KXI'OIHS 



PAPAVER 



OPIUM 

 Trade 



In confirmation of these official i.-t nn,- of sales and exports. :itt-ntion Acted Export! 

 may now be directed to the commercial transactions as recorded in the fromln **' 

 Sea-borne Trade and Navigation : 



-:.;.;:t.or: of 

 Opium. 



Canton is the chief market for the Indian opium. According to the 

 Consul-General's Report for 1905, 75 per cent, of the drug there used ^ ton - 

 comes from India. The annual average imports by Canton are about 

 12,000 chests, or, say, about one-fourth of the total Chinese imports. But 

 it is ascertained that about an equal quantity of local opium is smuggled 

 into Canton via Pose and the West River from Ssu'ch'uan, Yunnan and 

 Kweichow provinces. The Chinese drug is 40 per cent, lower priced than 

 the Indian, and can thus easily sustain all the risks incurred. According c 

 to Hosie (Opium Trade of China, in Pharm. Journ., Nov. 10, 1906, 512-3), 

 the average import of foreign opium into China for the ten years ending 

 1904 was 52,127 piculs, and in the previous decade 72,298 piculs, so that 

 for the twenty years since 1885 the average annual decline has exceeded Ddiino< 

 1,000 piculs. The import in 1905 was 51,890 piculs, or 2,876 piculs less 

 than in 1904. That decline, says Hosie, is due not to a decrease in opium- 

 smoking, but to an increased consumption of the Native drug. The 

 greatest decline occurs in Northern China, where the import has fallen 

 from 1,735 piculs in 1895 to 690 piculs in 1905. In Central China, the 

 decrease in 1905 was 3,740 piculs as compared with 1904. In Southern Southern 

 China, on the other hand, the figures show an apparent increase. In 

 1895 the imports amounted to 18,708 piculs, in 1905 to 25,209 piculs. 

 It is stated, however, that these figures must not be taken to indicate an 

 increase in consumption of the drug by the people. They are due chiefly 

 to the fact that with the final absorption of the Native Customs in 1901 

 the carrying trade for opium passed to steamers and entered and paid 



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