3GG THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — MENTAL 



saino opinion has been very generally held by the 

 majority of the British officers employed in Burmah. 

 Also it seems to have been an admitted fact, that those 

 views arc in accordance with those of the more intelli- 

 gent classes of the Burmese themselves. ' Native 

 opinion,' Sir Charles Aitchison wrote, ' is unanimous in 

 favour of stopping the supply of opium altogether, and 

 no measure we could adopt would be so popular with all 

 the respectable and law-abiding class of the population. 

 In a matter so intimately affecting the well-being of the 

 community,' he added, ' these expressions of opinion are 

 entitled to the greatest respect. When practical ques- 

 tions of this kind arise, it may become a duty to yield to 

 the strong and general desire of the people, even when 

 their opinions may appear unreasonable.' Now although 

 I have myself, I must say, failed to discover the facts 

 upon which this belief in the injurious effects of opium 

 on the Burmese population rests, I cannot deny that it 

 was right to yield to this general consensus of opinion 

 on the part of both the Burmese themselves and of the 

 English officers most competent to form an accurate 

 judgment, and to take measures for preventing the 

 sale of opium to Burmese^ and their possession of the 

 drug, and this has been actually done throughout the 

 whole of Burmah. In regard to this question of the 

 consumption of opium by the Burmese, it is, as Mr. 

 Batten says, remarkable that the authorities in Burmah 

 seem to have arrived at the conclusion that opium is a 

 benefit to every one in the country except the Burmese 

 themselves. I should like to add, that while there has 

 been this unanimity of opinion in regard to the mis- 

 chievous results of opium on the Burmese, there has 

 been an equal unanimity in regard to the harmlessness 

 of the practice among the large foreign population, 

 Chinese and Indian, of Burmah. Sir Charles Aitchison 

 writes — ' Tliere are larsre numbers of the non-Burmese 

 community, constituting perhaps the most thriving and 

 industrious section of the population, to whom the 

 drug is a necessary of life, and by vviiom it is rarely 

 abused. It is impossible to say precisely what the 

 numbers of the Cliinese and the natives of India are. 



