The "Statistics of British India for 1918" has this to say on the subject of Excise (page 218): "Revenue: During the ten years ending with 1916-17 the net receipts from Excise duties increased ... at the rate of 47 per cent. The receipts from opium (consumed in India, not exported) being at the rate of 44 per cent. The net receipts from liquors and from drugs other than opium ... the increase at the rate of 48 per cent. This large increase is due not merely to the expansion of consumption, but also to the imposition of progressively higher rates of duty and the increasingly extensive control of the excise administration. The revenue from drugs, (excluding opium) has risen in ten years ... the increase being at the rate of 67 per cent."
A national psychology that can review these figures with complacency, satisfaction and pride is not akin to American psychology. A nation that can subjugate 300,000,000 helpless people, and then turn them into drug addicts--for the sake of revenue--is a nation which commits a cold-blooded atrocity unparalleled by any atrocities committed in the rage and heat of war. The Blue Book shows no horror at these figures. Complacent approval greets the increase of 44 per cent of opium consumption, and the increase of 67 per cent in the use of other habit-forming drugs. Approval, and a shrewd appreciation of the possibilities for more revenue from "progressively higher rates of duty," knowing well that drug addicts will sell soul and body in order to procure their daily supply.
Next to India, the greatest two opium-producing countries in the world are Turkey and Persia. The Statesman's Year Book for 1918 has this to say about it. On page 1334: "The principal exports from Turkey into the United Kingdom ... in two years were:
Barley £156,766 £49,413 Raisins 127,014 34,003 Dried fruit 375,519 540,633 Wool 36,719 143,216 Tobacco 149,100 3,711 Opium 262,293 48,090"
These are the only articles mentioned in this list of chief exports. There are others, doubtless, but the Statesman's Year Book is a condensed and compact little volume, dealing only with the principal things exported. In 1915 we therefore notice that the opium export was second on the list, being exceeded by but one other, dried fruit. In 1916, the third year of the war, the opium export is decidedly less, as are all the other articles exported, except dried fruit and wool--which were articles probably more vital to the United Kingdom at that time even than opium.