_INTOXICANTS IN BURMA—THE OPIUM QUESTION._
If the case of Burma in respect of liquor is serious, that of opium is
more so. It presents in a vivid manner some of the most frightful evils
of the traffic in this drug, and it shows clearly the gross inconsistency
of any Christian nation, especially when it is the ruling power,
deliberately introducing and maintaining such an evil and profiting
largely in the revenue by it, when it is eating the very vitals of the
subject nation that has implored us again and again to remove it.
The whole question of the opium policy of our Indian Government in the
East is now prominently under the view of the nation. Parliament has
already declared in the abstract that our opium policy is indefensible,
and the conscience of the British public, never quite easy on the
subject, is at present feeling keenly about it. It seems not unlikely
that the consideration of Burma, our latest, and in some respects our
worst development of the policy, may greatly aid in shaping the views of
the public on this question, and may decide us, at the earliest possible
moment, to wash our hands of the whole sad business.
It ought, in the first place, to be understood that the opium business is
not like liquor in England, a matter of private enterprise. It is one big
monopoly of the Indian Government from first to last, and no one else is
allowed to manufacture it. Government assumes the entire responsibility
for the growth, manufacture, sale and export of opium, and sells licences
for the permission to retail it in British India. Government is the
proprietor of the whole concern. The greater part of the Indian opium
is exported to China, and there, as everybody knows, we added to our
delinquencies by compelling the Chinese, at the point of the sword, to
allow us to import opium into China, to the lasting detriment and ruin
of untold multitudes of that people. Some of the opium, a constantly
increasing quantity, is disposed of in the different provinces of India,
this part of the business also being under Government management and
licence.
As regards Upper Burma, the law we found on annexing the country was, and
had ever been, the law of prohibition. Government knew and fully admitted
this. From the despatch already quoted of October 1886, it would appear
at first sight that on taking over the country they had fully resolved to
continue that policy.
“No shops whatever will be licensed for the sale of opium, inasmuch as
all respectable classes of Burmans are against legalising the consumption
of opium in the new province.... As the traffic in opium was prohibited
under the Burmese Government, there will be no hardship in thus
proscribing opium dealings.”
But the very next sentence goes on to make an exception in favour of
Chinamen, to whom, and to whom only, it shall be lawful to sell opium,
and this clause at once lets in the mischief.
I know a small town in Upper Burma where a Chinaman obtained a licence to
sell opium to his countrymen under this regulation, on his representing
that there were two hundred of them in the town, when, as a matter of
fact, there were not more than half a dozen. He meant, of course, to
sell to the Burmans. I had this from the township officer, who knew all
the circumstances; not, however, the officer who had helped him to get
his licence. It is well known that the restriction is merely nominal and
ineffectual, and the Government officers freely admit the fact. A recent
Government officer of standing reports that—
“The consumption of liquors and opium is theoretically confined to the
non-Burman population. But there can be no doubt that a considerable
amount of both finds its way into the hands of Burmans.”
Of course it does. The temptations are there in the shape of licensed
shops, and the tempters in the shape of cunning Chinamen with an eye
to the main chance; and so long as this is the case the Burmans will
fall into the snare in ever-increasing numbers, for they are, like the
Chinese, peculiarly liable to yield to the opium habit. The following is
the testimony of Mr. Gregory, a gentleman who travelled through Burma
to see for himself what the facts of the case were; and whatever may be
said by the apologists for opium against alleged exaggerations, I think
we may, at any rate, receive the testimony of a Christian man concerning
what he saw himself. I quote what he says of Upper Burma. It fully proves
how ineffectual the restrictive legislation is, and how powerful the
temptation:—
“At Pyinmana I saw Burmans buying opium, and at the same place the abbot
of the Buddhist monasteries and one of the chief monks both told me that
large numbers of the Burmans smoked. One of them bitterly complained
that, whereas in the late king’s time he had power to stop these things,
now he had none. At Yamethin, a prominent Burman official told me that
there were numbers of purely Burmese villages in the neighbourhood
supplied with opium from the Yamethin centre. I myself saw Burmans
purchase opium there. At Kyaukse I saw Burmans served with opium. At all
three of the opium centres at Mandalay I saw opium served to Burmans. One
of the Chinese managers told me that the prohibition was only nominal,
and he expected that it would be shortly removed ‘now that the Opium Act
was getting into proper working order.’ At one of the Mandalay shops I
saw three Burmans being taught to smoke by one of the Chinese assistants.
A fourth was lying insensible. At Katha I saw a number of Burmans smoking
opium in their houses in rooms quite open and visible, close by the
court-house. At Bhamo, in the far north, I saw Burmans in crowds buying
opium at the Government centre.”
Thus this legislative expedient we pretend to have adopted for keeping
the Burman from opium completely breaks down, and is a mere dead letter.
Nominally we are carrying out prohibition as we undertook to do, but
really we are tempting the Burmans to their ruin by means of the
licensed shops. Time was when Chinese opium vendors in Upper Burma,
when caught, were disgraced in every possible way, and even flogged
and imprisoned. Recently Mr. Justice Grantham, at the Durham assizes,
was trying the case of one miner who had caused the death of another,
while the two were drunk together in the Colliery Tavern. The prisoner
was found guilty. Upon this his lordship directed the landlord of the
Colliery Tavern to take his place beside the prisoner in the dock, and
the landlord having done so, the judge proceeded to tell him in plain
terms that he (the judge) would have felt more satisfied if the jury,
instead of finding the prisoner guilty, had found the publican guilty of
causing the death of the deceased. He had served the deceased with liquor
when he was drunk already, and had undoubtedly thus caused the man’s
death.
The Burman king’s way of looking upon opium vendors was the right way,
and the judge’s rebuke of the publican was well merited; the misfortune
is that so few can see it yet. The Chinese wealthy opium vendors in Burma
now ride in first-class railway carriages, and are put forward into the
honorary rank of municipal commissioners; whilst in England we go further
than this, and admit to the peerage the heads of the great brewing firms!
We have carried the exceptional, “grandmotherly” method of legislation
to a very absurd length in Burma, prompted on the one hand by our usual
policy of regulating by licensing these vicious indulgences, and yet
restrained by a natural horror for the mischief they do to the Burmese
race, and by a well-grounded fear, founded on painful experience, that if
we do not somehow keep the nation from liquor and opium, these vices will
destroy multitudes of them.
Liquor can be lawfully sold in Upper Burma to Europeans, Eurasians,
natives of India and Chinese, but not to Burmans.
Opium to Chinese only.
Both liquor and opium may be sold to Burmans in Lower Burma.
Gunja, a product of hemp, very intoxicating, and used largely by natives
of India in their own country, is absolutely forbidden to everybody in
Burma.
The absurd and illogical in legislation could hardly go further than the
British have gone in these complicated enactments. In view of all this
one naturally inquires, If it be right to prohibit gunja, why should it
not be proper to forbid opium? If opium ought to be kept from every race
in Upper Burma but one, and they immigrants from a foreign country and a
very small minority, why not go further and shut it out altogether? If
liquor and opium are denied to Upper Burmans, why should they be allowed
to the same race in Lower Burma, where they have done so much mischief?
If liquor is bad for Burmans in Upper Burma, how can it be good for
Europeans, Chinese and natives of India?
We should have entire prohibition of the opium curse in Upper Burma
if it were not for the Chinese; that lets in all the mischief. Why is
this? Why indeed, unless it is that having forced opium upon them in
China at the point of the bayonet, we cannot for very shame withhold it
from them in Burma, but must grant them the indulgence, at any cost to
the inhabitants, lest we become a byword and a laughing-stock among the
nations. There is no consistent standing place between total prohibition
on the one hand, and the cynical tone adopted by the advocates of
licensing on the other: “It comes to this, that if the Burmans cannot
learn to use these indulgences in moderation they must take the
consequences.”
If we persist in driving the Burmans to “_take the consequences_” God
will surely require it at our hands.
The further we go into the question the more does it demonstrate the
utter futility of a vacillating, partial, halting policy like this our
latest in Burma. There is nothing for it but to make that clean sweep of
it which the Burmans have always requested we would, and to repent and do
our first works, however late in the day it is for us to begin. A brief
review of the history of the opium difficulty in our older province of
Lower Burma gives emphasis to this view.
There is no wonder our rulers should in the new province show some
signs of compunction, and some feeble attempt to prohibit opium to the
Burmans, with the dreadful experience of Lower Burma before their eyes.
But they should have gone further, and made prohibition complete. Lower
Burma is in the unenviable position of having the largest consumption of
opium, per head of the population, of any of our Indian provinces. The
quantity supplied by Government for the year 1890-91 was 54,205 seers for
a population of 4,658,000.
It is evident from these startling figures that opium in Lower Burma
has a history; and a sad and disgraceful history it is so far as our
Government is concerned. I gather the following particulars from a
publication issued by the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade.
The provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim were annexed in 1826, and Pegu in
1853, and these three provinces formed what has since been known as Lower
Burma or British Burma.
There is satisfactory evidence that before these territories came under
the British flag, the opium vice, though not absolutely unknown, was not
prevalent. An official report, dated 1870, states that “Opium eating is
not a Burmese habit; it is a _new_ vice.” Another, dated 1856, says, “The
use of this deleterious drug, strictly prohibited in Burmese times, has
been considerably on the increase of late.” The late Rev. C. Bennett of
the American Baptist Mission said, “When I first arrived in the country
in 1830 opium was rarely used, and almost entirely confined to Chinamen.
There were, however, a few Burmans who used it, and they were looked upon
by their countrymen as outcasts and worse than thieves.”
One of the earliest measures of the Indian Government was the
establishment of shops to retail opium, with no restriction as to the
number of shops. It was a notorious fact, and it was officially stated at
the time by Government servants, shocked at the demoralising effects of
the vice, that—
“Organised efforts were made by Bengal agents to introduce the use of
the drug, and to create a taste for it among the rising generation. The
general plan was to open a shop with a few cakes of opium, and to invite
the young men, and distribute it gratuitously. Then when the taste was
established, the opium was sold at a low rate. Finally, as it spread
throughout the whole neighbourhood, the price was raised, and large
profits ensued.”
In the Excise Report for 1879-80, the district officer for Prome called
attention to this growing evil in similar terms, and he gives the details
of the way in which lads of twelve or fourteen years of age were allured
to evil courses by having the opium supplied to them at first in a milder
form.
From time to time the Burmans expostulated with their rulers on this
matter. The Chief Commissioner reported in 1865:—
“Last year a majority of the respectable Arakanese petitioned me,
asserting that their own children and most of the young men of the
country had become drunkards, and had acquired within a few years a
craving for spirits and opium.”
Again, in 1880, a large deputation of the most influential natives of
the town waited upon Commissioner Aitchison, and presented a petition,
describing in very forcible language the misery entailed on the
population by opium, and praying that the traffic might be altogether
abolished in Arakan. The petitioners suggested that Government should
impose an extra land tax, in order to make up the deficit which would
be occasioned by the loss of the opium revenue, a clear proof of their
sincerity.
In the report on the Administration of British Burma during 1877-78,
attention was called to the deterioration of the national character, and
the increase of gambling, theft, dacoity and other crimes, as the result
of the growth of the liquor and opium habits. A searching inquiry was
instituted, and the result was the accumulation of a mass of evidence
which was irresistible. The wonder was how any Christian Government could
ever have established such an abominable system, and having carelessly
established it, should have been deaf to repeated remonstrances during
so long a course of years. A few brief extracts may be given to show the
character of the reports. They are the testimonies of some of the highest
British officials, men well acquainted with the country, and responsible
for what they said.
Colonel D. Brown, formerly Commissioner of Tenasserim Division, dated
April 18th, 1870:—
“In this province the words an opium smoker or eater and a vagabond
are, and have been for many years, synonymous. The old and respectable
portion of our population complain much of our opium shops, and of the
evils they bring on them. The sleepy, dreamy state of the opium smoker
has a peculiar attraction for our people; they take to it, and after
having acquired the habit, they cannot give it up; their friends refuse
to support them; they steal, rob or murder, to get their food and their
opium; they often take to dacoity, and join a frontier band; or, if they
remain in the province, they end their days in jail, or a halter puts an
end to their existence.”
Colonel E. B. Sladen, Commissioner of Arakan Division, dated September
13th, 1878:—
“During my residence in Arakan, I have been impressed and made to feel
and acknowledge, in opposition, I may say, to all previous ideas on
the subject, that opium is becoming the _scourge_ of the country. The
importance of the evil is this, that the addition to opium consumption is
alarmingly on the increase.”
G. J. S. Hodgkinson, Esq., Officiating Commissioner of Arakan Division,
dated March 12th, 1879:—
“There can be no conception on the part of Government of the fearful
strides with which the demoralisation of the Arakanese portion of the
Kyouk-pyoo district is progressing, mainly owing to the indulgence of the
inhabitants in this vice.”
The following is an extract from a memorial presented by the leading
natives of Akyab to the Chief Commissioner on March 13th, 1878:—
“The consumption of opium is contrary to the religion of the people, and
its baneful effects are telling markedly on their character, inducing
enervation of both mind and body, unfitting them for the active duties of
life, whereby the material progress of the country is retarded. Lands are
thrown out of cultivation, those who should be engaged in agricultural
pursuits becoming unfitted for work, and taking to idleness and bad
livelihood.”
The Chief Commissioner sums up this extraordinary body of testimony in an
unsparing indictment of opium in Burma, which leaves it no loophole of
excuse.
“The papers now presented for consideration present a painful picture
of the demoralisation, misery and ruin produced amongst the Burmese by
opium smoking. Responsible officers in all divisions and districts of the
province, and natives everywhere, bear testimony to it. To facilitate the
examination of the evidence on this point, I have thrown some extracts
from the reports into an appendix to this memorandum. These show that
among the Burmans the habitual use of the drug saps the physical and
mental energies, destroys the nerves, and emaciates the body, predisposes
to disease, induces indolent and filthy habits of life, destroys
self-respect, is one of the most fertile sources of misery, destitution
and crime, fills the jails with men of relaxed frames predisposed to
dysentery and cholera, prevents the due extension of cultivation and
the development of the land revenue, checks the natural growth of the
population, and enfeebles the constitution of succeeding generations.
That opium smoking is spreading at an alarming rate under our rule
does not admit of doubt. On this point the testimony of all classes of
officers and of the people is unanimous.”
A high official gentleman, Mr. Hodgkinson, the late Judicial Commissioner
of Upper Burma, when Commissioner of the Irrawaddy District, wrote:—
“A large revenue is secured to the Government by the present system, but
it is secured by sapping the very hearts’ blood of the people, the better
classes of whom most bitterly reproach us, and, in my opinion, very
justly, for our apathy and misgovernment in this matter.”
To sum up, the following facts are proved, beyond all manner of doubt;
and criticism of them, though it may attempt to palliate, cannot explain
them away:—
1. The Burmans have strongly objected to any licensing of opium
from first to last.
2. In spite of their continued protests the British Government
has thrust it upon them.
3. The Burman temperament and constitution is found to be
peculiarly liable to succumb to this temptation.
4. Seeing and feeling the alarming growth of the evil, the
Burmans have bitterly complained, and begged their rulers to
remove the evil, but in vain.
5. Officials in different parts of the province have faithfully
reported these things, and their reports have been in print for
years.
6. The evil has gone on increasing to this day, and now has
reached unprecedented proportions. In Lower Burma the excise
revenue (liquor and opium) has increased 80 per cent. in
the _five years_ ending with 1890, whereas the increase of
population has only been 22 per cent. for the _ten years_. The
excise revenue of all India yields an average of 4 annas per
head of the whole population; in Lower Burma it averages 9
annas.
7. And lastly, we are in danger of doing the same thing in the
new province of Upper Burma unless we alter our policy.
What is required for the removal of this evil is a complete reform. The
feeble attempts at remedy so far have shown themselves to be useless.
The first attempt at improvement was the closing of the greater part of
the licensed shops in Lower Burma. A good deal has been made of that by
the upholders and defenders of the present system. We are told that there
is only one licensed opium house in Akyab, for instance. An eyewitness
tells us that in forty-five minutes he visited fifty opium dens in that
town of “only one licensed shop,” and he was told that there are in the
district not less than one thousand places where opium is sold. That one
house pays 158,000 rupees (about £10,533) annually for licence duty.
The system of high licences has been tried, and the price has been put
up, until in Rangoon the price of the drug is equal to its weight in
silver, but this makes little or no difference.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie, the present Chief Commissioner of Burma, now
proposes to make it penal to sell opium to Burmans in Lower Burma, as it
is in Upper Burma, or for Burmans to be in possession of opium; but this
is merely trifling with the evil. If it is ineffectual in Upper Burma,
what good is it likely to accomplish in the Lower province, where so
many have acquired the habit?
These all stop short of an effectual dealing with the opium question;
they will avail nothing so long as the drug is within reach. The
real remedy, I submit, is entire prohibition, and many officials of
Government, of standing and experience, concur in this view. Let our
Indian Government give up entirely, except for medicinal purposes,
this iniquitous and disreputable business of manufacturing and
supplying opium, and get rid of the guilt of it. “Native opinion,” says
Commissioner Aitchison, speaking of Burma, “is unanimously in favour of
stopping the supply altogether, and no measures we could adopt would
be so popular with all the respectable and law-abiding class of the
population.”
Lord Cross has recently said: “It is not practicable to close all opium
shops and to stop opium consumption so long as opium is grown in British
India and in the native states.” Quite so. No doubt we shall have to take
up the accursed thing by the roots to do it effectually.
We are told that the consequences of this course would be very dreadful,
but we have been told this in the case of every reform ever yet
proposed, and the statement has ceased to frighten us. If we had the
cordial support of the whole of the “respectable and law-abiding class
of the population,” no great harm could come of it. At any rate, the
consequences could not then be worse than they are now.