On. June 11 another group of Koreans was stopped in the Hankow railway station, carrying 35 ounces of heroin and 87 packages of other drugs. The leader of this group carried a Japanese consular permit to travel in Hopei, Honan and Shansi. The entire group of Koreans resisted arrest, injuring, three Chinese officers who were sent to the hospital.
The Japanese official attendance at the bürning of their own drugs not a reliable proof of a changing attitude toward drugs, because these same Consular officers are shielding within their Hankow concession a number of drug factories. These have been reported to the League of Nations, and published in their re-paris. It can do no harm here to reveal a few details about these factories which are well known to open-e; yed Hankow residents:
Factory No, 1:—Produces heroin and morphine. Capitalized at Y.100,000 Daily output of morphine, 78.4 ounces; of heroine, unobtainable. The morphine sells for $34 an ounce. Five Japanese police officers guard the front door of the factory.
Factory No, 2:—Produces heroin and morphine. Daily output, 40 oz. Its distribution in Hankow and Wuchang is through nine shops. It also exports to Honan and Kiangsi Factory No. 3:—Prodyces red'pill This is the largest pill factory outside of Tientsin; its capacity is 1,000 ounces a day, or ten tons a year. The selling price is $3 an ounce. This factory employs: nine manufacturers and fourteen salesmen, all of whom are protected by the Japanese Consulate. three Kuomintang headquarters, the shippers association and the wharf [coolies union, the national customs officers. and all navigation bureaus. The organization is but the first step: the personnel of each of these c operating units are now being trained in drug-detective service.
The registration of Hupeh opium smokers, of whom about 150,000 are now on the books, is an equally difficult task. The best method so far discovered is to send a national agent directly into the farming district to talk with the farmers, the magistrates. and the gentry. The list of names is then secured not from the magistrate but directly from the chia chang or headman for ten families. These headmen know every detail of the private lives of their neighbours, and can reveal without question which men are smokers, By such a campaign it is estimated that the present number of registered smokers will be trebled if not more.
A growing number of people in Hankow who have been sceptical of the sincerity of the Generalissimo's plan to wipe out opium are now supporting the six-year plan. Many doubt whether the plan can be carried out in such an extremely short period; others admit that the government wi retain its opium taxes so long as the suppression programme does not suffer. The significant change of opinion is the faith inthe Generali simo, the belief, that ultimately, by the soundest methods possible, he is approaching the goal of complete suppression.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.