PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 303 



to interfere with the production and sale of opium, with a view of 

 restricting or preventing its consumption, would be utterly futile, 

 and in the case of the former country would undoubtedly lead to 

 revolution. 



One witness, Surgeon-General Sir William Moore, stated as 

 the result of thirty-three years' service and observation in India, 

 that opium-smoking is practically harmless, and opium water not 

 only harmless, but beneficial in moderation, and a prophylactic 

 against malarial fever. 



The following circumstance was also regarded as substantiat- 

 ing this position: During the years 1893-^94 the island of Hong- 

 Kong, on the Chinese coast, was ravaged by a pestilence, in the 

 nature of a filth disease, of great malignity. Since its abatement 

 it is claimed, with an accompanying array of evidence, that the 

 opium smokers and eaters were almost without exception ex- 

 empted from the pest. 



Very naturally, also, the (British) Indian civil-service officials, 

 holding the view that the large revenue derived by the Govern- 

 ment from the monopoly of the production and sale of opium is 

 in no sense a tax burden upon the Indian people ; and recognizing 

 also the great difficulty (but absolute necessity) of making good 

 the deficiency consequent upon the abrogation of such revenue 

 through new and additional taxation upon the people, were unani- 

 mously of the opinion that any change in the existing system in 

 respect to opium would be in the highest degree inexpedient and 

 unwarranted. When the question was put to Sir John Strachey, 

 who in the course of thirty- eight years of Indian civil service has 

 filled almost every post, from the most subordinate to the govern- 

 orship of provinces and membership of the Government of India, 

 how he accounted for the great contrariety of belief in respect to 

 the opium question, he made answer as follows : 



"The ignorance that prevails in this country [England] re- 

 garding everything Indian is enormous, and is not confined to 

 those whom we expect to be ignorant, but extends to the most 

 highly educated classes. It extends to all Indian subjects his- 

 tory, geography, the conditions and habits of the people, the con- 

 stitution of the Government in fact, everything. I will give an 

 illustration which always seems to me to have a useful bearing on 

 this opium question. Mr. Buckle, in his History of Civilization, de- 

 rives all the distinctive institutions of India and the peculiarities 

 of its people from the fact, that the exclusive food of the natives 

 of India is rice. It follows from this, he tells us, that caste pre- 

 vails, that oppression is rife, that rents are high, and that customs 

 and laws are stereotyped. I have no doubt that if Mr. Buckle had 

 been asked, he would have said that the same cause accounted for 

 the consumption of opium in India. I sometimes ask my English 



