388
applied—viz., to regulate consumption approxi-
mately by a duty on delivery to the retail vendor.
The fluctuating license fees derived from auction-
ing monopolies are injurious to the public I believe.
I believe that in the end they are injurious to the
revenue; but it is a bold measure to suggest fixed
license fees, which none cares to advance perhaps
in a practical form without fuller information.
There are two serious obstacles. In the first place,
there is the immediate initial loss of revenue, and
there is the chance that with moderate fixed license
fees the number of shops would be very consider-
ably increased, which might bring some fresh
animadversions upon a department which most
District Officers, I think, would gladly resign, if
this were possible, into separate and expert hands
whether for charas or bhang.
The wholesale agents' fees should be heavy;
they should furnish good security against breaches
of the law; and their prices should be regulated
to a reasonable extent by the Excise Commissioner
to check unwholesome competition and under-
selling, touting, and so forth.
I should like to see the trade in hemp drugs
divorced from the opium business; but the deal-
ers are too strong for us in this respect at present.
I have tried repeatedly to keep the hemp drugs
licenses out of the opium vendors' hands, but un-
successfully. At the wholesale dep6ts the sale of
bhang should be permitted only in packages of a
uniform weight in a stamped wrapper.
The difficulty as to acreage duty should be sur-
mountable, but I may say that I do not regard
the imposition of an acreage duty as essential.
In tracts where the self-grown hemp is very
abundant, collection might be specially permitted;
domestic care being of course in any such tract
neglected, i.e., left untaxed. Most of these tracts
lie in the Himalaya, and are accessible by one of
a few routes only; so that with a local dep6t at a
well-selected point, smuggling to the plains should
be comparatively difficult. It hardly seems to
pay at any scale even at present.
62. The cultivation of the hemp plant for the
production of bhang would be controlled by a
system of licenses, with a sufficient acreage duty
to prevent undue extension of supply if possible.
The Government should be empowered to make
the grant of such licenses in any given locality
conditional on the head men of the estate entering
into an agreement to arrange for the extirpation
and keeping down of the wild hemp plant—(a) by
village agency, or (b) by the licenses, or (c)
under the direction of the Revenue authority at
the cost of the estate concerned, or of the licensed
growers.
65. I think that in the Punjab for most dis-
tricts, generally speaking, country spirits and
Indian-made rum, gin and whiskey, so called, are
over-taxed as against opium and bhang.
The system of indirect taxation by license fees
bid up is even more objectionable in the case of
alcoholic and fermented beverages than in the case
of hemp-drugs. What we want to do is to settle
fairly moderate trade licenses, keep licenses on a
graded scale, and to raise the still-head duty
on liquor distilled, at the same time slightly
lowering the cost of excise opium to the retail
dealer to equalize the cost of wholesome opium to
the bond fide consumer. Purveying opium smok-
ing should be a prohibited and punishable nuisance,
without any proof of profit to the keep3r of the
den.
If this were done, the wholesale price of medi-
cally or professionally tested opium should be
brought down to the point at which it will
compete with charas fairly, but not be under-
selling rum. I do not recommend the alternative
device of raising the charas duty, because the
existing cost of good opium in some districts has
fostered the illicit use of the inferior and less
wholesome sorts. This is the general balance
which in theory I should like to see established.
But in practice it is a very complicated problem.
Care, moreover, must be taken not to hamper new
spontaneous developments which may do more to
advance the social and moral status of a tract as
regards the use of stimulants and narcotics than
a century of excise legislation, or well-meant
administrative regulations. For example, there
appears to be a beginning among certain classes of
Punjabis for the light beers made on English-
brewing principles in India. If this should
spread, and were not killed by excessive regula-
tion, it might have satisfactory results. As a
matter of fact I am told that bhang does not as a
rule replace spirits, nor spirits bhang. But I can
imagine a light barley beer replacing bhang in time
with advantage in every way to the consumer.
Nevertheless the taxation on bhang should as a
matter of prudence be so adjusted as to obviate
the chance of its underselling wholesome rum
whether distilled by the Native or the European
method.
On the whole, there is more mischief in the
spread of bhang perhaps than in the moderate use
of alcohol against malaria and cold, or even for
merry-making.
67. Yes; (as regards charas and bhang). The
present Punjab system tends to impose a tax of a
varying amount that is neither ascertained nor
regulated by the Revenue authority, in which the
average consumer has a measure of confidence,
upon the moderate, occasional and, generally speak-
ing, the respectable consumers, while the rogues—
and those are often the excessive consumers—too
frequently go free.
68. It is a condition of all retail licenses for
hemp drugs in this province. I understand that
the drugs will not be consumed on the premises.
I would not interfere as to clubs for the social use
of bhang. But charas-saloons might perhaps he
put down.
69. There is no recognized machinery for con-
sulting any local option with regard to opening
bhang or charas shops. But in practice the Dis-
trict Officer knows as a rule where there is an
inevitable demand, and again where the starting
of a fresh business would be objectionable. The
province is not yet ripe for any attempt at gaug-
ing local opinion in these matters. Official action
in any such direction would in most cases indi-
rectly lead to grave abuses.