SURVEY OF SMOKING OPIUM CONDITIONS 
 
 IN THE FAR EAST 
 
 A Report to the Executive Board of the 
 Foreign Policy Association 
 (March, 1927 ) 
 
 hy 
 
 HERBERT L. MAY 
 
 
 Opium Research Committee 
 of the 
 
 Foreign Policy Association 
 
 NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS 
 
 Eighteen East Forty-First Street 
 New York City 
 
Trinted 
 
 August, 1927 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 T he Executive Board of the Foreign Policy 
 Association presents a survey of smoking opium 
 conditions in the Far East submitted by Mr. 
 Herbert L. May as a result of his visit to the countries 
 concerned. Mr. May, before visiting the Orient, 
 studied carefully the literature on the subject, and 
 consulted with persons qualified to advise him, both 
 in the United States and in Europe, so that he was 
 well informed on the subject before he went to the 
 East. 
 
 Without associating itself in the opinions ex- 
 pressed, for which Mr. May is solely responsible, 
 the Board believes that the survey should be brought 
 to the attention of persons interested in the opium 
 question for their information. It is being dis- 
 tributed among such persons and is not being pub- 
 lished as a report of the Foreign Policy Association. 
 The Board submits the survey as one made by an 
 observer in whose honesty of purpose and care in 
 observation it has absolute confidence. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. page 
 
 Scope and Method of Investigation 5 
 
 Statement of the Smoking Opium Problem and Con- 
 clusions 6 
 
 “Drug” Control before Further Smoking Restrictions...... 7 
 
 Smuggling the Chief Difficulty in Control 8 
 
 Limitation of Production 8 
 
 Methods of Control: Government Monopoly Now, Pro- 
 hibition Later 9 
 
 Relative Importance of the Opium Smoking Problem 13 
 
 The International Situation and the United States 14 
 
 PART 11. 
 
 Needs for Further Study 15 
 
 Unreliability of Testimony 18 
 
 Education and Propaganda 19 
 
 Public Opinion 19 
 
 ANNEXES : 
 
 I, Detailed Report of the Far Eastern Investigation 
 
 on Smoking Opium 21 
 
 11. Statistics Furnished by the Bureau of Customs and 
 the Constabulary of the Philippines and the 
 Police Department of Manila 44 
 
 III. Documents Obtained in Canton, China 46 
 
 1. Anti-Opium Regulations (Canton) 
 
 2. Rules for Applying for Smoking Licenses (Can- 
 ton) 
 
 IV. Hongkong — Report of the Committee Appointed by 
 H. E. the Governor to Consider the Colony’s 
 Position with Regard to the Obligations In- 
 curred under the International Opium Conven- 
 
 tion, 1912. (Excerpts from this report) 49 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 54 
 
SURVEY OF SMOKING OPIUM CONDITIONS 
 IN THE FAR EAST 
 
 A Report to the Executive Board of the Foreign Policy Association 
 
 PART I. 
 
 I T IS difficult to draft a report on “Opium” that will be sufficiently 
 technical for the expert and at the same time simple enough for the 
 ordinary reader. Moreover, there are, in this highly controversial 
 problem, so few admitted facts, or indeed so few facts of any kind as 
 distinguished from opinions, that the form of a legal brief is impracticable. 
 Again, to burden the report with a narrative of the observations on a 
 tour of the Far East would be to lose the thread of argument. Accord- 
 ingly, the form best adapted to this purpose is to embody in the report 
 proper merely the conclusions and a brief resume of the reasons therefor, 
 relegating all details to a series of annexes. 
 
 A general knowledge of the opium problem as it existed in 1926 is 
 presupposed on the part of the reader. Those persons who wish more 
 details of conditions in, for example, the Philippines, China, the Nether- 
 lands East Indies, British Malaya and Hongkong are referred to 
 Annex I of this report. 
 
 Scope and Method of Investigation 
 
 The scope of this study has been an unprejudiced and dispassionate 
 investigation of conditions in those parts of the world where the question 
 of the control of opium smoking is most pressing, an analysis of oft 
 repeated statements which seem of doubtful validity, of the sources of 
 information, the factors influencing progress, the various methods of 
 government control, and the attitude of governments toward the problem. 
 The primary purpose has been to evaluate international policies ; the 
 secondary to suggest paths along which a more complete knowledge of 
 the subject may be attained, so that future action may be based upon in- 
 formation and less upon theory, rhetoric and emotion. About a year was 
 devoted to this study; half of the time on books and documents, and the 
 other half on visits to some of the capitals of Europe and America, the 
 Secretariat of the League of Nations and the sessions of the Assembly in 
 Geneva, and then to the large centers of India, Ceylon, Federated Malay 
 States, Straits Settlements, Netherlands East Indies, Philippines, Hong- 
 kong, China and Japan. 
 
 There are few real facts in the problem to work from. We know that 
 in various parts of the world certain varieties of plants grow whose 
 products have a beneficial effect in the treatment of disease and a vicious 
 
 5 
 
effect if used for self-indulgence; beyond this point we get into the realm 
 of statistics which are for the most part unreliable, and opinion which is 
 meaningless without interpretation. It was my custom in each country 
 to interview government officials, churchmen or missionaries, educators, 
 business men, natives and physicians. In many places I talked to em- 
 ployers of native labor, sea captains, excise commissioners, army officers. 
 League of Nations representatives, consuls, police, secret service agents, 
 editors, newspaper correspondents and bankers. Only sufficient time 
 was spent to procure a cross section of this opinion, to appraise it, and 
 observe the working of the methods of control. The results as embodied 
 in this report, therefore, are of value only to the extent that the writer 
 is a competent appraiser of opinion and is capable of a judicial approach. 
 
 Accordingly, the personal equation must be taken into acount; but it 
 should be explained that where I give an opinion it is not based upon pure 
 rationalization but upon extensive reading and a consideration of the 
 opinions of persons, in the Far East and elsewhere, who are competent 
 to form an intelligent judgment. 
 
 There is no satisfactory terminology in the documentary study of habit- 
 forming drugs. Unfortunately “opium” is commonly used as a broad 
 term to include every variety of habit-forming drug, thus diverting at- 
 tention from such as cocaine and hashish. In this report, in order not to 
 confuse the reader accustomed to the common terminology, and for want 
 of a better one, I shall use the word “opium” (with quotation marks) in 
 its broad sense indicated above; opium (without quotation marks) as 
 meaning the gum opium from the poppy ; and “manufactured drugs” or 
 “drugs” (with quotation marks) to include all classes of habit-forming 
 drugs produced by chemists in a laboratory, whether from the poppy or 
 from the other plants mentioned in the Hague Treaty of 1912. Refer- 
 ences to raw opium for eating and prepared opium for smoking will be 
 so noted. 
 
 Statement of the Smoking Opium Problem and Conclusions 
 
 Existing treaties provide for the “gradual and effective suppression” 
 of opium smoking; that is, for eventual prohibition. Why not immediate 
 prohibition? Two factors prevent this, in my opinion. 
 
 (1) The possible “drug” menace. The restricted smoker may turn to 
 “drugs”; hence, prohibition of smoking must imply adequate “drug” 
 control. 
 
 (2) The smuggling factor. Smuggling is the chief obstacle to any 
 form of government control of smoking, but particularly to prohibition, 
 because smuggling increases as barriers are raised against the commodity; 
 prohibition where a demand exists is the highest possible barrier. Smug- 
 gling, generally speaking, exists where there is overproduction in one 
 
 6 
 
country and a demand in another, with a barrier against its satisfaction. 
 To wipe out smuggling entirely some form of limitation of production is 
 necessary. 
 
 To refresh the reader’s mind on the main facts of the smoking opium 
 problem, I will remind him that the chief producing countries of opium 
 for smoking are China, Persia and India. In China, poppy-growing and 
 the manufacture and use of prepared opium for smoking are prohibited 
 by law, but thousands of tons are produced annually and used within 
 China or smuggled to other opium consuming countries of the Far East. 
 In Persia there is neither limitation of production nor control. In India 
 there is a government monopoly of poppy-growing and the sale of opium. 
 India began in 1927 a policy of eliminating her export for smoking within 
 ten years, ten per cent a year. She exports only on order of other gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 There are three possible ways of limiting production: (a) each coun- 
 try growing enough opium to meet its own needs (an impracticable method, 
 in my judgment) ; (b) certain countries producing enough to meet their 
 own needs, and a surplus for export, carefully controlled to reach only 
 those countries desiring the product (the Indian method) ; and (c) a limi- 
 tation of production to medicinal and scientific needs, which would cut 
 out opium for smoking unless supplies for smoking addicts would be con- 
 sidered “medicinal.” Because of the fact that smokers, if restricted, may 
 turn to “drugs” I believe that limitation of production of “drugs” and 
 control of the traffic should proceed along with limitation of production 
 of opium for smoking purposes. 
 
 If this idea is sound, a considerable period of time must elapse; yet 
 some form of control of opium smoking is in the meantime advisable. 
 The various methods of control are outlined hereafter. Prohibition, 
 under existing conditions of uncontrolled supplies, cannot function. In 
 my opinion, a modified form of government monopoly, with proper safe- 
 guards, is the best method in preparation for eventual prohibition. 
 
 “Drug” Control before Further Smoking Restrictions 
 
 Time and again the fear was expressed by persons whom I interviewed 
 that opium smokers (or eaters) if deprived of the product, or if more re- 
 stricted in its purchase or use, would resort to “drugs” or bad brandy. 
 China, said to have had at one time a liquor problem and having later a 
 smoking opium problem, seems to have acquired in more recent years a 
 “drug” problem, although some students of the question allege that since 
 the recrudescence of opium smoking on a large scale in China the rate 
 of increase in “drug” addiction has ceased to grow. There is too little 
 knowledge of this tendency to shift from smoking to “drugs” and it is 
 one that needs study by persons with technical training. On the insuffi- 
 cient evidence available, it is my opinion that the inhibited opium smoker 
 is a potential “drug” user, and that restrictions upon smoking lead to in- 
 crease of “drug” addiction. 
 
 7 
 
For this reason, I should say that strictness of “drug” control should 
 by all means precede, or at least keep pace with further smoking restric- 
 tion. As we are dealing here more particularly with the subject of control 
 of opium smoking, the allied question of “manufactured drugs” is treated 
 in an annex. 
 
 Smuggling the Chief Difficulty in Control 
 
 A perusal of Annex I will indicate that, no matter what method of 
 control is employed, smuggling is the chief obstacle to success. Smuggling 
 is possible, indeed inevitable, where a demand exists at one point with 
 restrictions on use or price, and an uncontrolled supply exists in some 
 other country. If each opium smoking country grew and manufactured 
 its own opium, produced only enough for its own needs, and prevented 
 the product from leaving the country (if that were possible), there would 
 be no smuggling problem; but some countries produce none and others 
 more than they need, and some of the latter countries exercise no effective 
 control over the product, by monopoly or otherwise. If production be 
 limited to domestic needs and export forbidden, or if a surplus is pro- 
 duced and export limited to other governments, there is still the chance, 
 as experience has shown, of some of the production getting into illicit 
 channels. With production limited to medicinal and scientific needs the 
 chances of smuggling on a large scale are very much reduced, particularly 
 if the plants are grown under government monopoly, for a government 
 can control its own crops better than it can a licensee’s, as India’s ex- 
 perience has shown. Smuggling can be curtailed by proper effort, but it 
 can only be reduced to a negligible factor by limiting production to medi- 
 cinal and scientific needs. 
 
 Limitation of Production 
 
 Control of the use of opium for smoking and drugs, no matter what 
 form the control takes, is a necessary step while awaiting limitation of 
 production and eventual prohibition. Limitation of production, when it is 
 actually begun on a world-wide scale, will undoubtedly be progressive ; 
 that is to say, the reduction will be a certain percentage each year. If 
 production of opium be reduced even to ten per cent of the present pro- 
 duction, the narcotic effect of that much opium converted into “manu- 
 factured drugs” would probably be greater than the effect today of the 
 entire production of raw and prepared opium and “drugs” derived there- 
 from. Unless “drug” control precedes drastic restrictions on eating and 
 smoking opium, that ten per cent will be mostly converted into “drugs,” 
 and the smokers will be, by that time, probably “drug” addicts. For, if 
 there is not enough raw material to supply both smokers and “drug” 
 manufacturers, the latter can outbid the former, even for opium of low 
 morphine content. It is, therefore, necessary that “drug” control precede 
 drastic limitation of production. 
 
 It should also be clear that limitation of production and eventual pro- 
 hibition are only feasible through international agreements, and that such 
 
 S 
 
agreements can only be carried out by governments having effective control 
 of production and use. In my opinion such control can best be exercised 
 by a modified form of government monopoly along the lines suggested. 
 So long as the uncontrolled opium production of China and Persia is 
 floating about the world seeking smokers, no form of control can prevent 
 considerable illicit trade. The reason why government monopoly is 
 stressed in this report is that it seems to me the form of control best 
 adapted to prepare for eventual prohibition. The only progress in limit- 
 ing production is India’s recent move for curtailing that part of the pro- 
 duction that is exported so that the exports vnll be reduced at the rate of 
 ten per cent each year until the entire export trade for smoking is wiped 
 out, an action made easy through control by government monopoly. 
 
 Methods of Control: Government Monopoly Now, 
 Prohibition Later 
 
 Methods of control throughout the Far East vary from a simple sales 
 tax to the prohibition method in use in the Philippines. 
 
 (1) No restrictions on sale, but simply a tax, or customs duty, or both, 
 as in Persia. 
 
 (2) Government monopoly, “farming out” to individuals, or to li- 
 censees, the right to sell all that they can. This system is employed in 
 Macao (Portuguese). 
 
 (3) Government monopoly, the government operating its own shops 
 with government employees engaged at a fixed salary; in force in British 
 Malaya, Netherlands East Indies, and elsewhere. This removes the in- 
 centive to push sales. 
 
 (4) Government monopoly with the smokers registered, licensed and 
 rationed to consume a limited amount, but permitting new names to be 
 added from time to time to the list of registrants, as in some parts of the 
 Netherlands East Indies. 
 
 (5) Same as (4) except that the list is closed and that no new names 
 may be added ; in effect a sort of limited prohibition applying to all ex- 
 cept addicts. This system is in force in some other parts of the Nether- 
 lands East Indies. When the addicts are supplied through public hos- 
 pitals or dispensaries, this becomes an almost complete form of prohibi- 
 tion, with the treatment of addicts considered as a medicinal use of pre- 
 pared opium. 
 
 (6) Prohibition. There are two classifications which should be recog- 
 nized as distinct: Prohibition in a district where the vice has never been 
 practiced, and prohibition where it has. It is the latter class of prohibition 
 which one has to deal with in the Philippines, China and Korea; the 
 former class in some parts of the Netherlands East Indies. 
 
 In Annex I of this report, these methods of control in various countries 
 of the East are discussed. A reading of these accounts will show that 
 prohibition is not working in the so-called prohibition countries, while 
 government monopoly, no matter what legitimate objection can be made 
 
 9 
 
to it as a permanent solution, is more immediately practicable. A com- 
 parison of the two methods — government monopoly and prohibition — at 
 least shows that a law which involves a saving to the government treasury 
 is usually better enforced than one where a mere matter of abstract 
 morality is concerned. In China prohibition is not being enforced be- 
 cause (to mention but one reason) the “war lords” are not willing to part 
 with opium revenue. In the Netherlands East Indies, government mon- 
 opoly, although not quite so ambitious in its aims as prohibition, is ap- 
 parently producing more genuine results. No statistical comparison of 
 the relative merits of prohibition and government monopoly is possible, 
 since the extent of the illicit trade remains always an unknown factor. 
 
 It should be noted here that at the time of the Hague Convention of 
 1912, which provided for gradual and effective suppression of opium 
 smoking, all of the countries where the problem existed except China and 
 the Philippines, were using some form of government monopoly. Most 
 of them had advanced through successive stages from partial to complete 
 control. On the other hand, but a few years previous to 1912, China and 
 the Philippines had skipped most or all of the steps and jumped right up 
 to step (6), prohibition. The United States, in trying to solve its liquor 
 problem, made the same jump, while some other governments that did 
 likewise returned later to some form of government monopoly. If the 
 fear is expressed that democratic governments might shy at government 
 monopoly, it should be remembered that at the 1926-27 session of the 
 United States Congress, the Secretary of the Treasury and the head of 
 the prohibition enforcement division strongly recommended a bill for a 
 government monopoly of the manufacture and sale of medicinal whiskey. 
 
 Let me repeat here that any one who makes a close study of the smoking 
 opium problem will come to the inevitable conclusion that today smuggling 
 stands in the way of any form of really effective control. A reading of 
 the annexes will show that restrictions on use, height of monopoly price, 
 distance from source of supply and efficiency of a patrol and preventive 
 system are all factors which affect the amount of smuggling; and that 
 illicit opium fills one hundred per cent of the demand in the “prohibition” 
 countries and a much lower percentage in the government monopoly coun- 
 tries. 
 
 With the reservations mentioned below as to China and the Philippines, 
 I should say that the “prohibition” countries would gain by a temporary 
 change to some form of government monopoly, subject to the conditions 
 r am about to describe, particularly regarding profit. Under evaded pro- 
 hibition they do not know who their addicts are, where the supplies come 
 from or anything about the evil ; it is all subterranean. As a preparation 
 for real prohibition, the government should have control of the sources 
 and the outlets to enable it properly and progressively to dry up the 
 stream, and to identify or “tag” the addicts. 
 
 I would suggest certain conditions, however, to be imposed upon gov- 
 ernment monopoly : ( 1 ) There should be a clear and unequivocal state- 
 
 10 
 
ment by the government as to a policy of administration beneficial to the 
 addicts; (2) there should be no reliance upon the revenue for general 
 budgetary purposes; (3) as definite a time or contingency as possible 
 should be fixed when prohibition will take the place of a monopoly; (4) 
 in the meantime there should be prohibition for non-addicts, and addic- 
 tion (smoking or “drug”) should be treated as a medical problem, — this 
 involves a registration plan, with registration easy at first, and eventually 
 some form of rationing until cure or death; (5) the monopoly should 
 be under the control of a public welfare, social welfare, or health depart- 
 ment and not in a finance department; (6) to dispense with the revenue, 
 the government could supply addicts at cost (not a good plan), or could 
 use the profits for treatment of addiction, educational and propaganda 
 work, social amelioration for the victims, and preventive social institu- 
 tions. The objection that a decrease in consumption will mean a reduc- 
 tion of the funds available for these purposes is not one of any force, for 
 as smoking decreases the need for these funds will probably decrease, as 
 the social and economic burden of addiction is lessened. If not, other 
 sources of revenue can be found, particularly from a people economically 
 improved by a reduction in smoking. 
 
 Applying these various conclusions to the opium smoking countries 
 (except China and the Philippines) I should say that the modified form 
 of government monopoly indicated above is the best form of control in 
 preparation for eventual prohibition. All of these countries which have 
 not yet done so should install the government-clerk-on-a-fixed-salary form 
 of shop keeping to remove the incentive to push sales, and should register 
 consumers and record purchases. The value of rationing for the present 
 is chiefly as a means of preventing increased purchases and resale. So far 
 as Hongkong (which is practically a part of China) is concerned, the 
 simplest form of registration possible without rationing must be sufficient 
 until conditions in China improve. 
 
 Logically, and ignoring political feasibility, the same line of reasoning 
 applies to China and the Philippines, but there are special factors which 
 must be taken into account. China has certain treaty obligations which 
 may make an out-and-out government monopoly inadvisable, and she has 
 a certain amount of intelligent opinion against the abuses of opium smok- 
 ing that it would be regrettable to thwart. A reading of the annexes 
 will indicate that an enforcement of prohibition along the drastic lines 
 of the 1907 period is hardly possible after the awakening that the Na- 
 tionalist movement has brought about ; that her most likely hope of success 
 lies in a temporary control, honestly administered, when she gets a stable 
 central government, with the “squeeze” idea eliminated; and that the con- 
 trol now being exercised by the Cantonese group in the territory under 
 their control (which is virtually a government monopoly under the “face- 
 saving” device of a “suppression monopoly,” with the expressed purpose 
 of prohibition by 1929) is an acceptable and practical compromise, even 
 if the fixing of 1929 as a date for prohibition be too optimistic. The sin- 
 
 11 
 
cerity and practicability of the Cantonese program yet remain to be tested. 
 It may be interesting to note that the four-year period of preparation for 
 prohibition set by the Cantonese (see Annex III) corresponds pretty 
 closely with the period recommended in the 1905 Report of the Philippine 
 Commission of which Bishop Brent was a member, which period was, 
 however, much curtailed in practice. 
 
 As for the Philippines, neither reasonably increased appropriations for 
 the preventive service nor such changes in personnel as are feasible would 
 materially affect the present failure of prohibition of opium smoking; the 
 present law cannot work under existing world conditions of opium supply. 
 It is to be doubted whether the actual amount of smoking in the Islands 
 would greatly vary, whether under prohibition or the kind of government 
 monopoly herein described ; but the latter would not only be more honest 
 but a better preparation for an eventual enforceable prohibition law. 
 
 Considering all the methods of control preparatory to prohibition, I 
 should say that the Dutch system in the East Indies is at the head of the 
 list for efficiency, practicability and flexibility. It is not as complicated 
 as it seems on paper, and it allows properly for all sorts of varying condi- 
 tions. Existing government monopoly prices almost everywhere, how- 
 ever, are too high, especially in the Netherlands East Indies. Not only 
 do they induce smuggling but they constitute a high penalty against the 
 man who obeys the law by buying government opium and a high reward 
 for the one who buys smuggled opium at the much lower price. Divans 
 (public smoking establishments) apparently have a social feature which 
 makes smoking more attractive. Therefore, since the object is to reduce 
 or stamp out the vice, divans should not be permitted. 
 
 My opinion is very definitely that the improved form of government 
 monopoly (accompanied by world “drug” control) is the only reasonable 
 way of handling the problem of opium smoking today. Prohibition is 
 for the present unworkable and a source of corruption and disrespect for 
 the law. It drives underground a trade which is much better controlled 
 in the open. 
 
 Prof. H. F. MacNair, of St. John’s University, Shanghai, writes: 
 “What may be opined, however, is that prohibition does not prohibit, 
 and that careful regulation based on a slowly but gradually enlightened 
 public opinion, rather than sudden mass legislation at one fell swoop, may 
 be one key to the problem.” (Essay: “An Analogy in Stimulants,” in 
 “China’s New Nationalism and Other Essays,” Commercial Press, Shang- 
 hai, 1925.) 
 
 Whatever one’s personal views may be as to the advisability of some 
 day prohibiting opium smoking as the method of controlling its abuse, 
 the fact remains that eventual prohibition is a treaty obligation under the 
 Hague Convention of 1912. The argument herein advanced is that, 
 under existing circumstances, immediate prohibition is impracticable, and 
 that, to secure the expected benefits, it is first necessary to bring about a 
 strict international control of “manufactured drugs,” also a control, prefer- 
 
 12 
 
ably by government monopoly, of the production, manufacture and use of 
 prepared opium for smoking, and a limitation of production. I say “under 
 existing circumstances”: these may change rapidly in the course of the 
 next five years, owing to possible action by the Persian Government as 
 indicated in its memorandum (filed with the League of Nations as a com- 
 ment upon the report of the League’s Persian Commission) wherein it 
 appears that it is possible that a reduction in poppy production may be 
 tried after a three-year preparatory period ; and owing furthermore to the 
 uncertainty as to whether China will be able to bring production and use 
 under control as suggested by the Cantonese group. Accordingly, some 
 of the conclusions advanced in this report are subject to change as the 
 situation alters. 
 
 Relative Importance of the Opium Smoking Problem 
 
 Opium smoking and the use of “manufactured drugs” are, in my 
 opinion, two distinct problems, as different, for example, as the problems 
 of whiskey drinking and the injection of a powerful stimulant like strych- 
 nine. The difference is not merely one of degree; in the use of liquor 
 and the smoking of opium there are different social and other factors, to 
 ignore which is to make impossible a rational approach to the problem. 
 The difference in the nature of the two questions, smoking opium and 
 drugs, was apparently recognized, at least in part, by the holding of two 
 separate conferences in Geneva in 1924 and 1925, the first on smoking 
 opium and the second on “manufactured drugs” ; and this separation of 
 the question was evidently one of the chief causes of friction between 
 China and the United States on one hand and the rest of the interested 
 powers on the other. The real mistake of the First Conference was to 
 include as full members only those countries where opium smoking is 
 still permitted. The United States and China should have been included as 
 full members, for, as will be shown in Annex I, prohibition of opium 
 smoking is not functioning in the Philippines or in China, and the problem 
 is as acute there as in countries where smoking is still legal. 
 
 It is a matter of common knowledge today that the use of “manufactured 
 drugs” is a more harmful habit than the smoking of opium, and that the 
 former is a growing menace the world over. Yet during the past twenty- 
 five years the emphasis has been put, in the United States, upon the lesser 
 evil, which exists almost exclusively in the Orient. 
 
 At this point I wish to present what seems to be the prevailing view- 
 point on opium smoking among officials and most Europeans and many 
 natives in the Far East; namely, that it is no more abused than the drink- 
 ing of liquor and that it is indulged in for the same reasons. Several mis- 
 sionaries made the statement that the whiskey sot is worse than the opium 
 sot, one of them adding that nothing he ever saw in the East was as bad as 
 Glasgow on a Saturday night. The reason the West is so aroused by 
 opium smoking is that it was a new vice to the Occidental missionaries 
 and others who first came to the East, differing from the drinking vice 
 
 13 
 
and making more of an impression on them. Besides, the abuse was 
 more prevalent in those days and there was more emaciation, “opium 
 face” and suffering from the habit. The use of “manufactured drugs” 
 was not then in evidence. It is the opinion, however, at least in the British 
 and Dutch possessions, that since the powers have agreed by treaty that 
 opium smoking is an evil, to be prohibited eventually, the question of 
 ethics is an academic one, and there is nothing for the colonial officials 
 to do but comply with the treaty. They declare that they will do so, at 
 no matter what cost in revenue, but they claim that they cannot be ex- 
 pected, when their opium revenue is gone, to spend money on police duty 
 or preventive service to enforce a Western standard of “morals” which 
 Oriental public opinion does not support. They fear that the forbidden 
 opium smoking will be supplanted by the use of “drugs” and bad brandy, 
 and the officials will have a worse problem of disorder and crime. 
 
 Further light on the official attitude of the East on opium smoking may 
 be found in a Hongkong document : “Report of the Committee Appointed 
 by H. E. the Governor to Consider the Colony’s Position with Regard to 
 the Obligations Incurred under the International Opium Convention of 
 1912.” (See Annex IV). 
 
 Reference is frequently made to the great bulk of opium production 
 used for smoking and eating, and the much smaller percentage used for 
 “drugs.” The former is estimated by some at over ninety per cent and 
 the latter at less than ten per cent. But it may not be generally realized 
 that the narcotic effect of the smaller percentage in “drug” form is greater, 
 and worse in the amount of harm done, than the large percentage smoked 
 or eaten. 
 
 The matter of over-emphasis of the opium smoking problem, and the 
 possible reasons therefor, have been set forth at this length because I feel 
 that the Western world should re-adjust its perspective and give more 
 serious attention to “drug” control. 
 
 The International Situation and the United States 
 
 The “limitation of production” idea espoused by the United States at 
 the Geneva Conference was basically sound, but there could be no prac- 
 ticable plan for putting it into effect immediately. As has been pointed 
 out herein, there are several necessary preliminary steps, and, if I am 
 correct in my conclusions, the insistence upon a definite date for prohibi- 
 tion to begin was not justified. Criticisms of United States policy were 
 directed against its failure to be informed, or its unwillingness to face 
 the facts, on the non-functioning of prohibition in the Philippines and 
 general conditions in the Far East, and its over-emphasis of the smoking 
 problem at the expense of the “drug” problem. 
 
 This country needs a better informed and more continuous interna- 
 tional policy on smoking opium, which concerns it principally because of 
 the Philippines. At present there are too few who understand the prob- 
 lem. These insufficiently informed officials are likely to dictate the policy. 
 
 14 
 
and without an informed public to act as a check, they may err in judg- 
 ment. The intelligence and continuity of our opium policy would be 
 greatly improved by the establishment of a permanent bureau in the State 
 Department. In the Foreign Office of Japan, for instance, there is a 
 Treaty Bureau whose duties are to check up on treaty observance, and 
 the “opium” problem receives continuous attention. 
 
 It is not difficult, after an unofficial investigation of opium and smug- 
 gling in the Philippine Islands, to understand why the United States is 
 somewhat under suspicion internationally for failing to produce Philippine 
 opium statistics. (Such statistics as are now available will be found in 
 the annexes.) Illegal opium is coming into the Islands in such quantities 
 as to make smoking opium procurable freely at very low prices, but lack 
 of reliable figures on the number of Chinese in the Islands makes any 
 estimate of the extent of opium smoking difficult. 
 
 For three years or more there has been a persistent request at Geneva 
 that the United States furnish some figures on the working of prohibition 
 of opium smoking in the Philippines; for a like period persons interested 
 in the subject have besieged the War Department in Washington for such 
 figures; for a year and a half the War Department has been asking the 
 Governor-General’s office in Manila for this information. Why it has not 
 been forthcoming is a mystery, because the figures, if published, would 
 have been of practically no value to anyone without an independent in- 
 vestigation and interpretation, which was not necessarily implied in the 
 requests ; and such investigation and interpretation, if made, would have 
 largely, if not entirely, absolved the Governor-General’s office from re- 
 sponsibility for the failure of prohibition to function. One should re- 
 member, however, that opium smoking has never been one of .the major 
 governmental problems in the Philippines. 
 
 In March, 1927, it was announced that at the request of Major-General 
 Frank McIntyre, head of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, Governor-Gen- 
 eral Wood had ordered an investigation of the opium traffic in the Philip- 
 pines.* 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Needs for Further Study 
 
 The approach to a study of the “opium” problem has, in the past, been 
 too largely statistical. There is a woeful lack of real knowledge of the 
 fundamentals underlying the whole problem and there is need for a thor- 
 ough investigation of some of the medical, psychological, financial, political, 
 administrative, and other factors. Among these, the subjects of opium 
 and “manufactured drugs” are so interwoven that no attempt will be 
 made to separate them. 
 
 As one example of the lack of knowledge, let us consider the view fre- 
 quently expressed, particularly in the tropics; it is, in effect, this: “You 
 
 ^Further details on the Philippines will be found in Annexes 1 and II. 
 
 15 
 
Westerners are trying suddenly to do away with opium smoking without 
 knowing why it is indulged in, what the smoker is likely to turn to or 
 what desires he seeks to satisfy and without offering any substitutes. Go 
 and look at the coolies working interminable hours in jungle-clearing and 
 swamp work, in heat and among insects, with a few handfuls of rice as 
 food, with nothing to do outside of working hours but sleep; look at the 
 rickshaw coolie and the chair bearer and the laborer; they are all driven 
 by economic necessity to do the work they are doing, and opium smoking 
 and gambling are the only stimulants or relaxations that they know or 
 have.” In this connection it should be noted that in one of the tin mines 
 and one of the oil industries in the Netherlands East Indies an experiment 
 has been made with one moving picture a week, with the purpose of ob- 
 serving the effect on opium smoking — an experiment praiseworthy in 
 itself but inconclusive because of its limitations. 
 
 In the consideration of a vice which affects, among others, the economi- 
 cally submerged class, it may well be questioned whether it be a humane 
 method of control to raise the price of the commodity that satisfies the 
 craving to the point where its purchase sinks the addict still deeper in the 
 economic mire. What the connection is between price and amount con- 
 sumed remains uncertain, and it is one of the questions that require further 
 study. 
 
 An attempt will be made here to indicate (but not exhaustively) the 
 lines along which investigations may be undertaken. To many of the 
 questions propounded I came to conclusions in the course of my studies; 
 but, deploring as I do the tendency to conclusions arrived at without 
 sufficient basis, I can see no useful purpose in suggesting the possible 
 answers I have found to these problems. 
 
 Prevention of Addiction : Are lack of social facilities responsible for 
 addiction? Do recreational facilities reduce the extent of addiction? 
 
 Causes of Addiction : Voluntary addiction, involuntary (as in cases 
 of continued use after illness), solicited. If voluntary, what desire was 
 it sought to satisfy, or what result to accomplish? If involuntary or solicited, 
 what classes of persons are responsible? 
 
 Cure of Addiction: What are the best methods? Is there a possible 
 need not only of removing the craving but of having trained psychologists 
 build up control? Is there a possibility of substituting harmless habits? 
 What classes are curable or incurable? What is the effect of age on 
 curability ? Should addicts be reportable by physicians, with requirements 
 similar to infectious diseases? After the lapse of a certain time after re- 
 porting or registration, should voluntary or forcible detention be required 
 until the addict is cured? 
 
 Pharmaceutical Aspects : Are there non-habit-forming substitutes for 
 “manufactured drugs” in cases where the latter are now properly pre- 
 scribed? Are there non-habit-forming substitutes for raw opium in cases 
 where it is self-prescribed, as is frequently the case in India? 
 
 16 
 
Substitutes When Supplies Are Restricted: Do opium smokers when 
 restricted turn to liquor or drugs? 
 
 Addiction and Public Safety : What is the prevalence in police, fire or 
 health departments, in armies or navies, among doctors and nurses, among 
 motormen, engineers and chauffeurs, among criminals, etc.? 
 
 Cost of Addiction: What is the cost to individuals in loss of earning 
 power and in outlay to satisfy their craving? What is the cost to the 
 state in maintenance of police and preventive service, jails, hospitals, etc.? 
 
 Smuggling: Are not various agencies involved in every large smug- 
 gling operation, such as a principal, a banking institution, an insurance 
 company, a transportation company, a broker or agent, distributors and 
 corrupt officials? If ship owners can be punished by loss of registry and 
 captains by cancellation of license, if insurance in illegal transactions can 
 be prevented by legislation or agreement among insurers, cannot bank 
 loans on illicit goods be prevented by some means? Could not friendly 
 governments like those of the Netherlands East Indies, British Malaya 
 and Hongkong, which lose millions from smuggling “competition” and 
 have their control interfered with, combine in the judicious expenditure 
 of money to run down smuggling syndicates? How do large quantities 
 of “manufactured goods” get from a factory into the hands of smugglers? 
 Would legislative inquiries in each country throw some light upon these 
 questions ? 
 
 Political and Administrative Questions: What is the proper depart- 
 ment in a government for opium control? What are the corruption fac- 
 tors? What improper influences do trade interests exercise on govern- 
 ment policies? (For an answer to this question so far as Switzerland is 
 concerned, see excerpts from Prof. Rappard’s book quoted in that part 
 of Annex I devoted to “manufactured drugs.”) 
 
 Financial Questions : What is the effect of price on the amount con- 
 sumed? What substitute taxes are possible in countries having large 
 opium revenues? 
 
 Laws and Penalties : What changes in laws and penalties are neces- 
 sary? What changes in extradition treaties? What is the effect of extra- 
 territoriality? How can bonding successfully become a preventive meas- 
 ure? What of the necessity of educating public opinion to approve of 
 stricter penalties by classifying the drug peddler and drug smuggler with, 
 for example, the poisoner of a well, and to consider corrupt officials of a 
 preventive service as quasi traitors? 
 
 This whole investigation is an ideal one for some foundation to under- 
 take, with the purpose of turning over its conclusions to the League of 
 Nations. My reason for suggesting a non-League body for the research 
 should be apparent when it is remembered that the League, in any in- 
 vestigation, is hampered by certain political disabilities and the embarrass- 
 ment of not being able to question official statements. There is no reason, 
 however, why the League should not study the medical questions through 
 its Health Section. 
 
 17 
 
Unreliability of Testimony 
 
 To the student of the “opium” problem, a few words of caution re- 
 garding the unreliability of testimony will not be amiss. The written 
 and spoken words on the subject of “opium” control are highly con- 
 troversial, and so saturated with bias, self-interest, so-called statistics, 
 and misstatements, that an intelligent handling of the question is difficult. 
 
 The interest is usually one of profit, or a saving in taxation, or the 
 perpetuation of a job or custom. The bias is usually national, official or 
 emotional, or sometimes a mixture of several. In China, for example, the 
 problem has become too political and too mixed with anti-foreign feeling; 
 and when questioned about their own illicit production and exportation, 
 the Chinese usually stress the illegal importation of foreign “drugs,” from 
 which the country is suffering much. 
 
 Misstatements deserve a more extended treatment, and the three prin- 
 cipal “apologies” in the past for “opium” trade in the Far East will be 
 taken as examples: (a) that most of the eating of opium in India 
 was for medicinal purposes where doctors were scarce; (b) that severe 
 restrictive measures on the smoking of opium in the East Indies and 
 Malaya were not practicable because they would interfere with Chinese 
 immigration; and (c) that revenue was not a factor in determining policy. 
 
 The Indian “apology” no longer holds since investigators about two 
 years ago found that the abnormally large use was in the congested cities 
 where doctors were accessible. 
 
 Regarding the immigration point, I inquired of a number of large em- 
 ployers of labor, of ships’ officers in the trade of carrying coolies, and of 
 persons who had made a study of Chinese immigration. Not one of 
 them thought that the opium smoking question entered into the supply of 
 coolie labor in the East Indies and Malaya. Most of them gave as their 
 reason that the sources of coolie labor were so extensive that a sufficient 
 supply could be had, either of non-smokers, or of those who would do 
 without smoking ; but, added several persons, in effect, the smokers 
 would not let restrictions influence them against migrating, for they would 
 expect to get opium in spite of any restrictions. Even most of the gov- 
 ernment officials with whom I spoke stated freely that there was no con- 
 nection between opium and immigration. In this connection Dr. Wu 
 Lien-Teh writes in “Public Health Aspects of the Narcotic Problem,” 
 1925 : “The oft repeated misrepresentation that unless Chinese coolies 
 obtained their opium there would be a shortage of labor in British Malaya 
 and the East Indies is disproved by the fact that during the World War 
 95,000 coolies were recruited from North China for service in France. 
 ‘Not a man smoked opium’, reported the British medical officer in charge, 
 ‘they were contented and would volunteer again’.” 
 
 As for revenue being a factor in determining policy, a number of offi- 
 cials were equally frank in admitting that it undoubtedly was a factor, but 
 stated that it was not the decisive one. Said one : “Where the monopoly 
 is run from a finance department and the profits go into the general budget, 
 
 18 
 
revenue is bound to be one of the important considerations, particularly 
 in hard times. If the consumer’s interests are to be paramount, the con- 
 trol should be directed by a sociologist or physician, not by a financier.” 
 
 So far as statistics are concerned, any person familiar ■with the Orient 
 will know that figures on Chinese population, number of smokers, etc., are 
 altogether unreliable ; and that statistics on seizures, arrests, etc., are only 
 an indication that a certain minimum quantity of “opium” was being 
 smuggled and a certain minimum number of persons were caught in the 
 alleged violation of the law. In short, some are unreliable, and some mean- 
 ingless without interpretation. 
 
 Education and Propaganda 
 
 The difference between education and propaganda must be clearly recog- 
 nized. Education deals with the spreading of accurate knowledge and 
 the inducing of action based upon logical and reasoning thinking, while 
 propaganda may be based on inaccuracies or exaggerations, the object of 
 which is usually to induce action based upon emotion. Before there can 
 be education, however, the educators must be educated, and not only the 
 educator, and the individual, child and adult, and the collective public, 
 but, at the same time, the statesmen and legislators and delegates who 
 translate desires into action. 
 
 In the field of “opium” the best propaganda is that which arouses fear, — 
 fear of consequences to one’s self, to one’s family, to one’s country. 
 Probably the best form is the romance, whether in book form or on the 
 stage or screen, the aim being to do what “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did for 
 the anti-slavery campaign, and what several books published in England 
 just before the war did for preparedness there. 
 
 Public Opinion 
 
 Ordinarily “public opinion” means a common viewpoint on a subject, 
 expressed by a considerable portion of the people. “Publicity” is naturally 
 one of the greatest means of arousing or creating public opinion. As a 
 general rule progressive action in a Western country, on “opium” matters, 
 depends upon the extent of public opinion on the subject, and this extent 
 in turn is dependent upon the gravity of the situation, the publicity it re- 
 ceives, the emotional response and the social sense. In emotional response 
 I include action induced by idealism, piety, “sentimentality” or similar 
 urges; and in social sense principally the idea of “being one’s brother’s 
 keeper.” So far as the influence of public opinion in the Western coun- 
 tries is concerned, at least those in which “manufactured drugs” are pro- 
 duced, one may say roughly that they stand in the following order : the 
 United States, Great Britain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and 
 Prance. I do not know Japan well enough to attempt an estimate of the 
 value of public opinion, but if the number of newspapers and magazines in 
 Japan is any criterion, she can be classed with the Western countries. 
 Those persons who are interested in seeing progress toward the control 
 
 19 
 
and limitation envisaged by the Hague and Geneva Conferences would do 
 well, therefore, to develop a public opinion in the countries where progress 
 is unsatisfactory. The force of public opinion may either drive or “shame” 
 a country into action, or make the position of its delegates in Geneva, or 
 elsewhere at international conferences, untenable. A specially useful and 
 constructive bit of work would be to institute an inquiry in each country 
 on the extent to which treaty obligations on “opium” are being lived up 
 to, and arouse a public opinion in favor of their performance. 
 
 In conclusion it should be remembered that it is at international “opium” 
 conferences that knowledge is most needed ; yet it is safe to say that not 
 half of the delegates in Geneva in 1924-25 really knew the subject. Some 
 were even chosen merely because of their nearness to Geneva ! Such a 
 conference ought not to be a school ; it ought to be made up of delegates 
 who know; or, at least, there should be ready for them findings of facts 
 and conditions, impartially arrived at. Such a conference, moreover, is 
 not a place to develop truth. The public meetings are utilized by many 
 of the delegates to make speeches for home consumption, quite often full 
 of “hokum” and very frequently bearing no relation to the facts; yet the 
 etiquette of international conferences is such that truth and good faith 
 can never be questioned, — in public ! 
 
 Knowledge is lacking both on conditions and fundamentals. Accord- 
 ingly two important matters pressing for action are the prompt acquisi- 
 tion of more knowledge on the whole subject, and the presentation of it 
 to the next international conference. If some public spirited body, or 
 foundation, would finance the undertaking, world wide studies could be 
 instituted, and an impartial group inside each country could start an in- 
 quiry into domestic conditions. Then, before the conference, a body of 
 non-official but representative men who would command general respect 
 for impartiality, chosen from various nationalities and possessing among 
 them the varied knowledge necessary to consider all aspects of the prob- 
 lem, could examine all the findings, make a trip around the world for the 
 necessary verifications, and present their conclusions to the conference. 
 (There are too many possible methods of choosing the members of such 
 a body to make a discussion here profitable.) There would be much more 
 likelihood of such a conference outlining a convention that all countries 
 could unhesitatingly endorse. 
 
 HERBERT L. MAY 
 
 March 25, 1927. 
 
 20 
 
ANNEX I 
 
 Detailed Report of the Far Eastern Investigation on 
 Smoking Opium 
 
 The material in this annex is supplementary to the fore- 
 going report. It presents in greater detail information and 
 opinions relating to opium smoking gathered by the writer 
 in the course of his trip through the Far East. Conditions 
 in the various countries visited are discussed in relation to 
 methods of control, i. e., prohibition and the several types 
 of government monopoly. Special sections deal with opium 
 eating in India and control of “manufactured drugs.” 
 
 I. SMOKING OPIUM IN THE FAR EAST 
 A. Countries in which prohibition of opium smoking is in force: 
 
 1 . The Philippines. 
 
 To students of prohibitory laws as a means of bringing a vice under 
 control it will be no surprise to learn that prohibition of opium smoking 
 in the Philippines does not in fact prohibit. Any one who wishes to buy 
 prepared opium can buy it at a moderate price. The “market price” for 
 grade two “Amoy” is five pesos per tael ; grade one, seven pesos ; “Hong- 
 kong” grade two, twelve pesos ; and “Hongkong” grade one, sixteen pesos. 
 These were the prices prevailing in Manila in December, 1926. There is 
 no fixed standard for any of these grades. Apparently the so-called 
 Amoy opium is grown and “boiled” in China, and the Hongkong opium 
 is made principally of Chinese opium with occasionally a small admixture 
 of Persian or Indian. The latter appears to be manufactured mostly in 
 Macao, or in and about Kwang Chow Wan, the French leased territory 
 in South China. It is generally stated that practically no Indian opium 
 has found its way into the Philippines for about two years past. The 
 opium is smuggled in, at regular ports and other places, from Amoy, 
 Hongkong, Macao, Kwang Chow Wan, British North Borneo, and For- 
 mosa. Frequent arrests and convictions by the local police and con- 
 stabulary, and seizures by the customs authorities, must of course have 
 some deterrent effect, and influence the price somewhat ; but a comparison 
 of the price with that prevailing in other parts of the Far East would 
 indicate that there is no difficulty in having the supply keep pace with 
 the demand. Opium is not the only thing smuggled in on a considerable 
 scale ; there is a “market price” for smuggling in a Chinaman via British 
 North Borneo, and apparently he is privileged to bring in a supply of 
 opium with him on his person. 
 
 21 
 
It must be remembered that the opium smoking problem in the Phil- 
 ippines is not one of great magnitude compared with that in most of the 
 opium smoking countries of the Far East. The islands have a total 
 population of about 12,000,000. So little is known of the extent of the 
 Chinese population that the following estimates were given me by various 
 official and semi-official sources: 40,000; 60,000; 70,000; 96,000; 130,000. 
 From one source I learned that there are about 10,000 Chinese per year 
 coming into Manila by means more or less legal, and about 6,000 to 
 8,000 per year leave that port. Similar conditions exist at other ports; 
 the number smuggled in is unknown. The figure of 96,000 for the 
 Chinese population came from a Chinese source generally credited with 
 knowledge on the subject, but I am inclined to believe that the actual 
 figure is considerably larger. While most of the smoking is among the 
 Chinese, the Filipinos who have social contact with the families in which 
 there is smoking are quite likely to acquire the vice ; and there is a con- 
 siderable nCimber of smokers among the native tribes in the southern 
 islands. 
 
 Few statistics gathered or compiled by natives in the Islands are re- 
 liable. The figures are frequently “doctored” to prove the efficiency of 
 the department whose work they reflect. However, there is no reason 
 why the figures on seizures, arrests, and fines should not be reasonably 
 accurate. As such figures for the Philippines have not been heretofore 
 available, I am presenting in another annex such as were furnished me 
 by the various departments. 
 
 Among the many well informed people whom I interviewed in Manila, 
 the following opinions prevailed : ( 1 ) that the government does not con- 
 sider opium one of its major problems; (2) that the government is doing 
 all that might reasonably be expected to enforce the laws; (3) that the 
 enforcement has probably tended to keep the evil from spreading out of 
 all bounds. The chief reasons given for failure of the law are: (1) lack 
 of appropriated funds, including those for patrol service, rewards, secret 
 service, and personnel in general; (2) “graft,” some believing that the 
 prohibition law corrupts the officials, and others taking a more cynical view ; 
 (3) the extent of the coast line and the proximity of other producing 
 and smoking countries. Those giving this last as the chief reason for 
 failure believe that no matter how great the appropriation and how little 
 the “graft,” practically the same quantities would get in, but at higher 
 prices. In connection with this reason, a few figures that were furnished 
 me should be considered : There are some 7,083 islands in the Philippine 
 Archipelago, and the approximate length of the coast line is 10,850 miles 
 (the coast line of the United States is 12,877 miles). Note also the dis- 
 tances from the Islands to the nearest point of other smoking and pro- 
 ducing countries: from British North Borneo, about 10 miles (from the 
 principal one of the Borneo group about 18 miles) ; from Formosa, 81 
 miles; from the Chinese mainland, 325 miles; and from Indo-China, 580 
 miles. 
 
 22 
 
The patrol boat service has for some years been limited to one boat, 
 coal burning, which is rated nominally at ten knots, but actually makes 
 about eight. 
 
 In one of the countries outside of the Philippines which I visited, I 
 was told that seized correspondence indicated that some of the men in 
 the preventive service of the Philippines were offering to deliver opium 
 “to any address in Manila” for a charge of five pesos per tael. I have 
 had no means of checking the accuracy of this report. 
 
 The following quotations from the Hongkong “Report of the Superin- 
 tendent of Imports and Exports for the Year 1925” throws further light 
 upon this situation: 
 
 “Manila and the Philippines” 
 
 “Enquiries resulting from three large seizures of opium and dangerous 
 drugs revealed the huge extent of the trade in prepared opium between 
 Macau, China, and the Philippine Islands. Large quantities have been 
 imported from Macau already packed up with other goods and only trans- 
 shipped in Hongkong. In one case, three mail bags belonging to the 
 U. S. A. Post Office were seized in the General Post Office ; the whole of 
 the contents proved to be prepared opium and drugs ; investigations proved 
 that employees in the General Post Office here and in Manila had been 
 suborned, and that the parcel post had been extensively used for the 
 conveyance of prepared opium and drugs. Evidence was also found 
 pointing to a large trade in morphia pills between Amoy, and Manila and 
 Cebu. Frequent references were found, in documents discovered, to the 
 aid rendered by the employees of the Post Office and Customs in the 
 Islands in aiding the introduction of opium and drugs. A very large 
 number of names and addresses of opium and drug importers were dis- 
 covered, and the information was at once passed on to the United States 
 authorities. In one case, a series of letters from smugglers in the Phil- 
 ippines was intercepted mentioning large consignments of opium ; during 
 a period of two weeks only mention was made of orders for 31,300 taels 
 of opium. It was always realized that the traffic in opium with the 
 Philippines was on an extensive scale, but the actual extent judged from 
 the investigations of three firms of smugglers only far surpassed all 
 expectations. If most of this opium was consumed in the islands, then 
 it must be assumed that the consumption of opium by the Chinese popu- 
 lation must be taken to be at least as great as it is in this Colony, and 
 that the suppression of opium there has meant only the transference of 
 trade to underground channels and consequently widespread corruption. 
 These facts seem to prove the impossibility of suppression while supplies 
 continue abundant, and the demand remains unabated. The origin of 
 this opium is Macau (and Kwang Chow Wan to some extent), for the 
 best grades ; Kwang Chow Wan and Amoy for the inferior grades, 
 Amoy has supplied more and more of the inferior grades at a cheap 
 price. Whereas in former years the demand was for the best grade of 
 
 23 
 
Macau opium, recently, while supplies of Macau opium have probably 
 not decreased, a large amount of inferior prepared opium of Chinese 
 origin has been entering. One method of smuggling was discovered 
 here; goods were purchased locally and packed into cases, these were 
 sent off to a junk in the harbour together with some empty cases, the 
 prepared opium was then brought from another junk, some of the goods 
 taken out, and the opium packed in the cases with the goods, the cases 
 after being fastened up were taken off to a ship about to leave for Cebu, 
 and shipped as cargo in the usual way, special stowage having been ar- 
 ranged with the connivance of the stevedores.” 
 
 In a private unpublished memorandum submitted to his government in 
 1922 by a delegate to a Far Eastern conference on opium and other 
 matters, a copy of which memorandum was given to me, the following 
 appears : 
 
 “There is also said to be a flourishing trade in opium dross between 
 the Sandhakan (British North Borneo) coast and the Philippines in 
 which the American revenue boats manned by Filipinos participate.” 
 
 2. China. 
 
 Three questions are of special interest in China today, where the 
 prohibition against growing poppy and smoking opium is still nominally 
 in force: What is the extent of the cultivation and smoking of opium; 
 what, if any, is the so-called public opinion on the subject; and when 
 can control of the evil be expected? 
 
 The Chinese have no passion for statistics, as have some of the Occi- 
 dental peoples ; in fact they have rather a horror of them as being 
 associated with an increase in taxation. Neither Chinese statistics nor 
 statistics on China are reliable. However, about twenty years ago it was 
 estimated by an authority on the subject that about two per cent of the 
 population, or roughly eight million persons, smoked opium. The general 
 opinion expressed today is that the extent of smoking is about the same 
 as in 1906, — much more extensive in some provinces where an opium 
 pipe is almost as cheap as a cigarette, and where old and young men and 
 women smoke ; much less so in some others, where it is chiefly the older 
 persons among the military leaders, officials, and well-to-do who indulge. 
 As to the poppy growing in China today, no one knows the extent, and 
 there are no means of knowing; probably over 10,000 tons and less than 
 25,000 tons of opium are produced. It has been estimated that in 1906 
 there were 22,588 tons of opium consumed in China, of which seven- 
 eighths (about 20,000 tons) were grown in China. (“Memorandum Re- 
 garding the Restriction of Opium in Hongkong and China” by Sir F. 
 Lugard, 1908-1909, in which Sir John Jordan is quoted for part of these 
 figures.) This was just before China started on the strict enforcement 
 of her prohibition laws. Dr. Wu Lien-Teh estimates that in 1923 there 
 were about 8,000 tons of opium smoked in China by 2,250,000 smokers 
 (origin of opium not given.) A number of people with some knowledge 
 
 24 
 
on the subject were questioned by me. While a few thought the 1926 pro- 
 duction greater than that of 1906, and one or two believed it to be as 
 great, the majority estimated it at somewhat less. One person connected 
 with an anti-opium movement was quoted as believing the 1926 produc- 
 tion very much less than the 1906. The use of imported “drugs” may 
 account for at least part of the decrease in production and smoking. 
 Several persons expressed the opinion that at least one-half of the selling 
 price of opium to the consumer in China is represented in tax or custom’s 
 duty, license fees, or “squeeze,” principally the last, or all of these. It 
 would seem that $200,000,000 (Mexican) is a fair guess at the annual 
 stake for which the “war lords,” provincial governors, high central govern- 
 ment officials, and petty politicians have been playing of late years. It 
 has been publicly stated in Shanghai that the opium “revenues” in Kiangsu 
 are worth $40,000,000 a year; for Kwangtung, in which the city of Can- 
 ton is situated, the China Year Book for 1926 estimates the annual 
 “revenue” from opium, gambling, and brothels at $60,000,000. Both 
 figures are guesses, and are probably exaggerated. 
 
 None of the above figures are worth anything at all in themselves ; it 
 makes no real difference in the problem whether China is growing 10,000 
 tons or 25,000 tons of opium, or is extracting one hundred million or 
 three hundred million dollars in so-called revenue from it. The figures 
 are of importance only as indicating in general the magnitude of the 
 poppy growth, which has an intimate bearing on the national and world 
 problem of control, and as indicating furthermore the size of the interest 
 in keeping the opium problem in China just where it is today. The 
 ideal situation, the world over, for “squeeze,” is just this : a big supply, 
 a big demand, and prohibition law. 
 
 Beginning in 1907, China succeeded, by legal and extra-legal methods 
 and by “fire and sword” and other means which could hardly be dupli- 
 cated in any other country, in bringing under control and suppressing 
 much of the opium production and opium smoking, all in a surprisingly 
 short time. As to how and why the recrudescence of poppy-growing came 
 about, the opinions are conflicting, but there is no doubt that disturbed 
 economic conditions attendant upon sudden and drastic changes in a 
 crop and business running into hundreds of millions of dollars in value, 
 and the taking out of the hands of the political leaders of millions of 
 dollars of “squeeze,” were both factors in the unrest that brought about 
 revolution and civil war; and that much of the fighting, no matter what 
 the rallying cry for the masses, was for control of the spoils, among the 
 richest of which was the opium revenue. While it is doubtless true that 
 many of the “war lords” forced the growing of poppy so as to provide 
 the sinews of war, it is equally true that thousands of farmers welcomed 
 the opportunity to grow a profitable crop, and hundreds of thousands of 
 people the opportunity to smoke opium again unmolested. Recently the 
 exactions of the “tax” collector have been so great and the price of opium 
 so low, that the poppy is at present hardly a profitable crop in many parts 
 
 25 
 
of the country. The “face-saving” methods of getting revenue out of 
 a prohibited article are various ; in some cases agricultural lands are taxed 
 so high that only a poppy crop is economically possible ; in some cases 
 the military official orders poppy grown and the civil side of the same 
 authority imposes a fine ; the “suppression monopoly” plan will be alluded 
 to later. 
 
 Is there a public opinion against the evil? That dependjs upon the 
 definition of public opinion. There is most probably not a majority 
 opinion against it. There is a very strong opinion against it among the 
 Christian and educational groups, among those who come in contact with 
 the financial ruin of some addicts ; an opinion against it among many 
 young people. And yet, one newspaper writer said that the student 
 bodies had passed resolutions upon practically every subject of national 
 interest, but not on opium. Just at this time China is so engrossed in 
 matters that it deems of greater importance, that there is hardly enough 
 thought being given to the matter of opium to crystallize into a public 
 opinion. However, even under normal conditions, China is so con- 
 stituted politically and socially that an effective public opinion will prob- 
 ably be engendered, if at all, only by a campaign of education and propa- 
 ganda undertaken by a small central group. Heretofore, an opinion 
 against foreign opium has been mistakenly figured in the anti-opium 
 column. 
 
 What are the probabilities of control in the near future? Admittedly, 
 until there is a strong central government there is no hope ; and some of 
 the politically wise put that consummation ahead not by months, but by 
 years. Of the two outstanding groups at present, the so-called Man- 
 churian and Cantonese groups, less seems to be expected of the former 
 for a variety of reasons: They comprise more of the “old crowd,” they are 
 less actuated by principle, they are said to have more smokers among 
 the military leaders, and, the vice being more a southern than a northern 
 one, they would be the more willing to profit by it if victorious. As for 
 the Cantonese group, dominated by the Kuomintang, or People’s Party, 
 they have established a government monopoly in Kwangtung, and have 
 the evident intention of doing the same in all territory that comes under 
 their control. 
 
 AVhat the Canton district is doing in the matter of control may be an 
 indication for the future. When I was in Canton in December, 1926, 
 this is in effect what a spokesman for the Nationalist group said : The 
 war lords had forced the growth of the poppy, contrary to the law ; the 
 Cantonese were gradually restoring law and order, and had done so al- 
 ready in this province; they could not upset economic conditions by 
 destroying poppy crops, but would bring them under control and grad- 
 ually have them changed; they had organized a suppression monopoly 
 which was going to bring about prohibition in four years, in the mean- 
 time licensing the transportation, selling, and smoking of opium ; that of 
 course until the government finances were stabilized, they would have 
 
 26 
 
to rely somewhat on opium revenue, but that they would not stultify 
 themselves by continuing one day longer than necessary. From other 
 sources, not Chinese, I was informed that : There is a “transportation 
 office” formed by Chinese merchants, who have the monopoly of trans- 
 porting opium; stamps must be affixed at the rate of thirty cents per 
 tael ; there is a “suppression monopoly” which, under the guise of con- 
 trol, has selling offices and shops in Canton, and sells the right of sale 
 for the outlying districts to a monopoly; smokers are licensed; the retail 
 selling price of prepared opium is $1.00 (Mex.) for two mace; it is 
 estimated that the local revenue from opium is over $250,000 (Mex.) 
 per month. 
 
 I obtained a copy of the “Anti-Opium Regulations” and “Rules for 
 Applying for Smoking Licenses,” which are printed in another annex. 
 My information as to both documents was that the date of promul- 
 gation was August 1, 1925. I arranged for the purchase of some opium 
 at an official shop ; thereon appeared “Opium Revenue Inspection Stamps” 
 issued by the “Anti-Opium Bureau of the Finance Ministry.” It might 
 be noted here that through the kindness of officials in various parts of the 
 Orient, I had the opportunity of inspecting seized packages coming from 
 various parts of China. All sorts of stamps were on, — “inspection” stamps, 
 “examination” stamps, “import certificate” stamps, quite a number of 
 “anti-opium bureau” and “suppression monopoly” stamps, and in some 
 cases a single package had two or more different kinds of stamps. 
 
 From an American consular source comes the following information re- 
 ferring to a portion of Manchuria: 
 
 “The ‘Sheng Ching Shih Pao’, a well informed Chinese paper under 
 Japanese control, reports under date of December 15th, 1926, that the 
 Chinese authorities in Fengtien contemplate the establishment of an offi- 
 cial opium monopoly, although in accordance with the usual Chinese face- 
 saving device, the official name of the monopoly is to be the ‘Bureau for 
 the Prevention of Opium’. 
 
 “The paper states that the decision to inaugurate this establishment is 
 due entirely to the great need for increased revenue which need has been 
 caused by the large expenditures incurred by Marshal Chang’s excursions 
 within intramural China. It has been stated that a draft has been made 
 of a plan for the organization of the Opium Bureau, and that the head 
 office will be in Mukden ; each hsien will have four offices. The news- 
 paper report indicates that a tax of $1.00, Mukden notes, will be levied on 
 every ounce of raw opium produced, and that opium-smoking establish- 
 ments will be permitted with a tax on each lamp in use.” 
 
 In Canton I visited the headquarters of the Russian advisers to get a 
 statement of opium policy. Mr. Borodin, the “High Adviser,” to whom 
 I had a card of introduction was at Wuchang and no one else seemed 
 competent to talk on the subject. In the newspapers, Borodin was quoted 
 as saying in his first speech at Hankow : “These, comrades, are the two 
 first great problems before the Nationalist Government: (1) Put finance 
 
 27 
 
on a sound basis; (2) improve the economic conditions of the people.” 
 In districts where the Nationalist Government has gained control there 
 is a hopeful sign in that more of the collected revenue finds its way into 
 the treasury and less stops enroute. Under an honest government, with 
 sufficient autonomy in financial matters, there would be enough sources 
 of revenue without dependence upon opium. 
 
 The general opinion seems to be that the Nationalist group in China 
 has principles in which it is sincere; and that as a matter of policy, as a 
 reform government, it will have to endeavor to do without opium revenue 
 some day, — but not by August 1, 1929. 
 
 As will be noted in other parts of this annex, great quantities of 
 Chinese-grown opium are apparently being smuggled into the various 
 opium smoking countries of the world. It is, however, quite evident that 
 very considerable quantities of Persian opium are being smuggled into 
 China, and it appears that some Indian opium, sold by the Indian govern- 
 ment to Indo-China for its own use, finds its way through connivance, it is 
 said, of officials in the latter country and China. Lest some surprise be ex- 
 pressed at China, a large producer, being interested in the buying of foreign 
 opium, it should be remembered that tobacco is produced in large quantities 
 in countries that still import Havana and Sumatra tobaccos. 
 
 3. Korea. 
 
 From the meagre information available, it would appear that on the 
 borders smuggling is considerable, but that in the interior the control is 
 fairly effective. Generally speaking, the Japanese are much more efficient 
 administrators than the Filipinos and Chinese, apparently less subject to 
 the influences of corruption, and exercise a strict political control over 
 persons entering the country ; all these factors are favorable to efficiency. 
 On the other hand, the tremendous supply of opium moving about quite 
 freely in the neighborhood makes the success of prohibition an impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 B. Countries which have a form of government monopoly: 
 
 1. The Netherlands East Indies. 
 
 The method of control in the Netherlands East Indies is not generally 
 clearly understood. It is of such interest, however, and so intelligently 
 operated, that it should be treated in some detail. The method varies in 
 the different islands, and even in the different parts of the same island. 
 There is : 
 
 (A) Prohibition in areas where the vice has never existed and 
 where the Chinese immigration has been negligible; the population 
 of the prohibition areas is about 10,500,000. 
 
 (B) Registration and rationing under what is known as the “per- 
 fect license” system; that is, no new names are added to the list of 
 registered smokers. The population affected by this method is about 
 18,500,000. 
 
 28 
 
(C) Registration and rationing under the “imperfect license” 
 system : New names may be added to the list with the consent of a 
 government official (a European) in cases where persons of the race 
 permitted to smoke make application within a limited time of taking 
 up residence in the district. The population subject to this method 
 is about 18,000,000. 
 
 (D) Registration without rationing in what is known as “free 
 areas,” principally a few of the larger cities. Here anyone of the 
 permitted race or races may purchase and possess opium — not more 
 than a certain maximum quantity at any one time — and a record is 
 kept of each purchase. The population affected by this method is 
 about 2,500,000; this figure is much larger than it was prior to Sep- 
 tember, 1926, when several of the large cities, including Batavia, were 
 taken from class (C) and placed in this class in an endeavor to reduce 
 smuggling. 
 
 The origin of this mixed method has a history which it is unnecessary 
 to detail here. In a few words it may be said to have been an outgrowth 
 of the desire to make the control flexible enough to meet the varying needs 
 in different sections, and changes in the character of occupation and popu- 
 lation in any one section. In all districts where smoking is permitted, it 
 is allowed to Chinese, in some to natives, but in none to Europeans. 
 (There are a few licenses to Europeans remaining out of a total of nine 
 originally issued.) 
 
 The care and detailed work expended in the operation of the control, 
 with a comparatively small force, are amazing. Methods (B), (C), and 
 (D) require records. In (B) and (C), rationing and registration sys- 
 tems, there is a space on the purchaser’s license, the salesman’s book, and 
 on the shop’s office register, for each day in the year, with a place for the 
 total of every ten days, and each amount purchased appears in all three 
 of these records, with the amount of ten days’ ration in plain sight. 
 There does not seem to be any great difficulty, even in the larger cities, 
 in keeping these records. In one busy shop that I visited the salesman 
 and the head clerk constituted the entire force for selling, recording, and 
 all work. The salesman checked against the customer for his rationing, 
 and the head clerk against the salesman. Even under method (D), regis- 
 tration without rationing, there is a record of amount purchased, with 
 date, kept by the salesman and later transferred to the shop’s office register 
 against the registrant’s name and number. If the amount gets unduly 
 large the police are supposed to be notified. 
 
 During prosperous times around 1920 the government receipts grew 
 so large that some of the “free areas” were changed to “imperfect license” 
 areas. While receipts fell thereafter, seizures for smuggling increased so 
 greatly that it was felt by the government officials that illicit business, had 
 taken the place of legal purchases; hence the change back to the “free 
 areas” already mentioned as having taken place in September, 1926. 
 
 29 
 
There are about 700 retail shops in the islands, 12 of these in Batavia, 
 which has a population of about 200,000. The shops are all operated by 
 government employees. In outlying districts where the business is very 
 small, the government is considering having the shops open only an hour 
 or two each day, and operated by a man who has other duties. There are 
 about fifty licensed smoking places, not however governmentally operated. 
 The license is given only to respectable persons without police records and 
 no charge is made for the license. The smokers must bring their own 
 opium and do not pay for the use of the place, but the proprietor gets the 
 dross and the government buys the dross from him at 12 guilders per tael, 
 provided it measures up to a standard. The dross is “worked over” again 
 in the factory, and used with raw opium in the manufacture of prepared 
 opium. 
 
 The retail selling price of opium is very high, — 30 guilders per tael in 
 most places, except as one approaches British Malaya with its lower 
 price. Accordingly, on the east coast of Sumatra the price is 25 guilders 
 and on the small islands near Singapore, 20 guilders. 
 
 The system of control is allowed some flexibility. For example, where 
 a shop is very far away, a purchaser is allowed to buy a supply to last 
 longer than is customary; or a license is given to one to buy for a group, 
 as in the case of a contractor clearing jungle far away from a shop, when 
 he has a number of smokers in his employ. It may be of interest to 
 furnish a few figures for one district where the “perfect license” system 
 is in force. In the islands of Bali and Lombok the government regie 
 started in April, 1908; the license system of the whole residency began 
 January 1, 1921. The quantities sold were: 1909 — 286,551 taels; 1920 — 
 77,028 taels; 1921 — 45,095 taels; 1925 — 17,032 taels; number of licenses at 
 the end of 1922 — 712 Chinese, 3,082 Natives; 1925 — 519 Chinese, 1,651 
 Natives. 
 
 From figures furnished me, it would appear that the opium revenue, 
 which was over 11% of the total revenue of the Netherlands East Indies 
 in 1914, was about 71/2% in 1921 and about 5% in 1925. The islands 
 are wealthy enough and have enough sources of revenue to be able to 
 finance themselves without recourse to opium revenue. The opium mon- 
 opoly is in the finance department, not in a public welfare or similar 
 department. A change in financial policy was inaugurated in 1926; 34,- 
 000,000 guilders have been taken as a basic figure for the gross receipts 
 of the opium monopoly to go into the budget ; any excess in the actual 
 receipts are not for general expenditures, but for public works or public 
 welfare; if the actual receipts fall below 34,000,000 guilders, then the 
 lower figure is to be used as the basic figure for the following year. (The 
 gross receipts for 1925 were about 36,500,000 guilders.) 
 
 There is an Opium Advisory Council, consisting of three Europeans, 
 three Chinese, and four natives, most of them being non-officials. Ac- 
 cording to one spokesman for the government, they are anxious to have 
 some anti-opium propaganda work, but believe it would be effective only 
 
 30 
 
if carried on by Chinese or natives among their own people; they are 
 paying for one such now among the Chinese, and are also paying a small 
 amount to a European organization for such work. 
 
 A few experiments have been made among the tin workers of Banka, 
 and among the employees of some industrial companies as to the effect 
 of recreation on the smoking habit. However, furnishing moving pictures 
 once or twice a week is not sufficient as a basis for a conclusion. 
 
 Regarding coca-leaf production, a man familiar with the subject gave 
 the following information: That it is mostly in the hands of Europeans, 
 that it would not be difficult to control, that the crop requires much space 
 compared to its value, and that it would therefore not be difficult to induce 
 growers to reduce the crop; also that recently when the government 
 leased lands to farmers it stipulated that no new coca-leaf crops should 
 be grown thereon. If it becomes advisable some day to control the crops, 
 the government could do away with any coca-leaf hedges. The coca-leaf 
 is usually dried and powdered before shipment to Holland. There are 
 no factories in the islands for doing anything with the coca-leaf. A former 
 factory at Soekaboemi is now used as a coffee warehouse; one projected 
 elsewhere was never built, and the government refused consent to a 
 Swiss company for a factory. 
 
 The smuggling of opium into the islands is on a very large scale; and 
 according to government officials, the quality, the packing, and the ships 
 on which it arrives, all prove conclusively that it is almost entirely 
 Chinese opium. There is not much smuggling into the “prohibition 
 areas,” as the vice never has had a hold there, and the demand does not 
 exist. For seized opium, the government pays the informant four guilders 
 per tael. An interesting calculation was made as to the amount of opium 
 smuggled into one of the larger cities. The dross recovered was figured 
 in terms of taels of opium necessary to produce that amount of dross ; 
 it was analyzed to see what proportion of it was from government opium, 
 and from this it was estimated that there was at least 1^ times as much 
 illicit opium on sale as government opium. 
 
 The Indian government having decided to reduce exports 10% per 
 year beginning in 1927, the government of the Netherlands East Indies 
 had to decide whether it would reduce its supplies or make up the shortage 
 by buying elsewhere. It decided upon the latter course, and has pur- 
 chased enough Persian opium in the open market to take care of the 
 usual needs when added to the regular supply of Indian opium. 
 
 The Dutch maintain that under their administration of the monopoly 
 system the smoking evil has been much reduced and is as well under 
 control as the smuggling factor will permit. From my reading of docu- 
 ments and my somewhat hurried observation, I believe this statement 
 justified. An improvement would be brought about, however, by the 
 adoption of some of the modifications suggested in the body of the Report. 
 
 31 
 
2. Government Shops and Divans in British Malaya. 
 
 In 1926 the governments in British Malaya (Straits Settlements, Fed- 
 erated Malay States, and Unfederated Malay States) practically com- 
 pleted the change from licensed shops and divans to government shops and 
 divans operated by government employees. The control is intelligently 
 operated ; no attempt has yet been made to ration users, nor has any be- 
 ginning been made in the Straits Settlements to register them; but in the 
 Federated Malay States a “list of customers” system, begun in November, 
 1924, is being followed. 
 
 The net revenue from opium for the year 1925 in the Straits Settle- 
 ments was roughly about $12,500,000, or something over 37% of the en- 
 tire revenue; in the Federated Malay States about $12,000,000, or about 
 14% of the entire revenue; and in the various Unfederated States the 
 percentage of revenue from opium varied from 20% to 28%, by far the 
 largest volume being in Johore, where it was about $4,600,000. The above 
 figures are all in Straits dollars. 
 
 The selling price of government opium in Singapore is $12.50 (Straits 
 dollars) per tahil. The government buys all dross offered that measures 
 up to a standard, paying $7.00 a tahil for it, and destroys it. This high 
 price is necessary as there are users willing to pay $6.50 for it. The gov- 
 ernmentally operated divans in Singapore, which I visited, look more like 
 workingmen’s clubs than the opium dens of romance ; they are clean, well 
 ventilated and lighted, and have sanitary appliances. The smokers are 
 usually in groups of two or three, chatting or smoking cigarettes or drink- 
 ing tea (which is furnished free) between “pipes,” if they smoke more 
 than one. Smokers who use the divans do not pay for the privilege, but 
 buy their opium there. The clerk in charge is supposed to turn in dross 
 to an extent of at least 50% of the volume of his sales; it is the smoker 
 who is paid for it. 
 
 There is an Opium Advisory Commission for British Malaya, com- 
 posed of the Treasurer, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, the Superin- 
 tendent of Government Monopolies of the Straits Settlements, the Deputy 
 Commissioner of Trade and Customs, the Secretary for Chinese Affairs 
 of the Federated Malay States, the Commissioner of Trade and Customs 
 of Johore, and one European and two Chinese unofficial members. 
 
 To take care of the cut in their opium supply by the Indian Government 
 beginning with 10% in 1927, British Malaya has supplied itself by pur- 
 chase in the open market with probably enough Persian opium to care for 
 their needs for 1927 and 1928. 
 
 The British Malayan governments are preparing for the time when 
 they will have no more opium revenue. In 1925 the Straits Settlements 
 set aside $30,000,000 (Straits dollars) as an Opium Revenue Reserve Re- 
 placement Fund, and in 1926 added thereto 10% of its year’s revenue, 
 
 32 
 
which increased the fund by over $3,000,000. It is the government’s in- 
 tention thus to keep adding annually to this fund. The Federated Malay 
 States started a similar fund in 1925 with $10,000,000; and Johore with 
 a lesser amount. While all the governments have enough untaxed sources 
 to provide necessary revenue, they consider this financial plan the con- 
 servative one; but the plan encountered considerable opposition. 
 
 Smuggling is on a large scale. In 1925 the Straits Settlements authori- 
 ties seized 36,656 tahils of raw opium, of which 95% was said to be 
 Chinese, and 275,089 tahils of prepared opium, 99% of which also ap- 
 peared to be Chinese. One authority spoke of “the huge flood of Amoy 
 opium” which is invading British Malaya in spite of the money spent on 
 patrol and prevention service. 
 
 While not quite up to the Dutch standard, the government monopoly 
 is an excellently administered one, and, taking smuggling difficulties into 
 account, has accomplished its objects reasonably well. The admirable in- 
 vestigations exhaustively conducted by the government twice in the past 
 twenty years indicate that the problem is well understood. The Chinese 
 “protector” and “adviser” system in force here and in the Netherlands 
 East Indies is intelligently helpful in the problem. Needless to say, the 
 modifications to government monopoly mentioned in the report would re- 
 move some of the existing objections to that form of control. 
 
 3. Hongkong, 
 
 The government of this colony does not operate its own shops, but pays 
 selected men a monthly wage out of which the shopkeeper pays rent and 
 all expenses. The shopkeeper buys and sells at the government price, that 
 is, without profit; his profit comes from what he saves on his “wage.” 
 This wage is from $85 to $100 Mex. for the ordinary shop ; smaller 
 amounts where the space and time required are very little. One of the 
 “shops” I visited in a busy part of the town was a mere counter or desk 
 in the rear of a dry-goods shop. A semi-official explanation of why they 
 do not have the selling done by government employees was that they do not 
 want to give this type of Chinese the authority of a petty government 
 official, and that the Chinese as merchants are honest, but as officials fre- 
 quently not. There are somewhat less than 100 shops. The retail selling 
 price of government opium is $14.50 Mex. per tael. The law limits legal 
 possession to five taels. Public smoking places are illegal ; the police are 
 kept busy suppressing them, and a regular scale of rewards is paid in- 
 formers. In 1925 there were 1,610 convictions for divan keeping, and 
 6,380 convictions for the offenses of illegal smoking, boiling, and posses- 
 sion of opium. 
 
 Hongkong in all practical effect is as much a part of China as Man- 
 hattan Island is a part of the United States. Smuggling of Chinese opium 
 into Hongkong is on an enormous scale. One official estimated that only 
 5% of the amount smuggled in is seized, and that the illicit trade is three 
 
 33 
 
times the licit. In 1924 an estimate was made that they were about equal. 
 All are, of course, mere guesses. The illicit sells for $3 to $3.50 per 
 tael, only about a fourth of the government price. In October, 1926, 
 there was a large seizure of illicit opium; for several weeks after that 
 until illicit sales became normal, the government shops did an unusually 
 large business. In 1925 about 46,000 taels of prepared opium were 
 seized, of which about 36,000 were Chinese, about 7,000 from Macao and 
 about 3,000 from Kwang Chow Wan, French leased territory; and about 
 16,000 taels of raw opium, of which about 95% was Chinese. 
 
 Further information on Hongkong is contained in the “Report of the 
 Superintendent of Imports and Exports for the Year 1925.” So inter- 
 esting a document on the whole is the “Report of the Committee Ap- 
 pointed by H. E. the Governor to Consider the Colony’s Position with 
 Regard to the Obligations Incurred under the International Opium Con- 
 vention, 1912,” which report is dated March 1, 1924, that excerpts from 
 it are reproduced in Annex IV. 
 
 Administration of a monopoly is more difficult in Hongkong than in the 
 East Indies, but some modifications could be adopted to remove the prin- 
 cipal objections to the government monopoly form of control. 
 
 4. Other British Territories in the Far East. 
 
 Sarawak: In 1925 the net opium revenue was about $1,000,000, 
 approximately 18^^% of the total revenue. Smokers were licensed and 
 registered but not rationed. An attempt was being made to limit new labor 
 in some of the government works to non-smokers. On December 31, 1925 
 there were 6,258 registered smokers. Distribution was either directly by 
 government officials, or agents paid fixed fees. There were government 
 smoking divans, and a few government appointed agents ; difficulty was 
 being experienced in suppressing illegal divans. In the Government Ga- 
 zette of September 1, 1926, a rough estimate, described as “exceedingly 
 unreliable,” gives the Chinese population as 36,000. 
 
 British North Borneo: Government shops with clerks on a fixed 
 salary are being tried experimentally in districts where effective su- 
 pervision is possible. Otherwise, opium is sold in licensed non-govern- 
 ment shops or distributed by estates and other large employers of labor 
 who purchase either from the government or licensed non -government 
 shops. The number of shops of both kinds has been reduced about 
 26% from 1925 to 1926, this action apparently being stimulated or in- 
 duced by the Geneva Conference. 
 
 The revenue derived from opium sales in 1925 was $881,418, which 
 was about 23% of the total revenue of the State. 
 
 The following comparative table of opium shops was furnished from 
 official sources. 
 
 34 
 
June 30, July 31, 
 1925 1926 
 
 Estate licensed retail shops 
 
 
 43 
 
 
 — 
 
 Estates distributing chandii 
 
 Licensed retail shops 
 
 25 
 
 — 
 
 17 
 
 28 
 
 Licensed smoking divans 
 
 10 
 
 35 
 
 2 
 
 19 
 
 Government retail shops 
 
 nil 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 Government smoking divans 
 
 nil 
 
 
 5 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 78 
 
 
 58 
 
 Ceylon, Burma, and India will be treated under “eating opium.” 
 
 5. Japan and Japanese Territories. 
 
 Japan has no opium smoking problem. For several hundred years it 
 was a “closed country,” and, when it was opened, treaties against opium 
 importation were made, and strict laws passed and enforced against the 
 use of opium. The evil never got a start there. The Japanese are a tem- 
 perate people, and are accustomed to discipline and obedience to the gov- 
 ernmental requirements. The above may serve to explain in part why the 
 Japanese have been singularly free from the evils of opium and “drug” 
 addiction. 
 
 At this point, mention should be made of the new Opium Commission, 
 organized April 1, 1926: An advisory board composed of the Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs, Chairman ; Director of the Treaty Bureau, Foreign 
 Office; Director of the Health Bureau, Home Office; one of the Directors 
 of the Department of Justice; one of the Directors of the Department of 
 Communications ; and the chiefs of the Monopoly Bureaus of Formosa, 
 Kwantung, and Korea. Their most important decisions during 1926 were 
 to recommend ratification of the Geneva conventions; and their recom- 
 mendations to the Department of Communications, which in turn recom- 
 mended to the Japanese Ship Owners’ Association that they insert in all 
 charter parties the following clause : “That charterers shall not load or 
 carry opium destined for China unless they secure from the proper author- 
 ities a regular permit for opium importation into China, and that charterers 
 shall not discharge such goods at any place or port other than specified in 
 such permit.” All have apparently complied with this recommendation ; but 
 apparently they do not include ships registered in Formosa, Kwantung, or 
 Korea. The intention of the recommendation was to do away with the 
 opium traffic from the Persian Gulf to China in ships flying the Japanese 
 flag. 
 
 Formosa : There are special factors which account for the better 
 working of a registration and rationing plan here than elsewhere. The 
 government exercises a strict political control over all persons desiring to 
 enter Formosa; the population is a fairly stable one, and addicts are not 
 admitted; low price of government opium reduces the incentive for 
 
 35 
 
smuggling; there is efhcient supervision including that over smuggling. 
 In spite of all this, scandals have arisen in the past over irregularities in 
 administration, and there are complaints in other countries of “leakage” 
 from Formosa and via Formosa. Apparently some of the morphine is ex- 
 tracted from the opium prepared for smoking, ostensibly for making a 
 uniform product and for lowering the morphine content of the prepared 
 opium. Several observers who have lived in or visited Formosa state 
 that owing to the strict political control it is difficult to obtain anything 
 but the official viewpoint and official statistics, but that their observations 
 of the workings of the system do not tend to substantiate all of the claims 
 of excellency and efficiency made by the Japanese. 
 
 Kwantung (leased territory in China) : The right to import raw 
 opium and sell it is “farmed” out, and the farmer may sell only to 
 registered and rationed consumers, the consumer apparently doing his 
 own preparing. The list of registrants is not closed, as in Formosa, but 
 it is supposed not to exceed a fixed number. As there are about 300,000 
 Chinese coming in and going out of the territory each year, there are many 
 difficulties with the system and much smuggling. It is planned to do away 
 with the “farmer” during 1927, and have the importation and sale of raw 
 opium a government monopoly; but for the present there are no other 
 plans for changing any other features of the system to conform with that 
 in Formosa. 
 
 Korea has been treated under “Prohibition.” 
 
 6. Siam. 
 
 Siam believes that the best way to restrict the use of opium is to confine 
 the smoking to public divans and forbid it in the home. Siam is having 
 the same trouble with the smuggling problem that other countries are 
 experiencing ; her policy of control has been a progressive one ; she con- 
 tends that if the smuggling evil is overcome, and if she is given tariff au- 
 tonomy and thus freed from the necessity of any reliance upon opium 
 revenue, she can solve her opium problem as promptly as any country in 
 the East. I am informed that Siam is buying enough Persian opium to 
 make up for India’s 10% cut in supplies. 
 
 7. Macao. 
 
 The testimony from almost all sides indicates that the well-known 
 practices in this Portuguese colony continue as heretofore, and that it is 
 still one of the largest centers of illicit trade outside of China. 
 
 8. French Territory in the Far East. 
 
 I know very little of the details of opium control in Indo-China and 
 Kwang Chow Wan. It is hardly possible, however, that governmental 
 control in any parts of the country, no matter how wild or remote, present 
 any difficulties not encountered in the Netherlands East Indies, British 
 Malaya, Burma, or Siam. According to various persons who have visited 
 Indo-China lately, a number of Europeans are becoming addicted to opium 
 smoking. The worst thing, however, which stands out in the testimony 
 in all parts of the Far East, is the increase of irregularities in Indo-China 
 
 36 
 
and Kwang Chow Wan, so far as illicit export and smuggling are con- 
 cerned. 
 
 9. India. 
 
 India has taken in 1926 one of the most important steps in the history 
 of the opium question by announcing that she would begin cutting down 
 the export of opium for smoking in 1927 at the rate of 10% each year 
 until it is wiped out entirely. The factors that evidently influenced her 
 are numerous : World opinion, British opinion, native opinion ; the misuse 
 by re-export and smuggling of the opium sold to Macao, Persia, and 
 French Indo-China, and, connected therewith, her obligation under the 
 Hague Convention to control distribution, and under the Geneva Con- 
 vention to use her efforts to end smuggling; her desire to avoid the em- 
 barrassment of watching what became of the opium she sold; her im- 
 proved financial condition, which lessened the importance of the revenue 
 consideration ; and the untenability of her position at Geneva. The plan 
 to be used for 1927 is apparently to reduce the 1926 export of 8,145 chests 
 by 10% and apportion the amount to be exported among the buyers in 
 proportion to their respective average purchases during the last five years. 
 Attention has already been called to the fact that these customers are mak- 
 ing up for the shortage by buying elsewhere. It is not considered that 
 the growers will experience any hardships in adjusting themselves to a 
 change that is spread over ten years. 
 
 Opium eating is India’s greatest problem, domestically, and will be 
 discussed under the classification “Raw Opium for Eating.” The new 
 policy of cutting down exports is presented here because it concerns pre- 
 pared opium for smoking and affects the opium smoking control in other 
 countries. 
 
 , , II. RAW OPIUM FOR EATING 
 
 1. India. 
 
 The Indian Government regards the opium policy of the provinces a 
 “transferred subject” over which each province itself has full control. 
 The governing power, however, retains a right to veto, and is usually care- 
 ful to explain that the right would hardly be exercised in case of a popular 
 desire to increase restrictions on the use of opium. As a matter of fact, 
 I am familiar with a recent veto in India of some provincial opium legis- 
 lation — probably a proper one, as the legislation was ill-considered — -but 
 nevertheless an example of what the power of veto can do. 
 
 The old claim that the eating of opium was a necessary medical use in 
 remote districts where doctors were few has been exploded recently by 
 the discovery that the greatest use was in the crowded industrial sections, 
 and the large cities. This has greatly simplified the problem. Public 
 opinion in India is gradually making headway to combat the evil ; Assam 
 is already definitely committed to eventual prohibition, and Bombay has 
 accepted it in principle. 
 
 The contention that the eating of opium is purely a domestic problem 
 is perhaps technically correct, but if India produces her opium for domestic 
 
 37 
 
use, after it has ceased to export, it will still have an international obli- 
 gation to control distribution so that none of the production gets where 
 it is not wanted. A man may keep a vicious dog without incurring any 
 penalties to his neighbors so long as he keeps it off their premises. 
 
 One of the important problems that India has to deal with is the opium 
 production of the native states ; much of this is smuggled into other parts 
 of British India, but it is not believed that smuggling out of the country 
 is on a very large scale. This problem will probably be solved only when 
 the native states are given some other revenue to replace their opium 
 revenue, such as, for example, part of the customs duties. 
 
 The Indian Government can probably do much to reduce that part of 
 the opium eating evil that is due to the so-called medical use by an edu- 
 cational campaign on the efficacy of substitutes. Just as it now sells 
 quinine at a low price at the post offices for malaria, where opium used to 
 be tbe accepted remedy, so it could induce the use of coal-tar products 
 and other drugs with pain-killing but non-habit-forming properties for 
 the relief of those ills, or their symptoms, for which opium is now taken. 
 Incidently, it might be added that India has established a limited monopoly 
 of quinine, ostensibly to end her reliance upon the Dutch syndicate’s 
 monopoly. Since the establishment of the monopoly one of the Presi- 
 dencies and two of the government plantations are said to have made a 
 very substantial profit. 
 
 The “apology” for the government monopoly of production and ex- 
 port for the past is that the monopoly was necessary for efficient control, 
 and other governments happened to want to buy what she was producing. 
 Regardless of the past, India’s present actions are contributing much to 
 the solution of the world problem. 
 
 2. Ceylon. 
 
 Ceylon uses the registration and rationing system for control of opium 
 eating as well as smoking. In 1912, 10,896 pounds of opium were used; 
 in 1925, 4,223 pounds; in 1920, there were 11,062 registered addicts; in 
 1925, 7,170. Native doctors are licensed to use opium in their practice, 
 and are supplied from government depots. Registered addicts get their 
 supplies from government hospitals and dispensaries. This is an interest- 
 ing feature of the plan. It approaches more nearly prohibition, with ad- 
 diction considered rather as having the attributes of disease. 
 
 Liquor, and the drinking of “ganja” or “bhang,” an Indian hemp prep- 
 aration, are greater problems than opium in Ceylon. There is a consid- 
 erable illicit traffic in opium smuggled in from India. One observer esti- 
 mated that there is as much opium, licit and illicit, now used in Ceylon 
 as under the old license system before 1912, but that the law had had an 
 educational effect and had kept the traffic within bounds. The chief 
 cause of failure is ascribed to smuggling and bribery of native enforce- 
 ment officers ; accordingly, it is usually the consumer who is arrested, the 
 seller sometimes, but the big dealer never. 
 
 The chief factors that brought about the change to registration and 
 
 38 
 
rationing from the old license system were the campaign of a Scotch 
 newspaper editor in Colombo, and the willingness of the authorities to try 
 it, since the opium revenue was not an important part of the general 
 budget. Of course, the high percentage of literacy in Ceylon contributed 
 to the success of the editor’s campaign. 
 
 3. Burma. 
 
 Here also are found registration of smokers and eaters. From in- 
 formation received, I would judge that the problems are similar to those 
 described elsewhere, smuggling presenting the greatest difficulty. 
 
 III. “MANUFACTURED DRUGS” 
 
 The methods of control over “manufactured drugs” are not in con- 
 troversy to the same extent as methods of control of raw and prepared 
 opium. Medicinal and scientific uses of “manufactured drugs” are al- 
 most universally recognized as the only legitimate ones, and the use by the 
 consumer for medicinal purposes is predicated upon first obtaining a pre- 
 scription from a physician and having it filled by a licensed pharmacist 
 under strict control, who in turn obtains his supplies from a licensed 
 dealer or manufacturer under government control. The extent to which 
 import and export of both the raw material and the manufactured product 
 should be controlled, and the degree to which the individual manufacturer 
 should be restricted in his output are the principal questions ; and here the 
 difficulty is more as to what form of international agreement will be ac- 
 ceptable. It has been clearly established by experience that the United 
 States, Great Britain and Japan all have methods of control and laws 
 which, when strictly enforced, can keep the drugs within legitimate 
 channels. 
 
 The United States system is, briefly, (1) to forbid the importation of 
 “manufactured drugs,” and to permit the importation of only so much 
 raw material as the Federal Narcotics Control Board deems necessary for 
 the manufacture of the medical requirements of the country itself; (2) to 
 prohibit the exportation of “manufactured drugs” except by permit, and 
 only to countries that need them for legitimate purposes, upon proof of 
 that fact and presentation of a proper import certificate from the authori- 
 ties of such countries. The internal control is by license and supervision 
 of manufacturers, wholesale and retail dealers, physicians, dentists, 
 and veterinarians, and by supply to the consumer only upon prescription. 
 The Japanese form differs from this principally in that the government 
 has a monopoly of the import of raw material, and the manufacturer must 
 look there for his supply. 
 
 In the past three years there has been practically no complaint that 
 British or American products were finding their way into illegitimate 
 channels. On the other hand there was much complaint, principally in 
 China and other Far Eastern countries, that Japanese products were freely 
 to be had. I was informed in Japan that at a Cabinet meeting late in 1925 
 orders were given for the strictest sort of enforcement of the law, and 
 that today, except by petty smuggling or connivance of officials, no “manu- 
 
 39 
 
factured drugs” can get out of Japan except in very small quantities, 
 usually less than an ounce, upon requisition of a Japanese physician, 
 dentist, or veterinarian residing in a foreign country, for use in his prac- 
 tice, accompanied by a certificate of a Japanese consul, and then upon 
 express permission of the Japanese Home Office. However, the state- 
 ment is made in China that “drugs” are getting through by means of 
 false labeling. 
 
 “Drug” addiction seems to be a serious menace in all parts of the world. 
 Surface indications are that it is greatest in China and the United States, 
 but this may be more apparent than real, for the matter has perhaps had 
 more attention and publicity in these countries. No reliable statistics are 
 available. For example, estimates of the number of “drug” addicts in 
 the United States have varied from 100,000 to 4,000,000; in a report 
 dated April 15, 1919, of a special committee for the investigation of the 
 “drug” traffic, appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury, the number 
 was put as “probably exceeding 1,000,000.” In the November, 1926, 
 Hearings of the House Appropriation Committee, Col. L. G. Nutt, head 
 of the Narcotic Division of the U. S. Treasury Department, placed the esti- 
 mate at 100,000. Dr. Wu Lien-Teh, of Harbin and Pekin, a well-known 
 physician, has stated that in 1924 there was an illegal import into China of 
 thirty tons of narcotic drugs, probably an exaggerated figure. That China 
 has been suffering greatly from a tremendous import is perfectly clear ; and 
 one of the cruellest features of the traffic is that a large part of the 
 “drugs” are sold as a cure for the opium habit. While a number of those 
 engaged in the traffic are foreigners, said to be largely Japanese residing 
 in China, the bulk of it is in the hands of the Chinese. One observer 
 thinks that “drug” addiction in China has fallen off as opium smoking has 
 increased. In India the habit is growing, in spite of strict laws and many 
 convictions ; in many cases it seems that cocaine is being mixed with the 
 betel nut. In the British possessions and the Philippines, deportation of 
 Qiinese who are found guilty of violation of any of the drug laws has 
 been found to have a deterrent effect upon that part of the population. 
 
 Smuggled goods are the whole source of supply in the Far East ; there 
 are no manufacturers there with the exception of Japan, and the Japanese 
 are remarkably free from addiction. Apparently “drugs” of German and 
 Swiss manufacture are finding their way into the Far East countries, al- 
 though the date of their leaving the factory is never clear. In fact, the 
 whole question of identification of country of manufacturer is a difficult 
 one. “Drugs” come unlabeled, or falsely labeled as to contents or place 
 of manufacture, or well-known labels are counterfeited; sometimes 
 “drugs” are taken from one country to another before shipment abroad 
 in an attempt to conceal the source. 
 
 The United States, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France 
 and Holland are today the sources of practically all of the world’s “manu- 
 factured drugs.” The products of the first two mentioned are well under 
 control. That Japan can regulate her manufacture if she will is abun- 
 
 40 
 
dantly evidenced by her ability to keep her own people comparatively free 
 from the evil and to control smuggling into the country and her possessions 
 where it is her interest to do so. She has been much blamed in the past 
 for the share her nationals had in the “manufactured drug” trade of the 
 Far East. How about the rest? France is the smallest factor as a manu- 
 facturer. Holland is important in that her nationals have a monopoly on 
 a large part of the world’s supply of coca-leaf, used for cocaine, which 
 they manufacture only in crude form and then sell to the laboratories 
 that make the finished product. Germany and Switzerland have in the 
 past been the big sources of the “manufactured drugs” that find their 
 way through illicit channels into, for example, the United States. Laws 
 in all these countries, similar to those in the United States, strictly en- 
 forced, would go a long way towards putting an end to the evil. That 
 they can be strictly enforced there is no doubt. The factories in Germany 
 and Switzerland, before the war, made a great variety of patented non- 
 habit-forming drugs which they sold in the United States at m,uch higher 
 prices than at home, and they were sufficiently vigilant to protect their 
 interests to be able to prevent a flow of these products at a lower price 
 from reaching America through irregular channels. In other words, they 
 successfully protected their monopoly and did their own enforcing. 
 
 Most of the manufacturers in Continental Europe and Japan producing 
 habit-forming drugs in large quantities, and the responsible officials in 
 those countries, must know that most of those “drugs” will eventually be 
 used illicitly; furthermore, there is no national interest involved in the 
 continued manufacture of those large quantities. Therefore, if these 
 responsible officials dictate a policy of opposition to strict control of ex- 
 port or limitation of manufacture, it is altogether likely, although purely 
 a matter of conjecture, that they have been directly or indirectly influ- 
 enced by tbe trade or commercial interests. What that influence was in 
 Switzerland, at least up to 1925, is made fairly clear in a book entitled 
 “La Politique de la Suisse dans la Societe des Nations, 1920-1925,” written 
 in 1925 by Prof. William E. Rappard of the University of Geneva, from 
 which I quote the following excerpts (translated from the original French) : 
 
 “It is, moreover, very doubtful that scruples concerning constitu- 
 tional procedure should have so long prevented the Swiss from 
 adhering to the Hague Convention, had they not been reinforced by 
 a desire not to injure a flourishing national industry. Switzerland 
 is, indeed, one of the three countries of Europe and one of the six 
 countries of the world which manufacture morphine. She is also 
 one of the four European countries and one of the six countries 
 of the world which manufacture cocaine. Moreover, deprived of 
 a large domestic market and exporting more than 95 per cent of 
 her drug production, she is naturally more concerned than any 
 other State by all international regulations on the matter. This con- 
 sideration renders the action of the Federal Government not only 
 more difficult, but also more necessary. 
 
 41 
 
“From all sides, indeed, our country found herself accused of 
 deliberately remaining out of the struggle against drug abuse, in 
 order to allow her factories to profit by the complete immunity in 
 which the inaction of the Federal Government left them. These 
 accusations, doubtless often inspired by the spite of less fortunate 
 competitors, were nourished by a certain spring which seemed in- 
 exhaustible. Every three months, new discoveries of drugs whose 
 place of export, if not of origin, was Swiss, were noted by the 
 customs officials in countries importing Swiss products, notably 
 the United States, Canada, the Indies and the Far East. As the 
 shipments of morphine and cocaine, sometimes hidden in electric 
 lamps, sometimes in cases of cocoa, sometimes in corsets or furni- 
 ture, had too often been sent from Switzerland, and as the name of 
 a certain firm manufacturing chemical products at * * * was too 
 often associated with these revelations, our country in refusing to 
 put into effect the Hague Convention and in not publishing detailed 
 statistics relative to its drug exportations, inevitably became an ob- 
 ject of suspicion in many parts of the world. 
 
 “The action of the Federal Government, thanks to which Switzer- 
 land was able in 1925 to ratify the Convention which she had signed 
 in 1913, was, therefore, politically opportune as well as morally 
 laudable. It is all the more difficult to understand why it was 
 judged well at Berne for the representatives of the * * * firm, 
 most often mentioned during these years in connection with seiz- 
 ures of concealed drugs, to associate publicly and almost ostenta- 
 tiously with the Swiss delegation at the recent opium conference 
 as well as with the commission charged with elaborating the rules 
 for carrying out the law, whose promulgation they had done all 
 they could to prevent. 
 
 “Politically and economically, indeed, the Swiss live on the con- 
 fidence of the foreigner, a moral capital slowly accumulated in the 
 course of generations by the honesty of our workmen and mer- 
 chants. The export of drugs destined to satisfy medicinal and 
 scientific needs is a perfectly legitimate commercial activity, which 
 has everything to gain and nothing to lose in being protected by 
 the government which draws a sharp distinction between this and 
 clandestine traffic. The more the government zealously and eagerly 
 keeps watch over this traffic and its purveyors, the stronger it will 
 be to defend the interests not only of the chemical industry but of 
 the Swiss export trade in general.” 
 
 One of Switzerland’s prominent citizens has thus courageously done her 
 a service, with the hope, no doubt, of having her gain some of the prestige 
 lost through the actions of some of her “drug” manufacturers. What the 
 other countries involved in the traffic need is someone from among their 
 own citizens, or some group, to do the same for them. Perhaps the manu- 
 facturers themselves can purge their ranks. 
 
 42 
 
The influence may not always be so directly evident; it may be as 
 subtle as someone prominent in politics saying to a responsible official : 
 “These are hard times, and our country needs all of the manufacturing 
 and export business it can get, and if we agree to give up this business, 
 another country will snap it up.” Or it may be bare-faced corruption 
 somewhere along the line, not necessarily in high circles. But anyone 
 familiar with the workings of what are known as “practical politics” will 
 feel that it is not altogether improbable that, at some point in the Chain 
 of persons profiting from the trade, a reward is given by them in money, 
 votes, position, campaign contributions or what-not, to someone in the 
 political chain, to influence local, national or international action. Of 
 course, this conjecture is intended to apply only to those countries which 
 are evading their international obligations either by failing to enact laws 
 which they have agreed by treaty to enact, or by failing honestly to enforce 
 those that have been enacted. 
 
 Where a country has adequate laws and machinery for enforcement, 
 and yet frequent seizures in various parts of the world indicate that 
 “drugs” from that country are getting into illicit channels in large quan- 
 tities, there is doubtless connivance on the part of administrative officials. 
 A private or official or legislative inquiry instituted in such countries 
 ought to develop the reason for the “leakages.” Shortly after the war a 
 “leakage” of huge extent is said to have occurred in the United States, 
 not from a manufacturer but from the surplus government supplies. 
 
 The two noteworthy recent developments in international “drug” con- 
 trol are the resolution of the Advisory Commission of the League asking 
 for an inquiry in each country as to the cause of “leakages” from fac- 
 tories, and the note by the United States to each of the signatories of the 
 Hague Convention asking what they are doing to comply with their obli- 
 gation to control “drugs.” 
 
 There are two schools of thought on the proper method of control of 
 drugs : One believes in rationing the factories, the other in controlling ex- 
 port. There is room for an honest difference of opinion here; but it is 
 regrettable that when the latter idea was accepted at the Geneva Con- 
 vention, the Central Board, designed to control export at least to the ex- 
 tent that any League body is likely to be authorized to “control” inter- 
 national trade, was stripped of so much of its power by the insistence of 
 certain countries. 
 
 Should the United States adhere to the Geneva Conventions? To my 
 mind it does not make a great deal of practical difference one way or the 
 other. The United States should undoubtedly lend its aid in enforcing all 
 'of the progressive features. Adherence would have a good moral effect 
 on those countries who look to this nation for leadership. America should 
 certainly join in the League of Nations Central Board nominations. Since 
 action by the Senate is necessary for adherence, the discussion incident 
 thereto would at least have a clarifying effect and a publicity value for the 
 whole problem, even if adherence would not be possible until almost the 
 time for another conference. 
 
 43 
 
ANNEX II 
 
 Statistics Furnished by the Bureau of Customs and the 
 Constabulary of the Philippines and the 
 Police Department of Manila 
 
 I. Amount of Opium and Morphine Seized by the Bureau of 
 Customs of the Philippines. 
 
 Year 
 
 Place 
 
 Opium Seizures 
 
 Morphine Seizures 
 
 
 
 (kgs.) 
 
 
 (kgs.) 
 
 
 1919 
 
 Manila 
 
 93.174 
 
 
 3.508 
 
 
 
 Sub-ports 
 
 120.155 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 213.329 
 
 
 3.508 
 
 1920 
 
 Manila 
 
 336.892 
 
 
 24.540 
 
 
 
 Sub-ports 
 
 919.512 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 1256.404 
 
 
 24.540 
 
 1921 
 
 Manila 
 
 63.025 
 
 
 3.223 
 
 
 
 Sub-ports 
 
 138.991 
 
 
 .030 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 202.016 
 
 
 3.253 
 
 1922 
 
 Manila 
 
 89.893 
 
 
 .002 
 
 
 
 Sub-ports 
 
 100.184 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 190.077 
 
 
 .002 
 
 1923 
 
 Manila 
 
 636.960 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sub-ports 
 
 36.264 
 
 
 .006 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 673.224 
 
 
 .006 
 
 1924 
 
 Manila 
 
 78.262 
 
 
 .488 
 
 
 
 Sub-ports 
 
 66.461 
 
 
 2.000 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 144.723 
 
 
 2.488 
 
 1925 
 
 Manila 
 
 647.407 
 
 
 2.000 
 
 
 
 Sub-ports 
 
 165.908 
 
 
 .048 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 813.315 
 
 
 2.048 
 
 1926 
 
 Manila 
 
 718.869 
 
 
 .376 
 
 
 
 (up to Dec. 14) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sub-ports 
 
 66.266 
 
 
 .594 
 
 
 
 (up to Sept. 31) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total 
 
 
 785.135 
 
 
 .970 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 SEIZED 1919-1926 
 
 
 4,278.223 Kgs. 
 
 36.815 Kgs. 
 
 VALUE 2,780,844.95 pesos 73,630.00 pesos 
 
 44 
 
II. Opium Cases Recorded by the Philippine Constabulary. 
 
 
 Number 
 
 Persons 
 
 
 Approximate 
 
 Fines 
 
 Year 
 
 of Cases 
 
 Arrested 
 
 Seizures 
 
 Value in Pesos 
 
 in Pesos 
 
 1919 
 
 
 
 
 83,725.00 
 
 
 1920 
 
 
 
 
 1,389,137.00* 
 
 
 1921 
 
 284 
 
 332 
 
 70,267 gr. 
 
 29^965.70 
 
 20,110.00 
 
 1922 
 
 260 
 
 341 
 
 74,870 gr. 
 
 47,290.80 
 
 43,250.00 
 
 1923 
 
 349 
 
 70S 
 
 35,734 gr. 
 
 33,370.00 
 
 29,475.00 
 
 1924 
 
 423 
 
 500 
 
 32,434 gr. 
 
 32,677.12 
 
 68,115.00 
 
 1925 
 
 381 
 
 593 
 
 1,006,731.25 gr. 
 
 301,819.40 
 
 46,461.00 
 
 TOTALS 
 
 1,697 
 
 2,451 
 
 1,220,036.25 gr. 
 
 1,917,985.02 
 
 207,411.00 
 
 III. Number of Arrests Made by the Police Department of the 
 City of Manila for Violation of the Opium Law. 
 
 TABLE 1. 
 
 
 1907 
 
 1908 
 
 1909 
 
 1910 
 
 1911 
 
 1912 
 
 1913 
 
 1914 
 
 1915 
 
 Conducting opium and mor- 
 phine joints 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Eating opium 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Frequenting opium joints .. 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Illegal sale of cocaine & 
 morphine 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Illegal possession & use of 
 morphine and cocaine .... 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 174 
 
 462 
 
 498 
 
 927 
 
 537 
 
 274 
 
 Illegal importation of opium 
 and morphine 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 30 
 
 60 
 
 25 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Illegal possession of pro- 
 hibited drugs 
 
 _ 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 1 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 Illegal possession of opium 
 paraphernalia 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 19 
 
 35 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 Inmates of opium joints 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 ~ 
 
 — 
 
 2 
 
 16 
 
 23 
 
 5 
 
 Receiving morphine thru 
 the trails 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - . 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 Selling opium without 
 license 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 . -- 
 
 . 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Smoking opium 
 
 5 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 106 
 
 264 
 
 383 
 
 216 
 
 42 
 
 — 
 
 Smuggling opium 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 28 
 
 41 
 
 16 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 Spy for opium & morphine 
 joints 
 
 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 _ 
 
 14 
 
 11 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 Violation of opium law 
 (Miscellaneous) 
 
 396 
 
 653 
 
 1054 
 
 729 
 
 10 
 
 _ 
 
 50 
 
 9 
 
 . 
 
 Visiting opium, morphine 
 and cocaine joints 
 
 __ 
 
 — 
 
 __ 
 
 — 
 
 26 
 
 327 
 
 247 
 
 162 
 
 75 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 414 
 
 653 
 
 1056 
 
 1053 
 
 842 
 
 1327 
 
 1549 
 
 784 
 
 370 
 
 ^Including one very large seizure in Cebu. 
 
 45 
 

 1916 
 
 1917 
 
 TABLE 2. 
 
 1918 1919 
 
 1920 
 
 1921 
 
 1922 
 
 1923 
 
 1924 
 
 1925 
 
 Conducting opium 
 joints 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Illegal importation 
 of opium 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 53 
 
 __ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ ■ 
 
 - - 
 
 Illegal possession of 
 cocaine and mor- 
 phine 
 
 61 
 
 84 
 
 91 
 
 108 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 Illegal possession of 
 opium 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 46 
 
 - ■ - 
 
 35 
 
 145 
 
 427 
 
 221 
 
 495 
 
 281 
 
 Illegal possession of 
 opium pipe 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 _ 
 
 —— 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 - -- 
 
 Illegal use of mor- 
 phine 
 
 43 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 38 
 
 26 
 
 127 
 
 30 
 
 99 
 
 
 
 Inmates of opium 
 joints 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 __ 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 _ 
 
 _ 
 
 Smoking opium 
 
 549 
 
 495 
 
 291 
 
 420 
 
 30 
 
 6 
 
 119 
 
 156 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Spy — opium & mor- 
 phine joints 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 _ 
 
 
 Smuggling 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 5 
 
 — 
 
 __ 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Violation of opium 
 law (Miscella- 
 neous) 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 245 
 
 228 
 
 
 
 
 
 Visiting opium and 
 morphine joints 
 
 74 
 
 42 
 
 103 
 
 341 
 
 130 
 
 302 
 
 48 
 
 21 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 TOTAL 
 
 748 
 
 708 
 
 553 
 
 1016 
 
 479 
 
 816 
 
 627 
 
 503 
 
 495 
 
 281 
 
 ANNEX III 
 
 Documents Obtained In Canton, China 
 
 I. ANTI-OPIUM REGULATIONS 
 (Canton)* 
 
 1. The Nationalist Government decides to prohibit opium completely 
 within a time limit of 4 years from the date of promulgation of these 
 regulations. 
 
 2. The Nationalist Government has especially established an Anti-Opuim 
 Office to control all the matters concerned. 
 
 3. The Anti-Opium Office is authorized to undertake the monopoly of 
 selling opium during the period in which opium is not yet completely 
 prohibited. 
 
 4. Erom date of publishing these regulations, the people under the 
 jurisdiction of the Nationalist Government are not allowed to plant, 
 sell, or manufacture, or purchase, or store opium. But opium for 
 medical use that has been certified by government registered qualified 
 
 *The date of promulgation was stated to be August 1, 1925. 
 
 46 
 
doctors and covered by licenses of the Anti-Opium Office is accepted. 
 The term Opium covers opium ra^v or prepared, poppy, dross, mor- 
 phia, cocaine, heroin, etc. 
 
 5. In the territories under the Nationalist Government Avhere poppy 
 has been planted before the promulgation of the regulations, the 
 local authorities concerned should within the limit of three months 
 appoint officers to make investigation and have the poppy plants all 
 rooted out. 
 
 6. Such persons or departments as store opium, raw or prepared, whether 
 or not affixed with revenue stamps, should send in a detailed report 
 as to the quantity and the kind to the local Monopoly Office or its 
 branches, not later than ten days after the said office or branch is 
 established. The opium then will be bought at proper value by the 
 Anti-Opium Office. 
 
 7. Public smoking-houses are to be uniformly closed from the date of 
 publishing these regulations. 
 
 8. People are not allowed to smoke opium unless they are granted a 
 license. 
 
 9. The anti-opium medicine manufacturers should within 15 days from 
 the enforcement of these regulations, produce their medicines to the 
 Anti-Opium Office for examination. If the medicine is found to 
 contain no opium and to be suitable for anti-opium use, it will be given 
 a license for sale. 
 
 10. The above rule is also applied to the anti-opium medicine that is 
 manufactured after the promulgation of these regulations. 
 
 11. Those contravening the provisions of Rule 4, the opium and transport- 
 ing vessel, and all apparatus used in the manufacturing will be liable to 
 confiscation; and the opium plant rooted out; and will be liable to a 
 fine of twice the value of the confiscated property, or be sentenced to 
 imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years. 
 
 12. Anyone breaking Article 7 will be liable to have his opium and other 
 articles confiscated, in addition to a fine of $5,000 or a sentence of 
 imprisonment of not more than 5 years. 
 
 13. These regulations will take effect on the day of promulgation. 
 
 II. RULES FOR APPLYING FOR SMOKING LICENSES 
 
 (Canton)* 
 
 1. Any opium smoker should, according to the time limit set down in 
 the Anti-Opium Regulations, gradually reduce the quantity of opium 
 at least by one-fourth each year until his habit is finished within four 
 years. 
 
 *The date of promulgation was stated to be August 1 , 1925 . 
 
 47 
 
2. Any opitim smoker must apply for a license from the Anti-Opium 
 Head Office or its branch within ten days from the date on which 
 such an office is established. The particulars for his registration and 
 application are as follows: 1. Name. 2. Age. 3. Address. 4. Birth- 
 place. 5. Occupation. 6. Daily consumption quantity of opium. 
 7. Purchase of opium daily or monthly. 8. Intending to stop the 
 habit in how many years or months? 9. Smoking place. 
 
 3. On expiration of the prescribed time limit, no license will be issued. 
 
 4. A smoker without a license, when discovered, will be arrested and sent 
 to Anti-Opium Hospital, and will be released only when his habit has 
 been stopped in a limited time. 
 
 5. The smoker arrested as mentioned in the above article must himself 
 pay all medical expenses. 
 
 6. Licenses are divided into three classes : 1st Class, to pay $10 a year 
 for consumption of 6 or over 6 mace per day. 2nd Class, to pay $5 
 a year for consumption of 3 or over 3 mace per day. 3rd Class, to 
 pay $1 a year for consumption of less than 3 mace per day. 
 
 7. When a licensed smoker cannot reduce his smoking quantity by one- 
 fourth per year as mentioned in Rule 1, he should apply for permis- 
 sion to enter the opium hospital, or be forcibly arrested and sent to 
 the hospital until his habit is finished. 
 
 8. No license is transferable, nor can it be used to purchase opium for 
 any other person. 
 
 9. A licensed smoker, when smoking, should carry the license with him, 
 otherwise be treated as a non-licensed smoker. 
 
 10. When a smoker loses his license, he should report at once for cancella- 
 tion and, in the meantime, apply for a new license by payment of a fee 
 at half the rates fixed in Rule 6. 
 
 11. A lost license, when reported for cancellation, will become invalid. 
 
 12. A licensed smoker is allowed to smoke only in the district to which 
 he is assigned. When he has removed to another place, he must 
 apply for a “permit of removal” from the original office where he 
 obtained his license. This permit is to be affixed to his license so 
 that he will be allowed to purchase opium from the opium office in his 
 new place. This “permit of removal” is issued free of charge. 
 
 13. These rules will take effect on the day of promulgation. 
 
 48 
 
ANNEX IV 
 
 HONGKONG* 
 
 Report of the Committee Appointed by H. E. the Governor 
 to Consider the Colony^s Position with Regard to 
 the Obligations Incurred under the Inter- 
 national Opium Convention, 1912 
 
 Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His 
 Excellency the Governor on the 18th September, 1924. 
 
 Hongkong, 1st March, 1924. 
 
 The Committee has been appointed “to consider the suggestions made 
 by the Advisory Committee of the League of Nations with a view to de- 
 termining what further measures can be taken in Hongkong to give a more 
 effective application to Chapter 11 of the Opium Convention, and to ex- 
 amine the existing position, and to explore the possibilities of further 
 effective action.” 
 
 By Article 6 in Chapter II of the Convention it is provided that “the 
 contracting Powers shall take measures for the gradual and effective sup- 
 pression of the manufacture of, internal trade in, and use of prepared 
 opium, with due regard to the varying circumstances of each country 
 concerned,” 
 
 2. In Hongkong the measures now taken to give effect to Article 6 
 comprise a Government monopoly, sale of Government opium at an arti- 
 ficially high price, heavy penalties in respect of trafficking in or use of 
 opium other than Government opium, and the maintenance of a consider- 
 able force of Revenue Officers for the purpose of preventing such traffick- 
 ing or use. There is no check upon the consumption of opium apart from 
 the high price charged for Government opium and the penalties imposed 
 in respect of illicit opium, and it is obvious that the continuance of the 
 present policy cannot lead to the suppression of the use of opium in the 
 Colony. The most that that policy can effect under existing conditions 
 is to keep the opium habit within bounds. 
 
 The problem to be solved is whether, under existing conditions, it is 
 possible to suppress, either immediately or gradually, the consumption of 
 opium in Hongkong. 
 
 The Committee, in considering this matter, has ignored the financial 
 aspect of the opium question, and it is agreed that, as far as it is con- 
 
 *Only excerpts from this report are printed. 
 
 49 
 
cerned, the fact that the Colony derives a considerable revenue from the 
 sale of opium is entirely, irrelevant. 
 
 3. The Committee is of the opinion that some 20 to 25 per cent of the 
 adult Chinese population, including some one or two per cent of the 
 adult female population, either smoke or swallow opium. It is stated by 
 the persons employed in selling Government opium that the percentage 
 has slightly increased during the past six or seven years. Chinese of the 
 better class are inclined to regard the opium habit as discreditable, much 
 as they would regard betting as discreditable, but they are certainly not 
 prepared to practice what they might possibly preach. Public opinion 
 might not countenance too open a parade of either gambling or opium 
 smoking, but at least it has no great fault to find with the not too ostenta- 
 tious practice of the latter habit. Opium smoking in China has perhaps 
 the same popular support as betting has in England, and the one practice 
 is probably as difficult to eradicate as the other. 
 
 * * * ^ 
 
 4. In the present state of Chinese public opinion the only way to dimin- 
 ish or to put a stop to the use of opium is to diminish or put a stop to the 
 production of opium. The first Article in Chapter I of the Opium Con- 
 vention requires the contracting Powers to enact effective laws or regula- 
 tions for the control of the production and distribution of raw opium, and, 
 except in so far as India is concerned, this obligation is for practical pur- 
 poses entirely disregarded. There is no effective control over the produc- 
 tion and distribution of Chinese, Persian, and Turkish opium. The en- 
 forcing of Article I of the Convention must be antecedent to the enforcing 
 of Article 6 of the Convention, and, while China continues to provide its 
 population with opium in limitless quantity, Hongkong, in attempting to 
 prevent consumption by those Chinese who happen to be within its borders, 
 is merely beating the air. 
 
 5. The Committee estimates that approximately equal quantities of 
 Government and illicit opium are consumed in the Colony. An increase 
 in the Government selling price would probably result in a pro tanto sub- 
 stitution of illicit for Government opium. Any substantial decrease in the 
 Government selling price would almost certainly result in a substantial 
 increase in consumption generally, as Government opium is of much su- 
 perior quality, and, if it were available at the price of illicit opium, the 
 demand would be very greatly increased. 
 
 6. The Committee has carefully considered the question of increasing 
 the number of Revenue Officers and of providing more drastic penalties 
 of trafficking in and using illicit opium, and it is satisfied that the measures 
 already taken by the Government go as far as is reasonably possible in 
 this direction. The Chinese Community has objected time and again to 
 the methods of search now employed, methods far more drastic than any 
 used in the United Kingdom. Public opinion is at least not emphatic 
 against the smuggler, and the Chinese searcher declines to make himself 
 unpopular, except for an adequate consideration. It is known that the 
 
 50 
 
smuggler not infrequently outbids the Government for the Revenue 
 Officer’s services. As regards penalties, these are already of exceptional 
 severity, including heavy fines, long terms of imprisonment, and frequent 
 banishment. 
 
 * ^ 
 
 8. The third resolution of the Advisory Committee recommends “that 
 a uniform maximum limit should be fixed for the amount of prepared 
 opium placed on sale for consumption, calculated according to the number 
 of the adult Chinese male population,” 
 
 A measure such as this would result in the buying up and hoarding of 
 stocks by speculators, who would re-sell at an enhanced price. Persons 
 unwilling to pay the price would substitute illicit for Government opium. 
 It would be preferable to limit sales by raising the price rather than by 
 restricting the quantity on the market, but neither expedient would dimin- 
 ish consumption, as illicit opium would take the place of Government 
 opium. 
 
 The Committee understands that in 1920 the Government of the 
 Straits Settlements attempted to reduce consumption by limitation of 
 supplies and that after a few months it found it necessary to abandon this 
 policy. The Government of the Punjab’s experience in this connection 
 is set out in paragraph 31 of the Report on the Excise Administration of 
 the Punjab during the year 1921-22. It is there stated that measures such 
 as the restriction of supply of excise opium lead to smuggling “and simply 
 aggravate the situation. The Financial Commissioner has accordingly de- 
 cided recently to change the policy in this respect with the object of en- 
 suring that there shall in each district be a sufficient supply of opium so 
 that the needs of the people may be satisfied without their having recourse 
 to smuggling.” 
 
 9. The Advisory Committee, in its fourth resolution, recommends “that 
 the possibilities of the system of registration and licensing, which has al- 
 ready been introduced in some of the Far Eastern territories, should be 
 thoroughly explored.” 
 
 In a Chinese community of the size of that in Hongkong it would not 
 be possible to keep a check upon licenses, if they were issued in any con- 
 siderable number. Licenses would be bought and sold, impersonation 
 would be rife and licensees would corner stocks and profiteer. It has 
 been suggested that licenses should be confined to persons permanently 
 resident in the Colony. Some ten to twelve thousand Chinese pass daily 
 between Hongkong and China: a large part of the population, having 
 permanent homes in China, is in the Colony for a longer or shorter period 
 according to the prospects of remunerative work : and there are periodical 
 in-rushes of refugees who escape from disorder in China and dribble 
 back at varying intervals as quiet is restored to their individual village or 
 district. This large unstable population would bring in the opium to 
 which it is accustomed in China, and its more wealthy members would 
 purchase the much superior Hongkong brand from the licensed permanent 
 
 51 
 
residents ; which permanent residents would probably be men of the coolie 
 class put forward as figure heads by profiteering syndicates. 
 
 It has been put before the Committee that smokers are already regis- 
 tered and licensed in the Netherlands East Indies. The Netherlands East 
 Indies are at a considerable distance from China, reached only after a long 
 sea voyage. The Chinese are there an alien and not an indigenous race, 
 and they form a very small fraction of the total population. Hongkong 
 is geographically and racially an integral part of China, and, with the ex- 
 ception of a mere handful, the whole of its population is Chinese. The 
 task proposed to Hongkong may be compared to the task of preventing 
 the use in Manchester of an article which is in common use throughout 
 the rest of England. The task before the Netherlands East Indies may 
 be compared to the task of, for example, the Argentine authorities in 
 preventing the use by Englishmen within their territory of an article to 
 which these Englishmen are habitually accustomed in England. 
 
 The argument formerly advanced in support of registration and li- 
 censing was based upon the desirability of gradually weaning from the 
 habit smokers who have long been accustomed to the drug. There would 
 be no necessity to license in Hongkong on this score, as, if Government 
 opium was not available, smokers would use illicit opium. 
 
 * ♦ * * 
 
 12. It has to be admitted that the only persons who need purchase 
 Government opium are those who want a high grade product and those 
 who prefer to pay a high price rather than risk the penalty for the use 
 of smuggled opium : and this argument holds good in respect of the con- 
 sumption of any duty paid article in lieu of its smuggled counterpart. 
 But it does not follow that there is no effective control over the consump- 
 tion of such article. It is the opinion of the Committee that the control 
 exercised in Hongkong is as effective as is possible in the extraordinarily 
 difficult circumstances. As long as unlimited supplies of opium are avail- 
 able, opium cannot be kept out of the Colony. The Government of Hong- 
 kong, realizing this fact, has devised a compromise. It sells a good grade 
 of opium at a very high price and it visits with severe penalties all those 
 who are found to be trafficking in or using other opium. There can be no 
 doubt that shortness of purse on the one hand and fear of the conse- 
 quences on the other do keep consumption very far below the rate which 
 would obtain if Government opium were cheapened or prohibited or pen- 
 alties were relaxed. 
 
 13. The various proposals for a gradual diminution in the amount of 
 opium legitimately available have been discussed in the preceding para- 
 graphs. It remains to examine the question whether consumption of 
 opium could be reduced, if no further legitimate supplies were available. 
 It has been pointed out in paragraph 9 that the habitual smoker need not 
 be considered, and, if such a step should result in decreased consumption, 
 the Government should go out of business at once. 
 
 The Committee has expressed the opinion that a gradual reduction of 
 
 52 
 
legitimate supplies will be counterbalanced by an increase in the use of 
 illicit opium. If the use of opium were to be prohibited, it is probable that 
 the situation would get entirely out of hand. A comparison which sug- 
 gests itself is the placing of a small foreign Government in Marseilles and 
 the prohibition by it of the drinking of wine by the French within the 
 town except that opium is much more easily smuggled than wine. Neither 
 the Hongkong Government nor the Council of the League of Nations can 
 prevent indulgence in a practice habitual in a nation of four hundred mil- 
 lion people unless that nation desires to give up that indulgence, and unfor- 
 tunately there is no present indication that the opium habit will be aban- 
 doned by the Chinese people in the near future. It may be mentioned in 
 this connection that the Committee has read with considerable surprise 
 the statements by Mr. Chao Hsin-chu regarding Shanghai, which appear 
 at pages 61 and 65 of the Minutes of the Fifth Session of the Advisory 
 Committee. The information before the Committee is to the effect that 
 enormous quantities of opium go to Shanghai, and the consumption there 
 is very large. The supervision in Shanghai is notoriously far less strict 
 than it is in Hongkong. 
 
 In Canton the Government has for some time past been selling opium 
 for revenue purposes, and a Monopoly has now been formally established. 
 
 * * * 
 
 15. It has been suggested that, if confirmed opium smokers are regis- 
 tered and the use of opium is otherwise prohibited, the British Govern- 
 ment will have done everything possible to discharge its obligations under 
 the Opium Convention. The Committee cannot agree with this suggestion. 
 No government placed as the Hongkong Government is can put a stop to 
 a national habit of an alien race so long as it has not the full support of 
 public opinion, and the confining of opium to a few smokers, or total pro- 
 hibition which would be preferable, would result in a flood of smuggling 
 which it would be impossible to stem. 
 
 The difficulties of detection of smuggling are in present circumstances 
 insuperable. Hongkong, with a total area of 376 square miles, has a coast 
 and frontier line of 400 miles over any part of which Chinese may come 
 and go at will. Opium in bulk comes by ocean going steamer, of which 
 the crew frequently, and sometimes the officers, are in league with the 
 smuggler, and it comes also by launch and by junk. The opium is fre- 
 quently put overboard outside the harbor limits, having attached to it a 
 float which remains submerged for a given period and then rises to the 
 surface. The Hongkong Government is about to incur heavy expense in 
 providing a new sea-going revenue vessel to operate outside harbor limits. 
 Many Revenue and Police launches operated by the Chinese Government 
 carry on an active trade in contraband and, having a Government status, 
 they are more or less immune from search. One such launch was re- 
 cently sunk in Hongkong waters, and on examination of the wreck opium 
 and arms were found in it. Opium is carried in receptacles bolted outside 
 the bottom of a junk, in a hollowed out spar, in a compartment inside a 
 
 53 
 
tin of petrol or a jar of wine, in the leg of a bedstead, in a bag of flour, 
 in a woman’s hair, in fact in every possible place in which the ingenuity 
 of the Chinese can devise means to hide an article the bulk of which is as 
 small as its value is large. The Chinese, who will slice the top from a silver 
 dollar, will hollow out the interior, refill with base metal and replace the 
 top, would not stumble into such traps as the European might be able to 
 set for him except by the merest chance. The Government’s only effica- 
 cious weapon is money, and it is usually worth the smuggler’s while to 
 out-bid the Government. An unscrupulous Revenue Officer and an in- 
 former, working on strict business lines, concern themselves merely with 
 the amount of the inducement, and are indifferent as to its source. 
 
 17. Reform must come from within. The League of Nations has pre- 
 vented opium from India reaching China and it may possibly find means 
 to prevent Persian and Turkish opium from reaching China. China can 
 and will grow all the opium that she requires as long as the opium habit 
 is to the public taste and no really strong body of public opinion is opposed 
 to it. It is the firm conviction of the Committee that under present cir- 
 cumstances no reasonable measure can be devised to reduce further the 
 consumption of opium in Hongkong. The Committee is, however, in 
 entire accord with the principle of opium suppression, and it is its sincere 
 hope that it will be possible to devise some practical means for the total 
 abolition of the practices of opium smoking and opium eating both in 
 China and throughout all parts of the world. 
 
 CLAUDE SEVERN, Chairman. 
 
 P. H. HOLYOAK 
 
 CHOW SHOU-SON 
 
 R. H. KOTEWALL 
 
 THOMAS W. PEARCE 
 
 M. FLETCHER 
 
 N. L. SMITH 
 
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