The following facts are taken from "Statistics of British India. Financial Statistics, Volume II, Eighth Issue," to be found at the New York Public Library:
Acreage: 1910-11 362,868 1911-12 200,672 1912-13 178,263 1913-14 144,561 1914-15 164,911 1915-16 167,155 1916-17 204,186
In the hey-day of the China trade, 613,996 acres were under cultivation in the years 1905-6, consequently this is a drop in the extent of acreage. But, as we have said before, the closing of the China market simply means that other outlets must be found, and apparently they are being found, since from 1914 onwards, the acreage devoted to poppy planting is slowly increasing again.
The opium manufactured in the Government factory is of three kinds--provision opium for export; excise opium, for consumption in India, and medical opium, for export to London. It is this latter form of opium which, according to Mr. MacDonald, in his "Trade Politics and Christianity in Africa and the East" is being manufactured into morphia by three British firms, two in Edinburgh and one in London, which morphia the Japanese are buying and smuggling into North China.
The "Statistics of British India" shows the countries into which Indian opium has been exported: we will take the figures for the last five years, which show the number of chests sent out.
_1912-13_ _1913-14_ _1914-15_ _1915-16_ _1916-17_
Straits Settlements 5,098 1,537 755 605 239
Other countries 2,815 1,929 3,160 3,248 2,366
In some countries we see a falling off, as in China. Cochin-China, the French colony, shows a considerable increase--the little Annamites, Tonquinese, Cambodgians and other inhabitants of this colony of the French Republic being shown what's what. Mauretius, a British Colony five hundred miles off the coast of Madagascar, in the Indian ocean, seems to be coming on. The falling off in shipments to the United Kingdom may possibly have been due to the war and the scarcity of ships. "Other countries" seem to be holding their own. With the end of the war, the increase in ships, and general trade revival, we may yet see compensation for the loss of China. With the increase of drug addicts in the United States, it may be that in time America will no longer be classed under "other countries" but will have a column all to itself.