orities, not, as in the case of elevators and ferry-boats, for
reasons of safety, but for financial reasons. The more opium farms
there are, you see, the greater the company's profits.

The opium is purchased by the chartered company from the Government of
the Straits Settlements for $1.20 a tael (about one-tenth of a pound
troy) and, after being adulterated with various substances, is sold to
the opium farmers, nearly all of whom are Chinese, for $8.50 a tael,
the company thus making a very comfortable margin of profit on the
transaction. The opium farmers either keep opium dens themselves or
sell the drug to anyone wishing to buy it, just as a tobacconist sells
cigars and cigarettes. The sale of the opium privilege in Sandakan
alone nets the government, so I was informed, something over $500,000
annually.

Now, iniquitous and deplorable as such a traffic is, the British North
Borneo administration is not the only government engaged in the sale of
opium. But it is the only government, so far as I am aware, which
virtually forces the drug on its people by insisting that it shall be
purchasable in localities which might otherwise escape its malign
influence. A planter who, actuated either by moral scruples or by a
desire to maintain the efficiency of his laborers, opposes the opening
of an opium farm on his estate, might as well sell out and leave
Borneo, for the company will promptly retaliate for such interference
with its revenues by cutting off his supply of labor. It will defend
its action by naively asserting that, as the coolies would contrive to
obtain the drug any way, the planter, in refusing to permit the opening
of an opium farm on his property, is guilty of conniving at the illegal
use of the drug!

The British North Borneo Company professes to find justification for
engaging in the opium traffic by insisting that, as the Chinese will
certainly obtain opium clandestinely if they cannot obtain it openly,
it is better for everyone concerned that its sale and use should be
kept under government control. The fact remains, however, that China,
decadent though she may be and desperately in need of increased
revenues, has succeeded, in spite of the powerful opposition of the
British-owned Opium Ring, in putting an end to the traffic within her
borders, while Siam, likewise under Oriental rule, is about to do the
same. It is a curious commentary on European civilization that this
vice, which the so-called "backwa