The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-11 00:00:00

OPIUM REVENUF.

8. By far the greater part of the opium imported
into China is prepared by the British Government
in India, expressely with that view. It is manu-
factured according to samples obtained from China
of that preparation of the drug most in demand
among the infatuated victims of the demoralising
influence before described. It has ;all along
been packed according to Chinese weights, even
during the subsistence of the treaty binding thi,
country to discourage smuggling into China,
and it is disposed of by public sale now in the
name of her Majesty, the profits arising from it
forming a large part of the Indian revenue. •
9. Within the presidency of Bengal the Govern-
ment exercise a strict monopoly in the growth of
the poppy. This is enforced by regulations often
made instrumental of great oppression in the hands
of the corrupt native officials. The money re-
quisite for the cultivation is advanced by Go-
vernment, and an ever-increasing extent of the
richest land is annually devoted to that purpose,
at the cost of the proportionally diminished
growth of the useful products of the soil of India,
such as sugar, indigo, &c. Thus, notwithstanding
the remonstrances of some of the ablest of the
chairmen, directors, and members of the service, the
East India Company have extended the cultiva-
tion to districts where it was before unknown, and
have derived an additional revenue from farming
out the home sale of this article—while they them-
selves, in their own " Memorandum of Improve-
menis in their Administration" (presented to Par-
liament, 1858), call the consumption of opium " a
hurtful indulgence, from which India itself has been
comparatively free."
10. According to the testimony of competent and
unprejudiced witnesses, the demoralisation which is
proved to be inseparable from the trade in China
attends the cultivation in India. A Government
officer in that department declares that " one opium
cultivator demoralises a village ;" another, that
in Assam, where the cultivation is free, "it is de-
, populating the country and degrading one of the
finest races" of that peninsula "into one of the most
abjeet and depraved."
11. In the North-Western Provinces, and in
Scinde, the culture of the poppy is prohibited :
in the presidencies of Madras and Bombay it is vir-
tually so—and (as in the case of the prohibition
of the growth of tobacco in the United Kingdom)
this prohibition is easily enforced; the plant being
extremely conspicuous, and requiring to be four
months on the ground.
12. The remainder of the opium shipped from
India to China is the produce of native independent
states, but it can be shipped only from British ports
where the British Government have no difficulty
in levying any amount of transit duty they choose
to impose, there being no other route by which it
can pass.
From these two facts last mentioned, it is evident
that whenever the Legislature wills it, the culture
and manufacture of opium in India can be effectually
brought to an end.
That this would at first entail a serious loss to
the Indian revenue is admitted ; but the committee
believe that by wisely developing the great resources
of India, by employing- the 1 irge capital which Go-
meni
nt Iwhas
kn
so now
of c npinbia)
irike endt
iiini
tyt e3uileaindliinfage tau
good
eo
oodf
opium,v er
n
return ; and by an improved system of taxation,
reaching the more wealthy classes, the loss would
bo only temporary, and the new sources of revenue
prove much more secure than the precarious and
dishonourable opium manufacture.
In name of the committee,
G. D. CULLEN, Chairman.
D. DAVIDSON, Vice-Chairman.
DAVID APLAREN, Hon. Sec.
Edinburgh, April 7, 180.

A QUAINT REMARK.—It was told of an old Miss
Johnstone, of Hawkhill, that, when dying, a tremendous
storm of rain and thunder came on, so as to shako the
house. In the same quaint, eccentric spirit, and with no
thought of profane or light allusions, sh• looked up, and
listening to the storm, quietly remarked, in reference to her
departure, " Ech, sirs! what a nicht for me to be fleeing
thro' the air I"—Dean Ramsay's Reminiscences,