
 
 The personal experience of Mr. Datta may be usefully cited ; — 
 
 “ I took opium myself for three months, for chronic diarrhoea and dyspepsia. 
 
 “ The first day it acted like magic, but gradually the dose had to be increased, 
 until I used to take 20 grains of it. I keenly felt the after effects, and 
 “ thought of relinquishing. It took me some time before I gave it up by 
 gradually reducing the doses. 
 
 “ If I did not take opium at the regular time, when I was used to taking it, 10,753, 
 “ I was seized with nausea, pains all over the body, a sort of uneasiness which 
 “ cannot be described, a bad scalding sense of uneasiness all over the body, 
 
 “ Even if I took a lesser dose the diarrhoea would re-appear, and with greater 
 ■“ violence. I could not retain the smallest quantity of food, and I was not 
 able to work. 
 
 ■ “ It took me about four months to relinquish the habit, gradually reducing 10,754. 
 the dose all that time. 10,755. 
 
 “I took other remedies to restore my health. I had to place myself under ^°i756. 
 ■“ other treatment.” 
 
 There is abundance of other uncontradicted evidence to the like effect. 
 
 See also Q. 2593, 18,927, 25,513, 5913, 16,219, 28,168, and many others. 
 
 Note V. to par. 36.— Comparative Effects of Opium on Natives of 
 Europe and of India. 
 
 Surgeon-General Sir Wm. Moore, K.C.I.E., Q.H.P., was asked by Sir 
 Wm. Roberts : — 
 
 Q. “You would not admit it was due to some profound constitutional 1061. 
 “ difference?” 
 
 A. “ No, I don’t think so.” 
 
 Q. “ But of course you would not be positive? ” 1062. 
 
 A. “I do not think the constitutional difference has anything whatever to 
 ■“ do with it.” 
 
 Surgeon Maj or-General Rice, head of the Indian Medical Department, says : — 
 
 “ I have satisfied myself in my professional practice that Europeans are more 2199. 
 tolerant, that is, require larger doses of opium than natives, bulk for bulk.” 
 
 Dr, Rice further says : — 
 
 “ To produce the same effect from a medincial dose of opium in a European 2200. 
 ^‘you would have to give a larger quantity of it than you would to a native.” 
 
 Hon. D. R. Lyall, C.S.I., says: — 
 
 “ The ordinary native takes an amount of opium that would be almost 3205. 
 -“ laughed at in England as a dose of opium.” 
 
 Surgeon Lieut. -Colonel J. McConaghey, M.D., was asked by Sir W. 
 Roberts : — 
 
38 
 
 12.626. 
 
 12.631. 
 
 12.632. 
 
 4402. 
 
 • 9 . 259 - 
 
 19,262. 
 
 8809. 
 
 5 * 44 . 
 
 5845 - 
 
 i3,io8. 
 
 13, 163- 
 ‘9.519-21, 
 
 19.522. 
 
 18,305-6. 
 
 18,307. 
 
 14-523. 
 
 , Q. “ Have you been able to notice, or been led to the opinion, that there is 
 “ a difference between the European constitution and the constitution of the 
 “ natives of India, in their relation to opium ? 
 
 A. “ I do not know that there is much difference. 
 
 “ I have had Europeans under my treatment who were quite as much 
 “ addicted to the use of the drug as natives. 
 
 “ Taking the population of the Europeans I meet with, it will be very 
 “ nearly the same proportion.” 
 
 Dr. G. R. Ferris, M.R.C.S., was asked by Sir W. Roberts : — 
 
 Q. “Has it never struck you that there was a difference of tolerance, 
 “depending upon race or climate, or food, or the environment of Europeans 
 “ on the one hand, and of the inhabitants of India on the other ? 
 
 A. “No. In Calcutta I have seen the greatest quantity taken by 
 “ Europeans. The maximum I have seen has been taken by a European.” 
 
 Lieut -Colonel A. J. Wilcox, M.D., was asked by Mr. Mowbray : — 
 
 Q. “Have you had any experience of Europeans taking opium in this 
 “ country ? 
 
 A. “Yes. I have stated that the worst cases I have met with have been 
 “Europeans. 
 
 Q. “You think that the effect of opium on the Europeans who take it is 
 “ worse than on the natives ? 
 
 A, “ I do not think so. These cases I speak of were cases of extreme abuse.” 
 
 See also 3387, 21,298, 19,363, 24,706. 
 
 Note V. V. to par. 38. — Quotations and References as to Prohi- 
 bition OF Opium, except for Medical Purposes. 
 
 Rai Lai Madhub Mookerjee, Bahadur, President of the Calcutta Medical 
 College, approves of the production of opium for medical use only : — 
 
 “ To that extent and no further.” 
 
 Dr. Nil Ratan Sircar thinks it would be desirable to prohibit the sale of 
 opium, except for medical purposes : — 
 
 “ So far as I can gauge public opinion, they (the people of India) will 
 “support it (prohibition).” 
 
 Dr. Isan Chandra Roy says : — 
 
 “ I am for limiting the use of opium strictly for medical purposes. Its use 
 “ as a narcotic indulgence should be prohibited by laws.” 
 
 “ And you believe that such a prohibition would be received with favour by 
 “ the people ? — Yes.” 
 
 Babu Bepin Behari Bose, M. A. , a barrister at Lucknow, is in favour of pro- 
 hibition, except for medical purposes, and says that such action would be sup- 
 ported by the general opinion of the country : — 
 
 “ The opinion of the country is very settled on this point — that opium eating 
 “ is not good at all.” 
 
 Pandit Gopi Nath, assistant manager of three newspapers, and secretary of 
 two bodies of orthodox Hindus, is in favour of prohibition except for medical 
 purposes, and thinks it would Ise generally approved : — 
 
 “ It is nonsense to think that because opium is prohibited there will be any 
 “ riots.” 
 
 Babu Ganga Prasad Varma, proprietor of two native newspapers at Luck- 
 pow, and a member of the Municipal Board, says: — 
 
 “It would be a blessing to my city if the Government stops- the sale of 
 
39 
 
 “ opium, and strictly orders that none but those who require opium for medical 
 “purposes should have it.” 
 
 “ I think the majority of the opium smokers themselves will agree with me.” 
 
 • Rai Goonabhiram Borooah, Bahadur, retired Extra Assistant Commissioner 
 of Assam, thinks it would be desirable to prohibit the use of opium except for 
 medical purposes 
 
 “ All but opium sellers and opium eaters will be in favour of it. Even they 
 “would like it because their children would be saved.” 
 
 Gobind Ram Chowdry, Tahsildar, Assam, says : — 
 
 “ I wish it could be prohibited except for medical purposes.” 
 
 “ The great majority, not being opium consumers, would certainly support 
 “ it. . . . There is nothing to fear from the natives of the country in 
 
 regard to prohibition.” 
 
 Mr. Kali Sankur Sukul, M.A., Professor in the City College, and Rector of 
 the City Collegiate School, Calcutta, says : — 
 
 “ The sale of opium, except for medical purposes, should be stopped.” 
 
 “ Undoubtedly public opinion would favour the total prohibition of opium, 
 “ except for medical purposes, especially if the country were assured that no 
 “other taxation would follow.” 
 
 See also 9932 - 3 . I 3 . 3 ^ 9 , iS.009-10, 15,626-9, 18,261-2, 27,843-4, 11,692-3, 
 10,504-5, 4583, 16,569-76, 4298, 8021-2, 8342, 18,033-36, 19,733, 24,301, 
 8646-51, 9053-4, 9467-8, 11,449, 23,457, 24,335-6, 26,518, 26,587, and nearly 
 a hundred others. 
 
 Note W. to par. 39 . — Further Evidence as to Opium Smoking. 
 
 Mr. G. M. Ogilvie, Second Financial Commissioner for the Punjab, said in 
 reference to smoking : — 
 
 “ This use of opium is generally reprobated. It is not practised by the 
 “ peasantry, and is, I believe, generally confined to the vicious classes of the 
 “population.” 
 
 He added an opinion that in consequence of the discontinuance in the 
 Punjab of licensing the sale of chandu and madak, the practice of smoking is 
 rapidly decreasing in that province. 
 
 Mr. T. Stoker, Commissioner of Excise for the North-West Provinces and 
 Oudh, says : — 
 
 “ I have nothing to say in favour of opium smoking. Speaking of these 
 “ provinces, I regard it as a low and vicious habit, practised, broadly speaking, 
 “ by low or by vicious people. It would be unreasonable to say that any 
 “physical or moral deterioration which may have been observed in opium 
 “ smokers is necessarily due altogether to that particular practice and not to 
 “ other demoralising habits and associations or physical infirmities. . . , 
 “ But in these parts people who pursue the habit do in my opinion often or 
 “ generally suffer from it or its surroundings. The policy of the Government 
 “ of the North-Western Provinces has always been directed to repress and 
 “check the practice and has been attended with success.” 
 
 Surgeon-Major T. R. Mulroney, M.D., civil surgeon at Amritsar, referring 
 to that district, says : — 
 
 “ The class of opium-smokers is very limited. Four years ago the opium- 
 “ smoking shops were closed by order of the Government, and since then 
 “ opium smoking has apparently decreased ; it is confined to a very few, 
 “generally a disreputable, debauched, and depraved lot.” 
 
 Numerous native witnesses, some holding important official positions, gave 
 
 14,525. 
 
 9139- 
 
 9140. 
 
 19.288. 
 
 19.289. 
 
 9330, 
 
 9331 - 
 
 15,698. 
 
 15,714. 
 
 9527- 
 
 15,945. 
 
40 
 
 similar evidence, particularly Mr. K. G. Gupta, Excise Commissioner of 
 Bengal, who said : — 
 
 “ The effects of chandu and madak smoking are, however, distinctly harm- 
 “ ful in the case of Indians, specially when they are unable to obtain nourish- 
 “ingfood. Opium eating is not looked down upon, nor does it cause loss of 
 “respectability. But smoking chandu or madak is regarded as a degrading 
 “ habit.” 
 
 “ . . . the chandu or madak smoker is usually known by his appear- 
 
 “ance, and he is also generally believed to have deteriorated in many respects.” 
 
 “ I think the effects of madak or chandu smoking in this country cannot well 
 “be concealed.” 
 
 Note X. to par. 48. — Opium Revenue. 
 
 According to the figures in App. VIII. the average of the net opium 
 revenue for the four years ending 1892-3 was Rx. 7,299,249. 
 
 Vol. II., p. 343. The Budget Estimate for 1893-4 was Rx. 5,967,104. 
 
 p. 67, Blue Book 92 of According to the “Financial Statement,” the Budget Estimate for 1894-5 
 '894- is ... ... ... ... ... ... Rx. 4,138,200 
 
 to which must be added the net revenue from excise, which 
 Vol. II., p. 343. for the average of the five years ending 1893-4 was ... Rx. 985,129 
 
 making a total of... ... ... ... ... Rx. 5)123,329 
 
 which taking the rupee at is. id. gives .1^2,775,136. 
 
 Note Y. to par. 32. — Medical Evidence against the New Theory 
 THAT Opium is a Prophylactic against Fever. 
 
 A new theory — never heard of, — 
 
 4317; 4710; 8824-36; 10,617; 10,684; 11,851-69; 15,868; 16,168; 
 16,665 ; 19,378-80; 24,173. 
 
 Not used or recommended, — 
 
 3619; 4070; 4174-6; 8828; 12,476; 12,585; 12,633-4; 12,695; 13)337 ; 
 16,876; 17,275-7; 17,508; 24,777. 
 
 Not prescribed, even by pro-opiumists, — 
 
 3574 ; 11,895-6 ; 16,879-81 ; 19,258 ; 19,407.; 21,459-60 ; 24,675 ; 25,383. 
 Prophylactic properties denied, — 
 
 4710; 5837 ; 16,167 ; 16,558; 16,902 ; 17,152; i7,772-6; 19,203 ; 25,308. 
 Not known or used by the natives as a preventive, — 
 
 4277-80; 5836; 17,173; 19,406; 24,177-8; 25,361; 25,727; 25,861; 
 25,957 ; 26,041. 
 
 Note Z. to par. 50. 
 
 Osgathorpe Hills, Sheffield, 
 
 Dear Lord Brassey, January 21, 1895. 
 
 I have carefully considered your letters of the 2nd and 7th instant, the 
 atter enclosing a copy of your letter to Sir James Lyall of the same date. 
 
 In the former of these letters you point out that if I am unable to agree with 
 you and the majority, it will be “ unprofitable to enter into a prolonged dis- 
 cussion,” and that it will become my duty to state my own views in a dissentient 
 report. You add that in the report which you will submit you “ do not sup- 
 pose that there will be found much room for amendment,” and that “ taking 
 this view ” you “ do not anticipate that our further deliberations round the 
 table need occupy many days.” 
 
 In your letter to Sir James Lyall you “ strongly insist that the completion 
 “ of our work has become of extreme urgency,” and you say that “ having 
 “ received two communications from the Secretary of State within the last few 
 “ days, I feel that my duty calls for some decided course of action. I do not 
 
 4975 - 
 
 4976. 
 
 4977 . 
 
 Vol. II., p. 343. 
 
41 
 
 believe that long discussion round the table will be necessary or desirable.” 
 * * * “I shall in any case relieve the Commission from further collective 
 
 “work on the 26th.” 
 
 Believing that full examination and consideration was the usual course, I 
 was prepared to give all the time needful for the purpose. But as the 
 majority of the Commission will probably be guided by your wishes in the 
 matter, that course appears to be precluded. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it would not be right for me to attempt to dis- 
 cuss a few statements or arguments here and there in the Majority Report ; 
 for were I to do so, it would convey the impression that I was satisfied 
 with whatever I did not challenge, and might be open to other objections. I 
 must therefore confine myself, as you suggest, to a statement of my own views, 
 some of which, I believe, are in accordance with those of Mr. Pease. 
 
 Entirely apart, however, from the considerations already referred to, I think 
 it right to point out that in your letter to Sir James Lyall, you advise “ personal 
 “ revision of the draft as now being circulated on the part of each member of 
 “the Commission,” adding that you would go “carefully through each revise 
 “and endeavour to incorporate all suggestions which do not conflict with the 
 “ main conclusions.” 
 
 Four new portions or chapters, apparently intended to form part of the 
 report, have been circulated within the last few days ; a further chapter has 
 come to hand this morning, and at least three or four portions or chapters have 
 yet to be supplied. 
 
 As we are to meet the day after to-morrow, it is impossible that your wish 
 as to revision by each member, and the incorporation of suggestions, can now 
 be carried out ; and it cannot be right or proper that the Commission should 
 adopt, as its own, any chapters or documents which its members have not had 
 adequate means and opportunity to consider and approve. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Dear Lord Brassey, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Herny J. Wilson. 
 
 The Right Hon. Lord Brassey, K.C.B., 
 
 Chairman Royal Commission on Opium. 
 
 MEMORANDUM 
 
 OAT THE ATTITUDE OF THE AUTHORITIES 
 IN INDIA. 
 
 I. While in India I was obliged to express disapproval of the 
 action of the Government of India, and of various officials, in 
 relation to the Commission. As the after proceedings did not 
 remove but strengthened this objection, it is due to the Com- 
 mission and myself to place the main grounds of this objection on 
 record. 
 
 In doing so I readily acknowledge the difficult position of the 
 Indian authorities. Rightly or wrongly they appeared to hold in 
 the main that the good government of India is bound up with the 
 Opium Revenue. The difficulties arose from assuming an im- 
 
42 
 
 Vol. V., p. 368. 
 
 partiality on the part of the Indian authorities which could not be, 
 and was not, continuously enforced. 
 
 2. Some of the circumstances to which I am about to refer 
 were stated in a letter addressed by me to Lord Brassey while we 
 were in India, but the consideration given to them appeared to 
 me inadequate. I have here omitted some and added others. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 362. 
 
 3. On the i8th November, 1893, it transpired that a telegram 
 had been sent from the Government of India to the Secretary of 
 State on the 15th August, containing the following passage : — 
 “ We shall be prepared to suggest non-official witnesses, who will 
 “ give independent evidence, but we cannot undertake to specially 
 " search for witnesses who will give evidence against opium. We 
 “presume this will be done by the Anti-Opium Society.” As- 
 anti-opium evidence was easily available, without any special 
 search, this official statement seemed to show that the authorities 
 were taking up a partisan attitude. 
 
 4. Two days later a letter from Lord Lansdowne, then Viceroy 
 of India, to Lord Brassey, Chairman of the Commission, was 
 passed round to the members for perusal. It contained a 
 statement in favour of the existing opium system, and against 
 interference with that system as likely to lead to serious trouble. 
 This appeared to me a departure from the judicial attitude which 
 might have been expected from Her Majesty’s Representative. 
 
 5. The Government of Madras was not allowed to present its 
 own case to the Commission, but was instructed by the Government 
 
 Voi. V., p. 368andp. 371. of India (13th December, 1893) to send to Calcutta abstracts of 
 
 Vol. V., p. 373. 
 
 evidence of proposed witnesses. A letter of similar purport was 
 addressed on the same day to the Resident at Hyderabad with 
 regard to the evidence of other witnesses. Similar instructions 
 were given to the Government of the North-West Provinces. I 
 submit that this requirement was distinctly detrimental to the free 
 expression of opinion and unprecedented in the history of Royal 
 Commissions. 
 
 Vol. V., p. 370. 
 
 6. An official letter was sent [30th December, 1893] from the 
 Government of the North-West Provinces and Oudh, to all 
 Commissioners of Divisions, and other officials in these provinces, 
 calling attention to the fact that some officials had “communicated 
 “ direct with the Secretary of the Commission, submitting to that 
 “officer abstracts of the evidence,” and pointing out “that there 
 “ is no authority for this procedure, and .... that all 
 “ communications should, be addressed to this Government.” 
 Here, again, the authorities seemed determined that no evidence 
 should be submitted to the Commission which had not been 
 subjected to official scrutiny in high quarters. Moreover, this 
 circular was not communicated to officials alone, but even to non- 
 official persons who were intending, and were considered qualified, 
 to give evidence on the subject of the inquiry. 
 
43 
 
 7 - At Benares, Mr. Isan Chandra Roy, M.B., stated that he had - '3.166- 
 been officially invited to be a witness and to furnish an abstract of 
 his intended evidence. After he forwarded his statement, he was 
 informed by official letter, in which no reason was assigned, that 
 his evidence was not required. The fact that he entertained anti- 
 opium opinions was subsequently proved by his volunteered 
 evidence before the Commission. Other proposed witnesses 
 at Benares were similarly treated. 
 
 8. At Bankipur, a list of witnesses intended to be called 
 on the 3rd January, was supplied to me. It included 
 the name of Rai Bahadur Jai Prakash Lai, C.I.E., Dewan 
 of Dumraon. This gentleman represents a large estate in 
 which poppy is extensively cultivated. He was not called. 
 Information from two sources led me to believe that his evidence 
 would not have been altogether favourable to the Government. 
 
 The official version of this circumstance will be found in Vol. V., 
 p. 355, paragraphs 4 to 10, and as I have commented on it in the 
 Appendix to my dissent from the Report of the majority of the 
 Commission, I will only add a strong expression of my opinion 
 that as the Dewan was not called on the 3rd January, the Com- 
 mission ought to have been informed that he was present on the 
 6th January. The withholding of that information was not 
 creditable to those concerned. 
 
 9. At Lucknow 24 witnesses were called at the instance of the 
 Government, 23 of whom gave evidence generally favourable to 
 the Government case. Thinking that a different kind of evidence 
 might have been omitted, Mr. R. M. Dane, who accompanied the 
 Commission to manage the case on behalf of the Government of 
 India, was, at my request, asked by Lord Brassey to put in the 
 list of persons who had been asked by the authorities to give 
 evidence at Lucknow, together with such abstracts of their 
 evidence as had not already been produced. I thought the 
 Commission was entitled to know the method that had been 
 followed in making the selection of witnesses, and that the 
 original list of witnesses, with the marks and notes upon it, would 
 throw light on the subject. The list was not produced. It was 
 stated that the names of Lucknow witnesses were included in the 
 general list of all the witnesses for the North-West Provinces and 
 Oudh ; but that circumstance seems quite irrelevant, and an 
 altogether insufficient reason. However, the names of 1 7 rejected 
 witnesses extracted from the list were supplied, together with the 
 abstracts of evidence of 16, four of whom seem to entertain anti- 
 opium views, and four others make some strong observations 
 against the use of opium. I would draw particular attention to 
 the fact that two of these gentlemen, namely, Mr. P. Wyndham, 
 
 C.S., Assistant Commissioner and Excise Officer, Sultanpur, and 
 Mirza Muhammad Beg, Deputy Collector of Basti, make the 
 
44 
 
 Vol. IV., p. 373. 
 
 Vol. III., pp. 10, 
 
 Vol IV., p. 384. 
 
 Vol. IV., Pt 385. 
 
 Vol. IV., p. 386. 
 
 important statement that in their opinion revenue and rents 
 derived from land would not be sensibly affected by the prohibi-' 
 tion of poppy cultivation. 
 
 10. At Bombay another instance of the anxiety of the authori- 
 ties to prevent the free communication of information on the 
 opium question was brought to light by the Rev. A. W. Prautch., 
 An official circular had been issued desiring that information 
 applied for by Mr. Ernest Hart, Chairman of the British Medical 
 Association, should not be replied to, on the ground that “to 
 reply to such applications might prove embarrassing.” 
 
 11. I learned at Bankipur that the police at Gya had been 
 searching out the movements of two of my friends and myself for 
 the purpose of ascertaining with what persons we had had com- 
 munication. As this matter formed the subject of protest on my 
 
 24, 25. part before the Commission, I need only refer to the Minutes of 
 Evidence. I do not know whether on any other occasion we 
 were similarly tracked. 
 
 12. Perhaps the most notable instance of the Government 
 method of preparing for the fair and honest inquiry expected in 
 England will be found in the correspondence relating to the 
 Native States of Rajputana. On the 9th September, 1893, the 
 Government of India directed the agent of the Governor-General 
 in Rajputana to invite the Durbars of the Native States to appoint 
 witnesses to give evidence before the Commission, and also to 
 nominate a British officer to give evidence as to those States. 
 An abstract of his evidence was, as in other cases, to be for- 
 warded to the Government of India. Accordingly, on the 22nd 
 September, the agent. Col. G. H. Trevor, sent out a circular “to 
 all political officers in Rajputana,” desiring that the Durbars 
 [Courts] of the Native States should be invited to nominate 
 witnesses, and requesting the British officers addressed to furnish 
 information and statistics. On the sth October Lieut.-Colonei 
 Abbott was appointed to give evidence himself, as well as to pro- 
 duce the witnesses, and arrange the evidence from the Native 
 States — the request for a draft of his evidence being again 
 repeated by the Government of India. Colonel Abbott then 
 prepared a note on opium, which will repay careful perusal. He 
 indicated the principal heads of evidence, and, among other 
 things, suggested “that some stalwart Sondhia, Mewati, and 
 “ Rajput lumberdars and patels should be among the witnesses 
 “ selected.” He made numerous other suggestions as to matters 
 of detail entirely in favour of the existing state of things, and 
 without any provision for ascertaining and proving any matters of 
 an adverse character, either of fact or of opinion. He advised 
 that the witnesses “ should reach Ajmere a week in advance ” of 
 the Commission, and supplied the reason, namely, “ that I may 
 “ become acquainted with all, and see if each one understands on 
 
45 
 
 “ what points he is required to give evidence.” He also made 
 careful suggestions for preparing ample claims for compensation. 
 
 On the 29th November “ all political officers ” were again 
 addressed on the subject as follows: — “Mr. R. M. Dane, C.S., Voi. iv., p. 387. 
 “ the officer selected by the Government of India to advise local 
 “ Administrations in the matter of preparing for the inquiry to be 
 “ held by the Opium Commission, has had an opportunity of 
 “ seeing the previous correspondence on that subject in this 
 “ office, and has pointed out that the great importance of the 
 “ inquiry . . . has apparently not been fully appreciated 
 
 “ . . . that Rajputana is vitally interested in the inquiry,” 
 
 and that “ there should be no lack of evidence, both official and 
 “ non-official, to prove before the Commission the full extent of 
 “ their rights and interests in opium.” The suggestion was 
 repeated that witnesses were, if practicable, to be “ready in 
 “ Ajmere about a week in advance of the Commission’s arrival 
 “ there.” Taken altogether, this correspondence is, in my 
 opinion, as one-sided as the instructions in a brief in a partisan 
 cause, and the evidence, which in accordance with these sugges- 
 tions, was prepared and put before the Commission at Ajmere, 
 was of an unusually partial and one-sided character. 
 
 13. The instances I have given as to the action of the authori- 
 ties appear to me inconsistent with any real desire on their part 
 that the whole of the facts should come in a perfectly unbiassed 
 manner before the world. Whatever the Government of India 
 intended by their determination not to seek for evidence of an 
 anti-opium character, its action was likely to be understood, and “ 
 was undoubtedly understood, to mean that pro-opium evidence 
 was to be sought for, and anti-opium evidence was not. 
 
 14. Lord Brassey himself had early recognised the true position 
 of the Government, as is clear from his statement to Mr. 
 
 Alexander, the Secretary of the Anti-Opium Society, at the close 
 
 of his evidence before the Commission : — “ We all appreciate that q. 2588. 
 
 “ in the encounter in which you are engaged with the Government 
 “ of India upon its own ground you are placed in circumstances of 
 “ no ordinary difficulty.” 
 
 15. My contention on this subject is, that having regard to the 
 nature of British authority in India, and to the moral timidity of 
 many residents in India, both Native and European, it was the 
 duty of the Government, in the presentation of evidence to be 
 adduced before the Commission, to have publicly assured the 
 people generally that no harm would come to them by giving free 
 expression to their views, however opposed such views might be 
 to the interests of the Revenue, or the known predilection of 
 English officials. In fact it should have given practical effect to 
 Mr. Westland’s message read by the Chairman at the commence- 
 ment of the proceedings on the 27th December : — “ The Govern- Voi. ii„ p. 274, 
 
46 
 
 “ merit, however, will not reply to such evidence [that is anti-opium 
 “ evidence] as a defendant, but will merely pursue their course of 
 “ enabling the Commission to fully ascertain the actual facts.” 
 
 1 6. In view of the various incidents which came to my 
 knowledge, and some of which are here set forth, I am driven to 
 the conclusion that the authorities in India have not pursued 
 their declared “ course of enabling the Commission to fully 
 “ ascertain the actual facts.” 
 
 HENRY J. WILSON. 
 
 A FURTHER PROTEST. 
 
 The following correspondence is printed at the end of Vol. VII. of the 
 Commission’s Proceedings, after the Index and glossary of Indian terms, as 
 Appendix H. , with the note : — 
 
 “ This correspondence is added to the proceedings in compliance with the 
 “ Chairman’s undertaking expressed in the last paragraph of his letter of the 
 “ loth December.” 
 
 Osgathorpe Hills, Sheffield, 
 
 December 5th, 1894. 
 
 Dear Lord Brassey, 
 
 I am sorry that it should be needful for me to complain in 
 reference to certain matters connected with the Commission. 
 
 I. I am informed by Mr. Baines that no minutes of the pro- 
 ceedings of the Commission have been kept, or, at any rate, are 
 now available. This, I understand, is entirely contrary to the 
 usual practice. 
 
 H. It appears to me that our Indian colleagues have not been 
 treated with the consideration to which they were entitled in 
 reference to their coming to this country for the purpose of taking 
 part in our deliberations on the Report. As regards the Maharaja 
 of Darbhanga, it was, I am aware, generally understood that he 
 was not willing to undertake the journey, but that general under- 
 standing was no reason why he should not have been formally and 
 courteously invited. The case of Mr. Haridas is different. He 
 appeared to be desirous of coming ; and had he been formally and 
 courteously invited at the proper time, before he had resumed his 
 duties as Dewan of Junagarh, there is every reason to believe that 
 he would have been glad to accept the invitation ; in fact, he 
 distinctly stated that your Lordship told him you would inform 
 him in June as to whether his presence would be required in 
 England, and had he been so then informed he would doubtless 
 have been able to avoid taking up his new appointment in August 
 last. 
 
 HI. It appears that when at last, in consequence of my repre- 
 sentations, Mr. Haridas was invited to come to this country, the 
 communication was not sent direct to him, but through the India 
 
47 
 
 Office, and then successively through the Government of India and 
 the Government of Bombay. This was, I submit, a departure from 
 the usual practice of Royal Commissions, and distinctly derogatory 
 to the position of such a Commission and of a Royal Com- 
 missioner. Mr. Haridas has thus been treated as though he were 
 merely an official under the Indian Government, to be communi- 
 cated with through the usual system of official routine. 
 
 IV. It appears further that our Indian colleagues have not been 
 promptly furnished with the sections of the Draft Report. Four 
 parts were received by me up to the 2nd of August, and might 
 have been in their hands in the third week of the month, whereas 
 Mr. Haridas, when he wrote on the 9th October, had not received 
 any part. 
 
 V. The Secretary of the Commission sent for my perusal a letter 
 from Mr. Fanshawe addressed to the Chairman, proposing that 
 the correspondence between the Indian Government, the Com- 
 mission, and myself in reference to the action of the authorities 
 should be published in the Appendix. I returned to the Secretary 
 the letter of Mr. Fanshawe, saying that I did not object to such 
 publication, but that the last letter of the series, namely, that dated 
 the 3rd February, 1894, should have a note appended to it indi- 
 cating that it had not been communicated to me for three months 
 after the date it bore. My request has not been complied with, 
 and our Secretary informs me that it was ignored by him on his 
 own responsibility. I submit that in so acting he exceeded the 
 limits of his authority. 
 
 I have to request that you will be so good as to place this letter 
 before the Commission at a suitable but early part of the meeting 
 on the 7 th instant. 
 
 I remain, 
 
 Dear Lord Brassey, 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Henry J. Wilson. - 
 
 The Right Honourable Lord Brassey, K.C.B. 
 
 Normanhurst Court, Battle, 
 
 loth December, 1894. 
 
 My Dear Wilson, — 
 
 I much regret that your letter of December 5th, but which 
 bears on the envelope the London postmark of December 7th, did 
 not reach me in time for discussion at the last meeting of the Com- 
 mission. As to the keeping of minutes, there had been no 
 meetings of the Commission since we separated at Bombay. A 
 shorthand writer has been present at every meeting, and his notes 
 have been printed. As regards the invitations to our- Indian 
 colleagues, I did not think it desirable to invite them to England 
 
48 
 
 until the Report was ready for discussion. You know the delays, 
 and the causes of the delay. As soon as I knew the approximate 
 date when we should be ready for a conference, I informed the 
 India Office. I cannot think that our Indian colleagues would 
 themselves take exception to the mode in which they have been 
 treated. Nothing could have been more cordial than our relations 
 in India from the beginning to the end. I endeavoured to show 
 them in every way the same friendly regard and the same defer- 
 ence to any suggestions or opinions which they advanced, which I 
 have always desired to show to my English colleagues. 
 
 I will forward your letter to Mr. Fanshawe and Mr. Baines for 
 any explanations. The correspondence can be published with the 
 minutes of our proceedings. Yours sincerely, 
 
 Brassey. 
 
 Forwarded to Mr. Fanshawe with Mr. Wilson’s letter, in compliance with 
 the Chairman’s concluding paragraph. 
 
 J. A. Baines. 
 
 14th December, 1894. Secretary. 
 
 Endorsement hy Mr. Fanshawe ; — 
 
 I have read and now return this correspondence, which I cannot help think- 
 ing has been sent to me under some misapprehension. There is nothing, so 
 far as I can see, in Mr. Wilson’s letter of the Sth instant on which I am called 
 upon to offer any remarks. 
 
 14th December, 1894. A. U. Fanshawe. 
 
 Endorsement hy the Secretary : — 
 
 As regards the last paragraph of Mr. Wilson’s letter, I have to explain that, 
 in a note received from him dated the 24th of July, he wrote — “ If you 
 “are going to have the correspondence in question put in type, I think 
 “ there ought to be an endorsement to the effect that Mr. Hewett’s letter to the 
 “ Government of India, Camp Ajmere, 3rd February, 1894, was not communi- 
 “cated to me until the ist of May, 1894 — three months after date. I shall, 
 “of course, have something to say on the whole subject hereafter.” 
 
 Mr. Wilson did not inform me that he was kept in ignorance of the fact 
 that such a reply had been sent or of the purport of its contents. The records 
 are the common property of the Commission, accessible to every member. It 
 is neither usual nor necessary, therefore, to formally communicate correspon- 
 dence to individual members, who have the official copy available for reference. 
 Mr. Wilson was present with the Commission up to the 20th February, and to 
 have added a note to the effect he suggested involves the implication that he 
 was debarred from access to the records and from due knowledge of what 
 action his colleagues had taken in a matter in which he was materially in- 
 terested. In omitting the endorsement, therefore, I considered it superfluous to 
 refer to the Chairman. The only member of the Commission to whom I 
 informally showed the proposal agreed with my view as to the misapprehension 
 to which such a note would give rise. 
 
 J. A. Baines, 
 
 Secretary. 
 
 Further endorsement : — 
 
 This correspondence was placed by the Secretary for disposal at the meetings 
 of the 23rd, 24th, and 25th January, but other work blocked the way. 
 
 J. A. Baines. 
 
RECENT PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE 
 SUPPRESSION OF THE OPIUM TRAOE. 
 
 THE OPIUM HABIT IN THE EAST : A Study of the Evidence given to the 
 Royal Commission on Opium, 1893-4. % Joshua Rowntree. Price One 
 
 Shilling in Paper Wrappers ; Cloth Boards is. 6d. 
 
 LOTUS-EATING AND OPIUM-EATING: A Reply to Sir Lepel Griffin. By Joseph 
 G. Alexander, LL.B., Hon. Sec. of the Society. Reprinted from the Contemporary 
 Review. Price One Penny. 
 
 THE DEBATE ON THE OPIUM QUESTION : June 30th, 1893, reprinted from the 
 Official Parliamentary Report. Price One Shilling. 
 
 THE POPPY HARVEST. A Study in Anglo-Indian Ethics. By the Rev. T. G. Selby 
 (12 years Missionary in China). With 12 Coloured Illustrations, from Chinese Cartoons. 
 Price Sixpence. 
 
 THE FRIEND OF CHINA. The Organ of the Society. Quarterly. Price Threepence. 
 Sent free to all annual subscribers of 2s. 6d. and upwards. 
 
 NEW SERIES OF ANTI-OPIUM TRACTS. 
 
 4pp. Tracts, 2s. per 100. 
 
 No. 8.— China’s Curse and Britain’s Guilt. By the Rev. Griffith John, D.D., of Hankow. 
 No. 14. — England’s Opium Policy. Weighty opinions on the subject. 
 
 No. 15. — The Argument from the Sikhs. By Joshua Rowntree. Illustrated. 
 
 No. 16. — What Chinese Statesmen say. By Joseph G. Alexander, LL.B. 
 
 LEAFLET SERIES. 
 
 IS. per 100. 
 
 No. 6. — A Chinaman on the Opium Trade. A speech delivered at Melbourne by Mr. Cheok 
 PI oNG Cheong. 
 
 No. 7. — The Archbishop of Dublin on the Opium Trade. 
 
 No. 8. — An Opium Experience. Reprinted from the Spectator. 
 
 HANDBILL SERIES. 
 
 6d. per 100, 4s. per 1,000. 
 
 ( Printed on one side o)ily, the other side being inteoided for notices of meetings.) 
 
 No. I. — Reasons why every Christian should protest against the OpiumTrade. 
 
 No. 3. —Archdeacon Wolfe’s Appeal to British Christians. Reprinted from the Church 
 Missionary Intelligencer, Feb., 1893. 
 
 “ MISSIONARY TESTIMONIES ” SERIES (Leaflet). 
 
 6d. per 100, 4s. per 1,000. 
 
 No. I. — By the Ven. Archdeacon Moule, Church Missionary Society. 
 
 No. 6. — By the Rev. J. S. and Mrs. Adams, American Baptist Mission. 
 
 JUVENILE. 
 
 One Halfpenny, or 3s. 6d. per 100. 
 
 Poppies : A talk with English Boys and Girls about Opium. By a Lady. Twelve pages. 
 Three full-page illustrations. 
 
 May be obtained through any Bookseller ; of P. S. King & Son, Parliamentary Booksellers, 12, 
 King Street, Westminster, S.W. ; or from the Secretary, Finsbury House, Blomfield Street, 
 London, F.C. 
 
 The following may also be obtained at the Society’s office : — 
 
 Britain’s Opium Harvest. A monthly periodical, published by the Women’s Anti-Opium 
 Urgency Committee. Price is. 6d. per annum, post free. 
 
Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Ipreei&ent— SIR Joseph whitwell pease, bart, m.p. 
 IDfcesipresi&ents : 
 
 The Most Rev. Lord Plunket, Archbishop 
 OF Dublin. 
 
 The Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop op Liverpool. 
 The Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of Ripon. 
 
 The Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of Salisbury. 
 The Rt. Rev. the Lord Bishop of Carlisle. 
 The Lord Polwarth. 
 
 The Lord Overtoun. 
 
 Gen. Sir Arthur Cotton, R.E., K.C.S.I. 
 
 The Rev. Professor Legge, D.D. 
 
 D.avid M'L.aren, Esq , J.P. 
 
 H. W. Maynard, Esq. 
 
 The Rev. F. B. Meyer, B.A. 
 
 The Rt. Rev. G. E. Moule, D.D., Bishop of 
 Mid-China. 
 
 The Rev. W- F- Moulton. D.D. 
 
 Sir Benjamin W. Richardson, Bart., M.D., 
 F.R.S. 
 
 Sir Mark J. Stewart. Bart., M.P. 
 
 The Rev. Canon Wilberforce, M.A. 
 
 3££ccuttve 
 
 Charles F. Harford-Battersby, Esq., M.D.* 
 Alfred H. Baynes, Esq., F.R.G.S.f 
 Morton P. Betts, Esq. 
 
 Sir Matthew Dodsworth, Bart. 
 
 Henry Gurney, Esq. 
 
 T HOMAS H.anbury, Esq. 
 
 John Hilton, Esq. 
 
 Rev. Nicholas Hurry.J 
 John Molineux, Esq., C.B.§ 
 
 Commtttce : 
 
 Ven. Archdeacon Moule, B.D, 
 
 Rev. George Piercy. 
 
 Brigade-Surgeon Robert Pringle, M.D. 
 Joshua Rowntree, Esq. 
 
 Fred. Sessions, Esq., F.R.G.S.** 
 
 Samuel South.all, Esq. 
 
 Arthur C. Sterry, Esq. 
 
 Lieut.-Gen. Tremenheere, C.B. 
 
 Henry Wigham, Esq. 
 
 Representing the 
 
 •Church Missionary Society. fBaptist Missionary Society. JLondon Missionary Society. 
 IWesleyan Missionary Society. *®Friends' Foreign Mission Association. 
 
 Cbairnian— Donald Matheson, Esq. 
 
 IbOUOrars SCCfCtavg — Joseph G. Alexander, LLB. 
 ®rgant3lng Secretari?— Rev. G. a. Wilson, m.a. 
 
 (Seneral Council 
 
 Arthur Albright, Esq. 
 
 Wm. S. Allen, Esq. 
 
 Rev. Joseph Angus, D.D. 
 
 W. H. Archdale, Esq. 
 
 J. Gurney B.arclay, Esq. 
 
 Dr. T. J. Barnardo. 
 
 John Barran, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Rev. G. S. Barrett, D.D. 
 
 Rev. H. J. Berguer. 
 
 W. Bickford-Smith, Esq. 
 
 J. Bevan Braithwaite, Esq. 
 
 H. Broadhurst, Esq. 
 
 Rev. Henderson Burnside. 
 
 Thomas Burt, Esq., M.P. 
 
 W. S. Caine, Esq , M.P. 
 
 Sir Charles Cameron, Bart., M.D., LL'.D., M.P. 
 
 Sir W. T. Charley, Q.C., D.C.L. 
 
 Rev. Canon Christopher, M.A. 
 
 James Clark, Esq. 
 
 William S. Clark, Esq. 
 
 F. C. Clayton, Esq. 
 
 J. J. CoLMAN, Esq., M.P. 
 
 James Cowan, Esq. 
 
 Very Rev. Dean CowiE, D.D. 
 
 Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies, M.A. 
 
 Rev. Principal Gethin Davifs, D.D. 
 
 Very Rev. Dean Dickinson, M.A., D.D. 
 
 Rev. Piincipal Edwards, D.D. 
 
 J. Passmore Edwards, Esq. 
 
 Rev. C. C. Fenn, M.A. 
 
 Robert Ferguson, Esq., J.P. 
 
 W. Fowler. Esq. 
 
 Frederick H. Fox, Esq. 
 
 Lewis Fry, Esq. 
 
 Sir Theodore Fry, Bart., M.P. 
 
 Rev. J. P. Gledstone. 
 
 Rev. Benumin Gregory, D.D. 
 
 Rev. H. Gratt.an Guinness, D.D, 
 
 Major-Gen. F, T. Haig, 
 
 Rev. D. B. Hankin. 
 
 William Harvey, Esq. 
 
 Sir Isaac Holden, Bart., M.P. 
 
 Alfred Howell, Esq. 
 
 Rev. Canon H. Scott Holl.and, M.A. 
 
 Isaac Hoyle, Esq. 
 
 JSanlterB— Messrs. Barclay, Bevan, 
 
 His Honour Judge Hughes, Q.C., F.S.A. 
 Rev. Samuel Hulme. 
 
 Rev. James Hunter, B.D. 
 
 Alfred Illingworth, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Rev. E. E. Jenkins, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Rev. Griffith John, D.D. 
 
 Sir J. H. Kennaway, Bart., M.P. 
 
 Sir Thomas Lea, Bart., M.P. 
 
 Wm. Lockhart, Esq., F.R.C.S., F.R.G.S. 
 Alex. McArthur, Esq. 
 
 Rev. R. Macbeth. 
 
 JusTDJ McCarthy, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Rev. Alex. Maclaren, D.D. 
 
 James E. M.ithieson, Esq., J.P. 
 
 W. C. Maughan, Esq., J.P. 
 
 Charles H. Meldon, Esq.,Q.C., LL.D. 
 Rev. H. C. Milw.ard, M.A. 
 
 W. Morgan, Esq. 
 
 Rt. Hon. Arnold Morley, M.P. 
 
 Rev. Handley C. G. Moule. M.A. 
 
 Rev. Gavin S. Muir, M.A. 
 
 Major-General W. Hatt Noble. 
 
 The Lord Northbourne. 
 
 Francis Parry, Esq., F.R.G.S. 
 
 R. W. Perks, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Rev. W . T. Radcliffe. 
 
 J. James Ridge, Esq., M.D. 
 
 Thomson Sharp, Esq. 
 
 Rev. H. C. Squires, M.A. 
 
 Rev. W. M. Statham. 
 
 Rev. Canon Stowell, M.A. 
 
 Joseph Sturge, Esq. 
 
 Rev. R. Wardlaw Thompson. 
 
 Joseph Thomson, Esq., F.R.G.S. 
 
 Rev. J. F. B. Tinling, B.A. 
 
 Rev. F. Storrs Turner, B.A. 
 
 E. B. Underhill, Esq. LL.D. 
 
 S. D. Waddy, Esq., Q.C. 
 
 Alfred Webb, Esq., M.P. 
 
 Rev. Prebendary Webb-Peploe, M.A. 
 
 Sir William Wedderburn, Bart., M.P. 
 Rev. P. H. WiCKSTEED, M.A. 
 
 John Wilson, Esq., M.P. (Govan). 
 
 Rev. J. H. Wilson, D.D. 
 
 Ransom, Bouverif, & Co., Limited. 
 ©tOeC— Finsbury House, Blomfield Street, London, E.C. 
 
 Contributions in aid of the Society’s operations will be thankfully received by 
 the Hon. Secretary at the Office. Cheques should be crossed Barclay & Co.