Despatches from Sir A. Hosie forwarding reports respecting the opium question in China.
- Alexander Hosie
- Date:
- [1911]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Despatches from Sir A. Hosie forwarding reports respecting the opium question in China. Source: Wellcome Collection.
49/52 (page 47)
![understood that this is a mere outline of the system, and does not embrace the numerous modifications of which every Chinese arrangement of the kind is capable. The winter crops, then, being the tenant’s, it follows per se that the opium crop falls to him and not to the land-owner. I have already shown that a rough average assesses the profits on the poppy cultivation at three to four times the amount of those on pulse and cereals. I think that this fact should he borne well in mind when we are told, generally by missionaries, that the people in the province are in favour of opium reform. Such a state of mind does not accord with the character of the Chinese. It is, in fact, quite evident that the entire prohibition of opium cultivation is a very serious matter for large numbers of Szechuanese farmers ; it deprives them of their most profitable crop without making provision for an equally valuable substitute. It is easy to talk of sericulture, tea-planting, and cotton; but time, knowledge, suitable physical conditions and capital are needed to make these industries pay. What is possible in one place is not suited to another, and for the most part I under¬ stand that, should the poppy not be allowed, its place in Ch‘uan Tung can, in the immediate future, only be taken by the usual winter crops of pulse, cereals, and rape. It will be said that the prices of these foodstuffs will thereby be reduced. So they will, but the cheaper they become the smaller the margin of profit affecting both land-owner and tenant—the former indirectly ; and it must be remembered that in average years Szechuan already produces enough to feed its large population. The Effect of Opium Reform on the Economic Conditions of Szechuan.—To put the matter tersely, opium prohibition involves Szechuan in a commercial and fiscal revolution. New sources of revenue have to be found, and I have shown under the preceding heading that the farmer will be a keen sufferer, intimating that the land- owner will be called upon to share in the tenant’s loss. I have, in fact, already heard of local meetings between landlords and tenants, the stand taken by the latter being that they cannot lease on the old terms if deprived of the benefits of poppy cultiva¬ tion. Farmers and land-owners, however, do not stand alone. Opium, as before stated, is the province’s most valuable developed asset, and to Szechuan opium is money, for the whole trade of the province with the outer world is practically an exchange in kind in the hands of the merchant capitalists who (vide Chungking Trade Report for 1903) control the import of yarn and export of opium and silk. Thus it may be anticipated that the abolition of opium will induce a decline in the import of Indian yarn; while it is evident that the poorer the people the smaller their taxable capacity. Difficulties and Prospects.—The difficulties in the way of opium reform in Szechuan have been mostly indicated when considering the preventive smoking measures, the position of the farmer, the question of taxation, and the effect which total prohibition will have on commercial and fiscal arrangements generally. Hence the existence of secret opium dens and other conditions entirely at variance with official proclamations and protestations. As things now stand, proclamations and regulations are of little solid account. The important point is whether the total prohibition of cultivation is, at the present time, a practicable possibility. There is room for very considerable doubt, and it is the irony of fate that complete suppression will fall most heavily on the three distant provinces of Szechuan, Kweichow, and Yunnan. The communications in all are bad and difficult, and the two latter are in their present undeveloped state poor provinces, each receiving a large annual contribution from Szechuan. Following in the footsteps of Hsi Liang,' the last Viceroy of Yunnan, the Viceroy of Szechuan has sent forth a fiat ordering that no poppy shall he planted this autumn in the province under his jurisdiction. A viceregal proclamation, dated the 4th August, and posted in Chungking, threatens that the poppy will be trampled down, and that land-owner, tenant, and headman will all be fined and punished. It does not, however, carry a threat of confiscation of the land as does a proclamation recently issued by the Pa Hsien, which also asserts that guarantees have been furnished by the headmen of the various localities undertaking to prevent cultivation. Time alone will show to what extent these commands have been obeyed; but it may be mentioned that the Pa Hsien is shortly to vacate his post, and it is not of good augury that in CIPuan Tung the progress made towards the restriction of cultivation the season before last was sacrificed in 1909, and that no effective steps have been taken to check indulgence in the drug. A somewhat more hopeful story is told by Mr. Smith’s correspondence in his [1020] E 3](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3136553x_0049.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
