If we persist in driving the Burmans to “take the consequences” God will surely require it at our hands.
The further we go into the question the more does it demonstrate the utter futility of a vacillating, partial, halting policy like this our latest in Burma. There is nothing for it but to make that clean sweep of it which the Burmans have always requested we would, and to repent and do our first works, however late in the day it is for us to begin. A brief review of the history of the opium difficulty in our older province of Lower Burma gives emphasis to this view.
There is no wonder our rulers should in the new province show some signs of compunction, and some feeble attempt to prohibit opium to the Burmans, with the dreadful experience of Lower Burma before their eyes. But they should have gone further, and made prohibition complete. Lower Burma is in the unenviable position of having the largest consumption of opium, per head of the population, of any of our Indian provinces. The quantity supplied by Government for the year 1890-91 was 54,205 seers for a population of 4,658,000.
It is evident from these startling figures that opium in Lower Burma has a history; and a sad and disgraceful history it is so far as our Government is concerned. I gather the following particulars from a publication issued by the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade.
The provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim were annexed in 1826, and Pegu in 1853, and these three provinces formed what has since been known as Lower Burma or British Burma.
There is satisfactory evidence that before these territories came under the British flag, the opium vice, though not absolutely unknown, was not prevalent. An official report, dated 1870, states that “Opium eating is not a Burmese habit; it is a new vice.” Another, dated 1856, says, “The use of this deleterious drug, strictly prohibited in Burmese times, has been considerably on the increase of late.” The late Rev. C. Bennett of the American Baptist Mission said, “When I first arrived in the country in 1830 opium was rarely used, and almost entirely confined to Chinamen. There were, however, a few Burmans who used it, and they were looked upon by their countrymen as outcasts and worse than thieves.”
One of the earliest measures of the Indian Government was the establishment of shops to retail opium, with no restriction as to the number of shops. It was a notorious fact, and it was officially stated at the time by Government servants, shocked at the demoralising effects of the vice, that—
“Organised efforts were made by Bengal agents to introduce the use of the drug, and to create a taste for it among the rising generation. The general plan was to open a shop with a few cakes of opium, and to invite the young men, and distribute it gratuitously. Then when the taste was established, the opium was sold at a low rate. Finally, as it spread throughout the whole neighbourhood, the price was raised, and large profits ensued.”
In the Excise Report for 1879-80, the district officer for Prome called attention to this growing evil in similar terms, and he gives the details of the way in which lads of twelve or fourteen years of age were allured to evil courses by having the opium supplied to them at first in a milder form.
From time to time the Burmans expostulated with their rulers on this matter. The Chief Commissioner reported in 1865:—