To the Editor of the "NortH-CHINA DAILY NEWS."
Sir,—The Customs seizure of an alleged million dollars worth of opium affords the opportunity of drawing attention to the folly of destroying by fire such seizures of smuggled goods.
A million dollars worth of anything represents a huge amount of human labour. If this labour in the form of a kind of goods can be utilized for any good purpose whatsoever, it ought not to be destroyed but sold—possibly at reduced rates to avoid storage.
If chemists can make synthetic oil of wintergreen and vanillin, they can certainly extract the morphine out of smokers' opium at some price. For such purpose the cargo held might be of less value than its appraisement for an illicit purpose,. but still the value be very high. The Government could afford to sell it at a price attractive to manufacturers of alkaloidal drugs. Why waste anything, and especially why waste government property such as this opium now is? The Government always needs money, and if the money obtained from the sale of seized opium would not lessen taxes, it could at least be used for some good purpose, such as famine relief, poor relief, or aid to victims of bombing operations or other military destruction.
In America the Government once destroyed large quantities of seized whisky of the best grades, but the same Government now has to license the manufacture of whisky for medicinal purposes. Another instance of the folly of destroying goods produced by human jabour.
The matter, of the crime of smoking opium does not enter this question of sale for legal purposes. Common sense demands better custodianship of public property pee: C.A.B. han to. burn it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.