[Bernaldez describes the efforts made by the English East India Company
to import opium into China, although against the will of the Chinese
government, and states that a certain amount is smuggled into Manila
to supply the Chinese settled in Filipinas; he supposes that the
prohibition of this trade in the islands arose from the fear of the
governors that the Indians would become habitual users of this drug and
thus be injured; but in his experience of seventeen years in various
judicial positions in Filipinas he has never seen a scandalous case of
opium inebriacy among the Chinese of Luzon, nor any Indian brought into
court for using the drug; and "the Indians without exception regard
the use of opium with the utmost indifference and contempt." He thinks
that it should not be prohibited in Filipinas, since its use appears
not to injure the Chinese there, or to be necessary for the Indians;
while the islands] ought not to be deprived of a revenue that is
exceedingly lucrative for agriculture, commerce, and the treasury;
of an article which in the order of nature ought to be exclusively
for the trade and benefit of the islands; and a means by which the
Manila commerce would draw great wealth from China, turning in its
favor, and with large sales, the balance of trade with that empire,
which is now and always has been against Manila. A chest of opium,
weighing one pico of Filipinas or 100 cates of China (each of 22
onzas), would probably cost the Manila grower for all expenses at
most 100 pesos; and its value in China is usually 1,400 to 1,600
pesos. Add to this advantage that of the large and secure market which
Filipinas has close at hand, since there would be annually consumed
in China more than eight millions pesos' worth of this article from
the islands; this would permit all the extension which they choose
to give to the cultivation of this article. And if 8,000 chests of
opium produced in Filipinas would yield in China 12,000,000 dollars,
the royal exchequer, which ought to secure its proportion of the great
advantages to agriculture and commerce, could without any difficulty
load that product with a duty so considerable that it would produce
four to six millions of pesos a year. [Bernaldez therefore recommends:
That the government, without abrogating the present prohibition of the
importation and use of opium in the islands, give free permission to
capitalists to cultivate the poppy and export opium from Filipinas;
that the poppy-fields be close to the capital and enclosed; that the
harvest be superintended by trustworthy persons from the revenue
service, as is that of tobacco; and that the entire product be
deposited in the magazines of the custom-house. That at the time of
its exportation a duty of 25 per cent be collected on the value of
the opium, at the prices current in China. That the concession of
raising opium should be granted by preference to the planters who
already are maintaining large plantations of sugar, indigo, coffee,
and other useful products.]