The conclusions of this Philippine Commission formed the basis of the new opium prohibition in the Philippines, which went into effect March 1, 1908. The plan is a modification of the Japanese system of dealing with the evil.
Australia and New Zealand have also been forced to face the opium problem. New Zealand, by an act of 1901, amended in 1903, prohibits the traffic, and makes offenders liable to a penalty not exceeding $2,500 (£500) for each offense. In the Australian Federal Parliament the question was brought to an issue two or three years ago. Petitions bearing 200,000 signatures were presented to the parliament, and in response a law was enacted absolutely prohibiting the importation of opium, except for medicinal uses, after January 1, 1906. All the state governments of Australia lose revenue by this prohibition. The voice of the Australian people was apparently expressed in the Federal Parliament by Hon. V. L. Solomon, who said: “In the cities of the Southern States anybody going to the opium dens would see hundreds of apparently respectable Europeans indulging in this horrible habit. It is a hundredfold more damaging, both physically and morally, than the indulgence in alcoholic liquors.”
That is what Australia and New Zealand think about opium.
The attitude of the United States is thus described by the Philippine Commission: “It is not perhaps generally known that in the only instance where America has made official utterances relative to the use of opium in the East, she has spoken with no uncertain voice. By treaty with China in 1880, and again in 1903, no American bottoms are allowed to carry opium in Chinese waters. This ... is due to a recognition that the use of opium is an evil for which no financial gain can compensate, and which America will not allow her citizens to encourage even passively.” By the terms of this treaty, citizens of the United States are forbidden to “import opium into any of the open ports of China, or transport from one open port to any other open port, or to buy and sell opium in any of the open ports of China. This absolute prohibition ... extends to vessels owned by the citizens or subjects of either power, to foreign vessels employed by them, or to vessels owned by the citizens or subjects of either power and employed by other persons for the transportation of opium.” Thus the United States is flatly on record as forbidding her citizens to engage, in any way whatever, in the Chinese opium traffic.
The last item of expert evidence which I shall present from the countries most deeply concerned in the opium question is from that British colony, the Transvaal. Were the subject less grim, it would be difficult to restrain a smile over this bit of evidence—it is so human, and so humorous. For a century and more, Anglo-Indian officials have been kept busy explaining that opium is a heaven-sent blessing to mankind. It is quite possible that many of them have come to believe the words they have repeated so often. Why not? China was a long way off—and India certainly did need the money. The poor official had to please the sovereign people back home, one way or another. If a choice between evils seemed necessary, was he to blame? We must try not to be too hard on the government official. Perhaps opium was good for children. Keep your blind eye to the telescope and you can imagine anything you like.
WHERE THE CHINAMAN TRAVELS, OPIUM TRAVELS TOO
A Consignment of Opium from China to the United States, Photographed in the Custom House, San Francisco
The situation was given its grimly humorous twist when the monster opium began to invade regions nearer home. It came into the Transvaal after the Boer War, along with those 70,000 Chinese labourers. The result can only be described as an opium panic. I quote, regarding it, from that “Memorandum Concerning Indo-Chinese Opium Trade,” which was prepared for the debate in Parliament during May, 1906:
“The Transvaal offers a striking illustration of the old proverb as to chickens coming home to roost.
“On the 6th of September, 1905, Sir George Farrar moved the adjournment of the Legislative Council at Pretoria, to call attention to ‘the enormous quantity of opium’ finding its way into the Transvaal. He urged that ‘measures should be taken for the immediate stopping of the traffic.’ On 6th October, an ordinance was issued, restricting the importation of opium to registered chemists, only, according to regulations to be prescribed by permits by the lieutenant-governor—under a penalty not exceeding £500 ($2,500), or imprisonment not exceeding six months.