Said to be Concerned The "'North-China Daily News" is able to state upon very reliable authority that details are coming to light of an opium smuggling combine working upon a_ huge scale, far wider than anything in its scope brought to the notice of the authorities for the past five or six years. It is alleged that a number of -prominent Chinese officials are interested in the scheme, working in' conjunction with a group of foreigners in the Settlement.
Since the establishment of the Anti-Opium Association feeble steps have been taken to suppress the opium evil. For some time past, however, the number of opium cases—smuggling, selling and smoking—as wel] as the quantities seized and burned have increased quite considerably; in fact, it might be sdid, quitd enormously and alarmingly.
It was only recently ti several fishing boats at Woosung were seized: and, hidden on board, there was opium to the value, it is said, of more than a million dollars. These were detained for a short while, but later released and nothing further was heard of the case.
Again, only recently, not more than three weeks ago, we had occasion to report that a water police officer was concerned in the smuggling of the drug but, aside from his being dismissed from service and a couple of his subordinates transferred to other patrols, there was no punishment inflicted.
The criminal laws of China are strict enough, but evidently they are not enforced strongly enough. In fast, any law court desirous of inflicting punishment is practically powerless here. If the laws were only properly enforced, -we would certainly see less opium smuggling. In days gone by, the Chinese Government used to pay a certain percentage of the value of any opium seized to informers in caée the information they gave proved to be correct and resulted in a seizure.
Opium smuggling is taking place under the very eyes of the Chinese authorities; in many cases it is going on with their knowledge and consent, as in the affair with which we are shortly to deal, but, as the Chinese say, they simply wink their eyes and turn their heads elsewhere.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.