Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-05-26

September I, next in Chekiang and
subsequently in other provinces.
How much the new arrangement
increases revenues for Markings
armies cannot be determined, as no
official figures are available.
On the basis Of past opium profits
in districts now under the monopoly,
it is estimated that 1t will probably
yield no less than 100000, 900 year
ly-enough to buy many another
American airplane. and hire many
another foreign pilot to bomb Chinese
workers and peasants fighting under
Red banners.
But there are other motives besides
cash, behind China's opium monopoly.
The Chinese general staff hopes to
increase its control over frontier
politics and to eliminate competition
of exotic narcotics. such as heroin
and morphine, which are mostly Of
Japanese origin.
The war they are conducting on
narcotics (other than opium seems
10 be in earnest. There Is. to my
knowledge, no evidence of intention
to introduce the sale of heroin and
morphine in the licensed opium shops,
as has been widely alleged.
There is q real alarm among
Chinese politicians and even among
many generals concerning these
heroin and morphine forms of mar
cotic suicide. But this moral passion
is not without its economic side.
Herein and morphine, in recent years,
have sharply cut into opium profits.
Trade in them, moreover, has been
prominently identified with foreign
degenerates and with Chinese rings
operating outside the organized poppy
hongs.
Production of these drugs in China
itself has nevertheless been increasing,
thus deepening still further the ap-
paling distress of the Chinese masses
Figures are only at present avail
able regarding the importation Of
acetic anhydride regularly effected
through Shanghai says the latest
drug report of the League Of Nations.
The quantities imported each year
through Shanghai would alone suffice
for the manufacture of 18 tons of
heroin. The legitimate requirements
of the world as regards heroin are
little more than one ton"
Some notion Of the size Of the mar
cotics industry In Shanghai may be
gathered from such figures.
Factories In Foreign Areas.
Many Of the drug factories In
Shanghai operate in foreign controlled
areas. A dramatic reminder of this
occurred on February 8, when a great
blast shook the International Settle
ment, blew an entire building to
crumbs and similarly demolished 81
of its inhabitants. Large quantities
of materials used in manufacturing
heroin. red pills" and narcotics were
raked from the ruins.
A more serious problem is the priv
ileged Japanese dope merchant class
in the north. One result of Nan
kings supine submission TO the Japa-
nese overlords in this region is a
dark tidal flow of narcotics sweeping
from Manchukuo down as far as
Shantung and Shansi and thoroughly
permeating Hopei. Against this in
undation Chinese officials seem i'm
potent, for japanese militarists are
already the ultimate political power
IN a wide territory south of the shat
tered Great Wall. Chinese police dare
not arrest Japanese dealers nor, in
some cases, their Chinese customers.
According to the Peiping govern
ments own figures, there are over TO-
900 heroin addicts in that city alone
Scores of japanese and Koreans, and
even Chinese with "Manchukuo citi-
zenship," sell their narcotic white
-four" more or less openly throughout
North China. In the Japanese con-
cession at Tientsin there are more
than 80 morphine dens, and I have
seen row after row of opium lamps
and pipes being sold in street stalls.
Still worse are conditions in the
"demilitarized zone" which lies just
south of the wall. Here a population
Of 100000 people is being drugged
into human scrap material by Japa-
nese pill peddlers.
Many Morphine Shops.
This gray region of which I write
includes the great Tangshan coal
mines, with the worlds largest shaft,
employing 10000 workers. To drug
the latter there are at Tangshan 16O
morphine shops and innumerable gam
bling houses and lotteries; but then
Marking has gone in for lotteries, too
In nearby Lanhsien there are I4O
morphine dives; in Kuyeh, 20. In
Changli, where an American mission
airy hospital takes care of the human
debris. 81 foreign shops"-as they
are exquisitely called-do good bust
ness in narcotics. with usury and
pawnbroking as sidelines And so on
throughout the area. The illiterate
villagers and farmers and workers, to
whom the drugs are first cleverly in
troduced as cheap medicinal panaceas
are being narcotized under the noses
of Chinese officials, who, of course
get their split.
Thus is being broken what remains
of the morale of once great nation.
This is a time of great economic and
spiritual ordeal for the masses of
China. Marking, for its own secur-
ity, can little afford the luxury of an
opium monopoly which has been guar
anteed life of at least six years.
DADnnulAl CnunnI