§ *MR. REES (Montgomery Boroughs)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has information to the effect that the Government of China proposes to increase the existing taxes on Chinese-grown opium, in the same proportion as that by which it asks that the import duty on Indian opium may be increased; and whether the Foreign Office has any information whether the Chinese drug is steadily supplanting the imported article among the population of China.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. MORLEY, Montrose Burghs)The Chinese Government has increased the duty on native opium, which until now has varied in the different provinces, to a uniform rate of 115 taels; this is higher than the duty on imported opium, and proposals for a corresponding enhancement of the duty on this latter article are under consideration by His Majesty's Government. As to the supplanting of imported opium by the home-grown drug I have no trustworthy information. According to the Consular Report on the foreign trade of China for 1904–5, imports of foreign opium have decreased by nearly 22 per cent. during the last thirty years. Thy same Report states that the production of native opium has increased during the period. In the absence of accurate statistics it is impossible to say 307 to what extent native opium has supplanted the foreign product.