Why is it that these importers are never brought to book, is a question that might reasonably be asked. The answer is simple. It is because they never by chance handle the goods; they never allow it into their houses. That a certain man is a smuggler is well known to the authorities. In fact, the suspect will cheerfully admit it; he will even go as far as telling them how it was that they failed to seize his last consignment of contraband, and defy them to seize the next one he expects to import! But he is perfectly acquainted with the law, and he knows that he cannot be touched unless the contraband is found in his actual possession, or, under such circumstances, within his house or its precincts, that possession of it cannot be ascribed to anyone but himself. The law prescribes a punishment for any person who, according to general repute, earns his living, wholly or in part, by opium or morphia trafficking. The smuggler evades the first part of this provision by keeping a mercantile business going; and relies upon his personality, and the dread he inspires in those who might otherwise seek to interfere with him, for avoiding the second. The instinctive reluctance of respectable people to make themselves party to judicial proceedings, and a very understandable fear of extremely unpleasant consequences to themselves, deters them from coming forward to give evidence against the smuggler, and this is a great handicap to this very excellent piece of legislation. All that the executive can hope to do is to seize as much of his contraband as possible, and so, gradually, deprive him of the means to carry on his trade.
Smugglers have been reduced to impotence in this way, by repeated seizure of their wares, but their number is not numerous. The weak link in the chain that can be wound round the smuggler is, indubitably, the corrupt preventive officer. It is regrettable, but nevertheless true, that a proportion of the preventive staff is corrupt and amenable to bribes. The smuggler pays them handsomely to keep their eyes closed, and their mouths shut, and being poorly paid by Government the temptation to bribery, which swells their monthly incomes to four or five times what they legitimately earn, is too great to resist. Besides this, many of the men recruited are not of the type most suitable. Their ideals of honesty are nebulous, self-respect to them consists merely in wearing clean clothes. It is a fact that a certain official once appointed his man-servant to the subordinate grade of a preventive department. Rumour had it that this servant was brother to the woman this official was keeping as his mistress, but that was mere scandal, and probably untrue. At the same time, one cannot expect much from a staff which can be recruited in so haphazard a manner. In other walks of life, the need for cautious recruitment is not so vital, and the need to pay for honesty is not so great as in departments whose duty it is to safeguard the revenue, and ensure the moral welfare of the people. It should be made a principle that for every ten rupees paid for actual work, fifty rupees will be paid for its honest performance. The need for this is accentuated in departments in which cupidity, which exists to a greater or less extent in every man, is excited and tempted to the utmost.
CHAPTER II.
Bribery and Corruption.
No matter how powerful and reckless of consequences a smuggler may be, there is, nevertheless, a lurking respect in his bosom for the myrmidons of the Law. It is to his interest to have the authorities on his side, and, as he cannot have them on other terms, he must pay them handsomely. An excise or police officer, especially if he be of the lower ranks, can make it uncommonly uncomfortable for a smuggler; and it may be taken for granted that a smuggler is not completely satisfied until he has a large proportion of the preventive staff in his pay. To some, however, he will pay nothing because he has nothing to fear from incapables; some who occasionally come in his way he will tip with the economy of the uncle who tips his nephew; but to the able ones, the ones that can make it very warm for him, he will pay handsome monthly salaries, and he will look upon the outlay as money well invested. It is in this way that the smuggler keeps his traffic going; it is thus that he makes it possible to smuggle with profit.
Now, the preventive can only prevent by seizing contraband articles; so that it stands to reason that its efficiency, and the ability of the individuals who compose it, must be judged largely by results; by the number of arrests made, and the quantity of contraband seized. An able officer who makes no hauls may be not unjustly put down as a bribe-taker, and a chief who knows that there is lots of contraband to be seized for the trying, will come down heavily on such a subordinate.
What does the smuggler do when the well-paid watchdog of the Law comes to him and tells him that he will be obliged to seize some, if not all, of the smuggler’s next consignment of opium, because the game is, to all intents and purposes, up? Does he wring his hands and roundly curse his ill luck? No; he merely smiles and advises the watchdog to stand at the corner of such-and-such a street, near so-and-so’s shop between certain hours next morning, and search the man who passes him with a spotted bandanna round his neck, and a bundle under his right arm. The watchdog acts on the advice, searches the man with the spotted bandanna, finds two cakes of opium, and walks the culprit off to the police station. For this he is commended and paid a reward; the smuggler gets off with the loss of two cakes of opium instead of the hundred he stood to lose; and the man with the spotted bandanna who is ultimately sent to prison for six months, merely fulfils the duty for which he is paid a regular monthly salary.