A Burman Cocaine Eater
A Burman Cocaine Eater
Extreme poverty is frequently a cause of the habit. The abject wretch who becomes possessed of a few coppers, realizing that the amount will be insufficient for a square meal, buys an innocent looking packet of cocaine, and mixing it with a small quantity of the lime-paste used by betel-chewers in their quids, smears the mixture on his gums, and slowly swallows the saliva. Gone are the cravings for food; a feeling of pleasant warmth suffuses his wasted body; he feels equal to any exertion. Images are distorted to immense proportions; the stick he holds becomes a club of huge dimensions, and he takes great pride in his ability to wield it so easily; an empty jam-tin lying near assumes the proportions of a five-gallon milk-can; and he takes great pleasure in showing his agility in jumping high over the threshold of the door! In all, he considers himself to be a very fine, powerful, prepossessing fellow indeed—until the effects wear off, and he once more sets off to beg or steal the price of another dose of this elevating narcotic.
I once knew a European who was addicted to this drug—he injected it—and a more pitiable object it would be difficult to conceive. He was a dentist by profession, and the last I heard of him was that he had died by his own hand, a frequent termination of this habit, which produces in its last stages, a sort of morbid, gloomy, mania or insanity in its victims. This individual was the victim of all kinds of hallucinations, and under the influence of the drug, was a fluent, andoften convincing, liar. He invested himself with numerous medical degrees; he went in terror of imaginary assailants; and he had a fixed idea that his meagre belongings were the envy of murderous burglars. So much so, that on more than one occasion he fired off the revolver he carried by day, and placed under his pillow by night, at imaginary intruders, to the no small risk of other occupants of the house he lived in. The tales of personal adventure he related, the accounts he gave of deadly combats with men twice his puny size, his stories of his property and wealth at home, were the wonder of all to whom he told them, and who were unable to discover in him the characteristic effects of the fell drug cocaine.
We are unfortunately without complete information about cocaine, but we know enough about it to realize that the habit is spreading with the rapidity and devastating effects of a conflagration over the world. As far as India and Burma are concerned, the law is stringent and severe, and the Dangerous Drugs Bill, which was lately occupying the attention of the Home Government, goes far on the road to bringing things at home into line with India and Burma.
The Germans discovered a method by which cocaine can be manufactured synthetically; and bogey hunters will discover a deep plot to undermine the physique and morals of Indians when they are told that the synthetic manufacture of cocaine is, to all intents and purposes, a state-aided industry. It is classed as an industry,and as such receives the spirit used in the preparation of the synthetic drug, duty-free. Ninety per cent. of the cocaine imported into this country before the war came from Germany.
It would probably surprise the Darmstadt firm, which purveyed almost all the cocaine that came to Burma, if they knew that their drachm-phials, neatly capsuled, and labelled “Cocaine Hydrochloride,” ought really sometimes to have been labelled “Antefebrin,” for that indeed is what a great number that were seized by the authorities contained. In appearance, cocaine and antefebrin are hard to distinguish from one another; and for a long time the results of analyses led the authorities to suppose that the manufacturers were defrauding their eastern constituents; but the discovery of a complete plant consisting of phials, labels, capsules, and a large quantity of antefebrin, eventually cleared the name of the doubtless reputable manufacturers, and fastened the guilt upon local swindling smugglers.
Like the poppy which is cultivated for opium, the hemp plant,cannabis sativa, is grown forganja,bhang, andchurrus, all highly intoxicating drugs; and for its bast fibre which makes such excellent rope.
The history of the plant is interesting, but no more than a very brief allusion to it is necessary here. The first mention of hemp occurs in Chinese literature, about the twenty-eighth century, B.C., when the hemp-seed is mentioned as one of the five or nine kinds of grain. It is mentioned merely as a “sacred grass” in theAthavavedaabout 1400 B.C. But the narcotic properties of the plant, with which we are chiefly concerned, do not seem to have been known until the beginning of the fourteenth century A.D. In a Hindu play written about the sixteenth century A.D., Siva brings down thebhangplant from the Himalaya, and gives it to the worshippers of himself. Of more recent evidence, we have the statement of the Emperor Baber, who tells in hisMemoirs(1519 A.D.) of the number of times he had takenMaajun. John Lindsay, in hisJournal of Captivity in Mysore(1781), relates how his soldiers were made to eatMajum; and lastly, De Quincey, inhisConfessions of an English Opium-Eater, speaks ofMadjoon, which he inaccurately states is a Turkish name for opium.
The hemp plant belongs to the diœcious order of plants, of which the Hop is another member. That is to say, the flowers, male and female, are borne on separate shrubs. The male hemp plants die early, or are removed by hand, an operation which requires expert knowledge of the two plants; but the female is tended and looked after until the flowering tops are developed. These are then collected and dried, and are calledganja. The leaves, stalks and trash are collected, and this is calledbhang; while the resin (which is collected by hand, like opium, or sometimes, made to adhere to the clothes, or special leather garments, or even the skins of men who walk up and down among the growing plants and is then scraped off and worked up into a mass by rolling and pressing) is calledchurrus. This is really the active principle of the hemp. Its presence in the flowering tops, leaves and stalks givingganjaandbhangtheir narcotic properties; andchurrusis therefore more potent in its intoxicating effects than eitherganjaorbhang.
Ganjais a greenish-brown conglomeration of what looks like half-dried, tightly pressed grass;bhangis somewhat similar in appearance, but looser in form; andchurrus, the resin itself, is a greenish-brown, moist mass. When it has been kept some time, it becomes hard, friable, and of a brownish-grey colour. When itassumes this condition and colour, it is inert. All have a characteristic, faintly pungent, odour, and but slight taste. It is interesting to note that the wordchurrusmeans a “bag” or “skin.” It is believed that the name was applied to the drug from the skins or bags in which it used to be imported in olden times, from Central Asia.
Indulgence in hemp in India is as common as betel-chewing and tobacco smoking. It is, in one or other of its forms, either smoked, or eaten. (The sweetmeatMajum, is compounded frombhang, honey, sugar, and spices. Sometimes it is infused in cold water to which butter is added. The butter in time takes up the active principle of the drug, and is eaten.) And it is computed that the votaries of hemp, in one or other of its many forms, number three millions! There is great diversity of opinion as to whether hemp is gravely harmful to its consumers, or whether it is merely an undesirable form of indulgence without any evil permanent effects. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, which examined the whole question in detail, was of opinion that it was harmless if indulged in moderately, but that the gravest results must follow upon intemperance in its use. As regards its being a fruitful cause of insanity, the evidence of alienists was taken, and the statistics of all the large asylums for the insane in India were examined; but “only 7·3 per cent. of lunatics admitted to asylums were those in which hemp could reasonably be regarded as having been a factor ofimportance. Moreover, the form of insanity produced yields readily to treatment,” and as hemp has not got the same hold that opium has upon individuals, its discontinuance is easily effected and immediate restoration of the mental faculties comes about.
The moderate use ofganjaincreases the appetite, and produces a condition of cheerfulness. In excess, hallucinations, and a sort of delirium is excited, and it is in this aggravated state that a man may “run amok.” This is the outstanding evil of the drug: to temporarily madden a man. But, for the fatal consequences which often ensue from running amok, people are apt to put the whole blame on the drug. May it not, however, be that a man whose desire it is to become reckless purposely resorts to the drug to hearten himself? I think it is very likely. It is often discovered, after a man has run amok, that he has for some time been broody or sulky, and suffering under some real or imagined wrong. That he should get desperate, and take in excess what he well knows to be is an excitant infinitely more powerful than alcohol, in order to carry through what he has been longing for some time to do, is not altogether unreasonable.
To digress from the subject immediately under discussion; it is common in discussing crime and its connection with drink, to hear the view expressed that drink is the cause of crimeprimâ facie; whereas it often happens that a person intent on revenge cannot bring himself to do his neighbour a mischief in cold bloodand requires a little “Dutch courage” to tune himself up to the pitch of not caring for consequences. Too often the crime committed is the result of impetuosity; impetuosity exacerbated by drink. We never hear of offences against property being attributed to drunkenness; and yet, from the moral standpoint, the deliberate commission of theft or robbery is evidential of greater obliquity than the passionate striking of one’s enemy with whatever comes to hand at the moment.
Medical Jurisprudence is crowded with instances in which hemp has been employed in the commission of crimes. A single instance, which came within the writer’s personal experience, will however suffice. The Civil Surgeon of ... had gone out on tour leaving behind his wife and family of three small boys. The bedroom occupied by Mrs. Blank adjoined that usually occupied by the doctor, which contained a large, heavy iron safe in which was Mrs. Blank’s jewellery and a large sum of money. That night, Mrs. Blank and the children retired to bed at the usual hour; but upon waking in the morning, she felt unrefreshed and languid. The children complained of a like feeling. Going into her husband’s room, Mrs. Blank was shocked to find that the safe had disappeared, one of its heavy massive handles lay wrenched off upon the floor, and a twisted gun barrel near by had too apparently been used ineffectually as a lever. An alarm was raised, and the police called in. Mrs. Blank averred that the safe was too large and heavy for fewer than six powerful men tocarry down stairs. That she had been drugged there could be no doubt; she had slept and the children had slept through the night undisturbed, and it was impossible to conceive how they could otherwise have done so, with evidences of such noisy activities abundant in the next room. The safe was never found, and the culprits were never brought to book; but the discovery of a small patch of cultivated hemp, on some land belonging to a man servant who was in the Civil Surgeon’s employ at the time of the burglary, made the case clear, and the servant’s complicity morally, if not judicially, certain.
Three men, one under the effects of alcohol, one under the effects of opium, and the last under the effects of hemp, arrived one night at the closed gates of a city. “Let us break down the gates,” said the alcohol drinker in a fury of rage, “I can do it with my sword!” “Nay,” said the opium eater, “We can rest here outside in comfort till the morning, when the gates will be opened, and we may enter.” “Why all this foolish talk?” whined the one under the effects of hemp. “Let us creep in through the key-hole. We can make ourselves small enough!”
It is doubtful whether there is a more valuable drug in the Materia Medica than opium. Fundamentally, it is the dried juice of thePapaver Somniferumor white poppy, and although all varieties of poppy are capable of producing opium, the best comes from the white, and it is this variety that is systematically cultivated for the world’s supply of opium.
Opium has been the cause of at least one war, namely, the war between England and China, and a perusal of the accounts of piracy in the eastern seas during the sixteenth century affords numerous instances of pitched battles between traders and pirates whose one object seems to have been to get possession of valuable cargoes of opium.
The cultivation of the poppy, as a garden flower at any rate, was certainly practised as far back as eight hundred years before Christ. Homer, who lived between 800 B.C. and 700 B.C.[6]mentions it in his Iliad.[7]Cornelius Nepos also mentions the poppy in Italy; when Tarquin indicated to the envoy sent to him by his son Sextus Tarquinius, what he wanted done to the chief inhabitants of Etruria, by striking down all the tallest poppies in his garden.[8]
Hippocrates, who lived in the fifth century before Christ, and who is famous as the founder of Greek medical literature, is the first to mention poppy juice, and the virtues of the poppy were undoubtedly known to him; but the physical effects of opium were not definitely mentioned until the first century before Christ, when Vergil, who lived from 70 B.C. to 19 B.C., writes of the “Poppy pervaded with Lethean sleep,”[9]and the “Sleep-giving poppy.”[10]It may be mentioned in passing, that in Greek mythology Lethe is a river that flows through the regions of the dead, the waters of which, if drunk by anyone, cause oblivion in regard to their past existence.
In the first century after Christ, opium was known as a medicine. Opium is mentioned by this name by Pliny[11]and by Dioscorides[12]both of whom lived in this century and its soporific effect was well known. Thepoppy was cultivated for opium on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and as the bulk of the trade between Europe and the Indies passed through these countries, it is certain that this drug, whose value was known, must have formed a part of the trade, though not, perhaps, to such a great extent as to attract attention.
Early in the seventh century after Christ, the religion of Islam was established in Arabia. By the commandments of this new religion the use of alcohol was absolutely forbidden, and it is supposed that those who had been used to alcohol began to use opium and hemp drugs as substitutes, the fact that these two drugs were not explicitly mentioned being sufficient sanction, apparently, for their use. It seems certain that with the spread of Islamism, the use of opium as a stimulant became more widely diffused. The Arabs were at that time, to all intents and purposes, masters of the eastern seas. They made long voyages, and carried on a trade with India and China, and from contemporary literature it has been definitely established that it was the Arabs that introduced the poppy, and a knowledge of its properties, into China. It is probable that opium was used as a stimulant in India also, at this time, but nothing is definitely known about this, and the history of the production and use of the drug before the sixteenth century is obscure. There are many indications, however, that the opium habit came into India in the eighth century, when the Arabsinvaded and conquered Sind; and as the habit spread with the wanderings of the Arabs, there is much in the surmise. From this time, up to the end of the eleventh century, the Mahomedan invaders brought the greater part of India under their rule or influence, and in Portuguese Chronicles, written in the sixteenth century, the cultivation of the poppy, the opium habit, the production of opium, and its export are talked of as established things. Authorities on India conclude, from the inherent reluctance of the Indian to rapidly adopt new habits or crops, that the opium habit, and the cultivation of the poppy for opium, must have taken at least three hundred years or so to develop over such large areas.
The Portuguese discovered the Cape route to India in 1488, but it was not till ten years later that they first crossed the Indian Ocean and appeared on the west coast of India. They visited all important places on the coasts, and the great Islands of the Malay Archipelago, and established themselves in many places. They were not welcome, however, and were treated as intruders by Oriental traders. Many and fierce were the encounters between the Moors, and Arabs, and the intruders, who were, in the greater number, buccaneers and pirates rather than merchants. Numerous references to opium occur in the literature of those times. Vespucci mentions “opium, aloes, and many other drugs too numerous to detail” in a list of the cargo carried by Cabral’s fleet from India to Lisbon in 1501. In 1511 Giovannida Empoli mentions the capture of eight Gujarat ships laden with opium and other merchandize; and in a letter written in 1513 by Albuquerque to the King of Portugal, he says “I also send you a man of Aden who knows how to work afyam (opium) and the manner of collecting it. If Your Highness would believe me, I would order poppies of the Açores to be sown in all the fields of Portugal and command afyam to be made, which is the best merchandize that obtains in these places, and by which much money is made; owing to the thrashing which we gave Aden no afyam has come to India, and where it once was worth 12 pardoes a faracolla, there is none to be had at 80. Afyam is nothing else, Senhor, but the milk of the poppy; from Cayro (sic) whence it used to come, none comes now from Aden; therefore, Senhor, I would have you order them to be sown and cultivated, because a shipload would be used yearly in India, and the labourers would gain much also, and the people of India are lost without it, if they do not eat it; and set this fact in order, for I do not write to Your Highness an insignificant thing.”
Duarte Barbosa[13](1516) makes several references to opium:—
Duy (Diu): “They load at this port of the return voyage cotton ... and opium, boththat which comes from Aden, and that which is made in the kingdom of Cambay, which is not so fine as that of Aden.”Peigu (Burma): “Many Moorish ships assemble at these ports of Peigu, and bring thither much cloth of Cambay and Palecate, coloured cottons and silks, which the Indians call patola, which are worth a great deal here; they also bring opium, copper ... and a few drugs from Cambay.”Ava: “The merchants bring here for sale quicksilver, vermilion, coral, copper ... opium, scarlet cloth and many other things from the kingdom of Cambay.” D’Orta described Cambay opium as yellowish, while the Aden variety was black and hard, and apparently the better liked kind.[14]
Duy (Diu): “They load at this port of the return voyage cotton ... and opium, boththat which comes from Aden, and that which is made in the kingdom of Cambay, which is not so fine as that of Aden.”
Peigu (Burma): “Many Moorish ships assemble at these ports of Peigu, and bring thither much cloth of Cambay and Palecate, coloured cottons and silks, which the Indians call patola, which are worth a great deal here; they also bring opium, copper ... and a few drugs from Cambay.”
Ava: “The merchants bring here for sale quicksilver, vermilion, coral, copper ... opium, scarlet cloth and many other things from the kingdom of Cambay.” D’Orta described Cambay opium as yellowish, while the Aden variety was black and hard, and apparently the better liked kind.[14]
A Dutchman named Linschoten,[15]in an account of his travels and voyages, in 1596, gives an exaggerated account of the effects of opium. He says: “Amfion, so called by the Portingales, is by the Arabians, Mores (Moors) and Indians called affion, in Latin, opio or opium. It cometh out of Cairo in Egypt, and out of Aden upon the coast of Arabia, which is the point of the land entering into the Red Sea, sometimes belongingto the Portingales, but most part out of Cambaia, and from Deccan; that of Cairo is whitish and is called Mecerii; that of Aden and the places bordering upon the mouth of the Red Sea is blackish and hard; that which come from Cambaia and Deccan is softer and reddish. Amfion is made of sleepeballs, or poppie, and is the gumme which cometh forth of the same, to ye which end it is cut up and opened. The Indians use much to eat Amfion, specially the Malabares, and thither it is brought by those of Cambaia and other places in great abundance. He that useth to eate it must eate it daylie, otherwise he dieth and consumeth himself. When they begin to eate it, and are used unto it, they eate at the least twenty or thirty grains in weight everie day, sometimes more; but if for four or five days he chanceth to leave it, he dieth without fail. Likewise he that hath never eaten it, and will venture at the first to eate as much as those that daylie use it, it will surely kill him, for I certainly believe it is a kind of poyson. Such as use it goe alwaise as if they were half asleepe. They eate much of it because they would not feel any great labour or unquietness when they are at work, but they use it most for lecherie ... although such as eate much thereof, are in time altogether unable to company with a woman and whollie dried up, for it drieth and whollie cooleth man’s nature that use it, as the Indians themselves do witness. Wherefore it is not much used by the nobilitie, but only for the cause aforesaid.”
Cæsar Fredericke,[16]a Venetian merchant, who travelled extensively in the East, writes, about 1581, an account of his voyages and some of his ventures: “And for because that at my departure from Pegu opium was in great request, I went then to Cambay, to employ a good round summe of money in opium, and there I bought sixty parcels of opium which cost me 2,000 and 100 duckets, every ducket at 4 shillings 2 pence....” It is interesting to note that one Ralph Fitch,[17]who travelled in the East from 1583 to 1591, visited Burma, or Pegu as it was called by voyagers then, writes that opium from Cambay and Mecca was in great demand. These references, and a great many more could be given, go to show that by the sixteenth Century opium was not only well known, but formed an important item of maritime trade in the East.
By 1612, the English and Dutch East India Companies had been formed. The Dutch had established a trading post or factory at Surat, from which they were afterwards expelled by the English Company, and both Companies had factories on the Hughli in Bengal. They were not friends, and often fought, but they combined against the Portuguese and Spaniards who had appeared on the scene a hundred years before, and who looked upon all trade from India round the Cape as their monopoly. By the beginning of theseventeenth century the Portuguese had lost almost all their possessions in India to the Dutch, and their trade had weakened and diminished to a point which rendered them almost negligible as competitors in trade. At this time, several European nations granted monopolies of trade to the Indies, and the French and the Danes now came on the scene. It was found impossible, however, to keep out private individuals who sought to set up trading factories on their own account, despite monopolies, and swarms of these adventurers came in to trade in all the valuable articles of merchandize, including opium. They looked upon force as their only law, and their depredations on the seas perpetrated against the Indian sailors brought about the speedy decay of the old native sea-trade.
Although the English Company established a predominance over the Dutch in general trade, the latter maintained a lead in the trade in opium. They exported it to Ceylon, Malacca and the Straits, and it has been ascertained from contemporary chronicles that the Dutch had attempted to arrange with Indian Princes to monopolize the export trade of opium to China. In this, however, they failed, for the Portuguese, who had always had a monopoly of the export of Malwa opium, still held possession of their ports on the Cambay Gulf, and so were in a favourable situation for this trade.
In those days, as in these, Europeans did not come out to the East for the sake of their health. They cameout with only one object, and that was to make money. Times have not changed since then. It was not unnatural therefore that they should look about for as speedy a means of amassing a fortune as possible, and found opium. Opium was to be got cheap in exchange for the merchandize with which trading ships came laden to the East. It was portable and durable, and as it was in great demand in the countries east of India it constituted an excellent substitute for money with which were purchased silks, tea, spices and pepper for which there was a great demand in Europe. It is probable that this demand for opium stimulated production and increased the output of opium in India, specially since the entry of the Europeans into the field of commerce in Eastern waters killed the native sea-trade which used to bring opium from Turkey. This increase in the output of opium must not be held to indicate an increase in consumption, as has been made out by some. On the contrary, it may be inferred that a decrease was brought about by the introduction of tobacco in the seventeenth century. When tobacco was unknown and the use of alcohol prohibited to Mahomedans, and looked upon as disgraceful by Hindoos, it is likely that the opium habit was more widely prevalent.
There was little change in the condition of affairs during the greater part of the eighteenth century, but a gradual increase in the demand from China about the middle of this century came about from thesubstitution of opium smoking for the smoking of tobacco.
The next stage in the history of the subject begins with the occupation of Bengal by the British East Indies Company in 1758, but it is first necessary to briefly outline how matters stood prior to it in connection with the production and sale of opium under Moghul administration.
No restrictions were imposed upon the cultivation of the poppy, and the agriculturist was as free to cultivate it as any other crop. He could sell his opium to whom he pleased, though generally he sold it to the money-lender who advanced him the money with which to begin cultivation ... a practice which obtains to this day in places to which the co-operative movement has not as yet spread. The opium produced was made over to the money-lender at a fixed price, but the rate at which the money-lender disposed of this opium was regulated only by the demand by European traders, and high prices were obtained. It is very natural that the native rulers of the day should have wished to participate to some extent in the huge profits made by these private traders, and a system was introduced by which a certain part of the profits on opium was paid into the State treasuries. This was willingly paid, as the burden was borne by the cultivator. As soon as the system came into force, the money-lenders formed a ring, and regulated the price paid by them for opium to cultivators, and took care to fixit at such a rate that the State demand did not deplete their own purses too much. As time went on, the confusion of the Moghul Empire, which began and ended, in the quarrels of Suraj-ud-Dowlah, did away to some extent with these rings, but custom and tradition are so strong in India, particularly when supported by men of substance, that when we occupied Bihar, a ring of wealthy opium dealers were found to be exercising an unauthorised monopoly in Patna opium which we were in too insecure a position to break.
This is how matters stood. But for some time before, the general confusion of the Moghul Empire, and its weakened authority, brought about a state of turmoil and disorder which obliged European merchants to raise troops, and convert their factories into garrisoned fortresses. Clive’s victory over Suraj-ud-Dowlah at Plassey in 1757, however, brought things to a head, and established the British Company as military masters in Bengal. Suraj-ud-Dowlah was dethroned, and Mir Jaffer was set up in his place, the administration being confided to him under the general control of the Company. But this form of dual government resulted only in the oppression of the people, and general maladministration. The servants of the Company had always been allowed the privilege of private trade, and in this state of affairs they had unique opportunities for trading with the greatest advantage to themselves. Opium was, of course, exploited to the full, and when, what was known as the Patna Council, a number of theCompany’s servants, whose business it was to look after the Company’s interests in Patna, discovered the existence of the opium ring, they were not long in appropriating its functions, and the very solid financial advantages it possessed. It is, perhaps, as well to explain that all this was done for the benefit of the several members of the Patna Council, and not on behalf of their employer. But the Council found that to avoid trouble it was necessary to admit the Dutch and French Company’s servants who were naturally anxious to share in this unauthorized trade, and they very wisely admitted them, but to a minor share only.
In 1773, Warren Hastings was made the first Governor-General, and one of the first reforms he undertook was the suppression of private trade among the Company’s servants, and of all irregular and unauthorised monopolies. When the Patna opium monopoly came to be examined, it was found to involve important considerations, and, after a full discussion in Council, it was decided not to set it free, but to make it a source of revenue to the State. It is to be expected that there were many against this, and various arguments were offered against the measure, but these were met satisfactorily; the Moghul monopolies had existed for years, and there was nothing novel in the creation of one properly regulated. Besides, the cultivators would be better treated, and would be less at the mercy of private traders and interlopers. Theargument that if left free, more opium would be produced, was answered by Warren Hastings holding that increase was undesirable in the case of a pernicious luxury. Strangely enough, a strong line of opposition was taken by Francis, who was against all monopolies on general principles, and by the Board of Directors of the British East India Company, on the score of its being a form of oppression. They suggested leaving the trade free, subject to a Customs duty. His non-compliance with these instructions was one of the articles of Warren Hastings’ impeachment later: “That this monopoly was a despotic interference with the liberty of the ryot, and that he should have complied with the Directors’ suggestion.”
The working of this new monopoly did not differ in essentials from the old form. The opium was collected from the cultivators by a contractor, but instead of its being handed over to the Patna Council, it was taken to Calcutta, where the bulk of it was sold by auction to the highest bidder. The balance was divided between the Dutch, French, and the commercial side of the British East Indies Companies at average auction prices.
The revised conditions under which this new State monopoly worked ensured the best opium coming into the Company’s hands. It also did away with “middle-men,” and all the profits which would have gone to cultivators if they had been allowed free trade. It is not unnatural, therefore, that some one should conceivethe idea of securing the profits made by the sea-traders as well. In 1775, the revenue officers of Patna estimated that if the Dutch and French were kept out of the trade, 33,000 chests of Bengal and Bihar opium would be available for export, and suggested that the Company should export this to China, where it could be sold at an immense profit. The letter was considered in Council, but the suggestion was dropped by common consent without discussion. Warren Hastings, however, suggested an alternative of direct official agency, to the exclusion of the contractor, but this motion was lost by a majority, and the matter was closed. But in 1781 a state of affairs arose in which the Company found itself sadly short of money. We were at war with the French, Dutch, and Spaniards, at sea, and with Hyder Ali and the Maharattas on land. In consequence our ports were closed to foreign trade, the seas were not safe for ships flying the British flag, and all available merchant ships were employed in carrying grain and other supplies to Madras. Opium was unsaleable at Calcutta. It was under such conditions that it was decided to export opium to China, and, accordingly, the ‘Nonsuch’ with 2,000 chests, was sent to the supercargoes at Canton, and the ‘Betsey’ with 1,450 chests to the Straits of Malacca. A loan of 10 lakhs of rupees was raised on the cargo of the ‘Betsey,’ to be repaid by bills of exchange on the Company from the Canton supercargoes. Another loan of 10 lakhs was raised from the public on the cargo of the‘Nonsuch’ on similar terms. The ‘Betsey,’ after disposing of part of her cargo to advantage, was captured by the French and Dutch. The cargo of the ‘Nonsuch’ was disposed of at a loss after much difficulty on account of the prohibition of the import of opium by the Chinese, and on account of the “immense quantities” of opium brought to Macao by Portuguese ships before the arrival of the ‘Nonsuch.’ The loss on this venture was 69,973 dollars.
The Board of Directors, on hearing of this venture, which was undoubtedly an exception to the course of policy pursued by the East India Company in regard to the trade, while holding that there was no objection to the sale of opium in the Straits of Malacca, condemned the action of its representatives in exporting opium to China, where the import of opium was prohibited, as being beneath the dignity of the Company.
No more opium was exported to China, and the working of the monopoly remained unchanged until it was reformed, and the system of direct official agency was introduced by Lord Cornwallis. This system has remained in force up to the present.
Malwa Opium.—The first factory established by the British East Indies Company on the West Coast of India was at Surat in 1613. The Portuguese and Dutch had already established themselves here, and all of them participated in the opium trade to some extent. The Dutch were eventually expelled by the British who,as the Moghul power diminished, and the Maharattas became the rulers, assumed a commanding political position. But owing to their having a minor share in the territories along the coast, the major portion belonging to native princes and the Portuguese, although they could participate in the trade in Malwa opium, they were unable to assume a monopoly.
By the end of the eighteenth century, the State monopoly in Bengal had been firmly established, and good prices were being got for export opium. It was with a certain amount of apprehension therefore that they looked upon the trade in Malwa opium from the West Coast, and in 1803, this apprehension developing into something stronger, an order was issued prohibiting the export of Malwa opium from the Bombay ports. In 1805, the Bombay Government was asked to prohibit the cultivation of the poppy within the territories, some of which were newly acquired; but this order was demurred to, and the Directors concurred, holding that the cultivation was for opium for local consumption only, and not for export, and therefore unobjectionable.
At this time smuggling was rife. There were many routes, some very circuitous, by which the opium could be got to the sea-coast without trespassing upon the territories of the Company, but after 1818, when the third Maharatta war resulted in our getting possession of the whole of the Bombay sea-coast except Sind, how to get to the sea was a problem which confrontedsmugglers with increased complexity. But even so, the authorities were always faced with the danger of smuggled opium competing with Bengal opium and lowering its price. Treaties were therefore entered into with some of the States which had most reason to be grateful to us, by which they undertook to prohibit the export of the opium produced in their possessions, to check the cultivation of the poppy, and to sell what opium was produced to the agents of the Company at a certain fixed price. The arrangement did not differ materially from the system adopted in Bengal. But there were other States, such as Scindia and Jeypore, which refused to enter into alliances on these terms, and a time came when those who had signed treaties began to look upon the conditions they had agreed to as repressive. Merchants, who had been dispossessed of their profits by this system, were greatly in its disfavour, and there was no doubt about the disapproval of these measures by cultivators who were deprived of all the advantages of a competitive trade. In 1829 it was therefore decided to abandon this system in lieu of another, which required that a certain transit duty be paid on all opium passing through British territory to Bombay for export to China. This transit or pass duty was fixed at Rs. 175 a chest, but it varied, rising as it did in 1892 to Rs. 600 a chest. This system still exists in regard to Malwa opium.
All the details of legislation and regulation which concern this subject certainly come within the scopeof this note, but their sketchy treatment is made necessary by considerations of space. A relation of the Chinese aspect would fill a volume, and no attempt is made here to describe it. But I feel that this note would not be complete without some reference to Burma.
That the use of opium was known in Burma long before British rule was introduced is evident from the records of Fitch and of Cæsar Fredricke, who visited Burma in the latter half of the sixteenth century. From the records of the Dutch East India Company also, Burma, it is seen, was looked upon as a good market for opium. It is very probable, therefore, that the luxury use of opium was practised by the Burmese people. The Buddhist religion prohibits the use of all intoxicants, and the edicts, issued by the State from time to time against their use, and later on, against opium in particular, appear to have been inspired by the Buddhist hierarchy. But it does not appear that the import of opium into Burma was prohibited by any measure of State prior to its annexation by the British. In the enquiry of 1891, Mr. Norton, Commissioner of Irrawaddy, wrote that, before the annexation of Pegu in 1852, although capital punishment was prescribed for Burmans found with opium, yet opium was plentiful and easy to get at a cheaper rate than when he was writing. Several respectable Burmese gentlemen who were consulted during 1878 admitted that opium was freely used always.
Arakan and Tenasserim were annexed in 1826 after the first Burmese war and were attached to the Bengal Presidency for the purposes of administration under the Deputy Governor of Bengal, and it was not until 1862 that they, along with Pegu, were formed into the province of British Burma under the Chief Commissioner, Sir Arthur Phayre.
In 1826, the retail sale of opium in Bengal was conducted under the farming system. By this system certain tracts were farmed out to selected persons either by tender or by auction. These farmers were obliged to purchase Excise opium from the Government opium factories at a fixed price, which included the cost price and duty. This system was extended to Arakan and Tenasserim. As time went on, this system of opium farms was found to be bad and was replaced by the issue of free licenses to respectable persons. As Arakan was in a favourable position for smuggling, this system of free licenses was introduced there also, but Tenasserim, which did not afford the same facilities for smuggling, was allowed to retain the old system. That the system was unsatisfactory, chiefly on account of its tendency to cheapen opium, is apparent from a statement made by an old inhabitant of Akyab to Colonel Strover during the inquiry of 1891 that he had seen Government opium hawked about for sale in the streets during the early days of British rule. In 1864 Sir Arthur Phayre strongly condemned this new system, and in 1865 he drew up a set of rules which were broughtinto effect in 1866. The spirit of these rules is observed up to the present day in regard to the limit placed upon the quantity of opium which may be purchased by a licensee during a year for sale at his shop.
How things stood in Upper Burma at this time can be inferred from a report made to the Government of India by Sir Charles Crosthwaite under date 20th March, 1888. “On our taking over the country, stringent rules were enacted and somewhat rigorously enforced against the sale of opium. Many Chinese were flogged and otherwise punished for engaging in a traffic which, although it may have been nominally prohibited, was allowed to go on under the Burmese Government.” From the statement of an official of the Burmese Government it would appear that the Burmese Government never openly recognized the opium traffic in Upper Burma; those persons only were punished who sold opium to Burmans. The Burmese Government admitted the existence of the traffic by levying customs dues on all opium imported into Upper Burma. In 1872, the British Political Agent reported that large quantities of Shan and Yünnan opium were being imported into Upper Burma and also smuggled. A Mr. Adams, of the American Baptist Mission, who was at Mandalay from 1874 to 1879, states that thepôngyistook great pains to suppress the consumption of opium by Burmans, with the hearty support of King Mindon, who was a great zealot in religion, much under the influence of the priesthood, and active in supportingevery endeavour to enforce the law of prohibition. But this law was personal to the Burmans, and not a territorial law. Other races were under no restrictions in the matter of opium or liquor, and when our troops took Mandalay in 1885, enormous stores of opium were found secreted in the houses of Chinese merchants who said that they sold it regularly to Burmans. It is true that under King Thebaw’s rule most of King Mindon’s edicts became dead letters, and evenpôngyisbecame addicted to opium.
The opium question attracted much interest, both locally and in England. The Anti-Opium Society took it up and much correspondence took place, which resulted in the total prohibition of opium to Burmans in Upper Burma and the rigid restriction of issues to them in Lower Burma. The reason for this is concisely put by Sir A. Mackenzie, Chief Commissioner of Burma, in a Minute: “I do not believe that opium in India or China does any great harm to the majority of those who use it,i.e., to moderate smokers and eaters. But here, in Burma, we are brought face to face with the fact that the religion of the people specifically denounces the use of the drug; that their native kings treated its use as a heinous offence; that these ideas are so deeply rooted in the minds of the people that every consumer feels himself to be, and is, regarded by his neighbours as a sinner and a criminal; that the people are by temperament pleasure-loving and idle and easily led away by vicious indulgences; that theyhave little self-restraint and are always prone to rush into extremes. When a Burman takes to drink or opium he wants to get drunk or drugged as fast as he can, or as often as he can. All this seems to me to point to the necessity of special treatment.”