1903-4 1,610,296 pounds sterling 1904-5 1,504,604 1905-6 1,130,372 1906-7 1,031,065 1907-8 1,215,142 1908-9 2,703,871 1909-10 1,234,432 1910-11 2,203,670 1911-12 3,614,887 1912-13 3,242,902 It was in 1907 that China began her great fight against the opium evil, and enacted stringent laws for its prohibition on Chinese soil. On page 15 of his little book, Mr. Arnold quotes from Commissioner Carl, of Canton: "The 1912 figure (for the importation of foreign opium) is the largest on record since 1895. The great influx of Chinese into the foreign concessions, where the anti-opium smoking regulations cannot be enforced by the Chinese authorities, and where smoking can be indulged in without fear of punishment, no doubt accounts for the unusual increase under foreign opium." X INDIA India is the source and fount of the British opium trade, and it is from Indian opium that the drug is chiefly supplied to the world. As we have said before, it is a government monopoly. Cultivators, who wish to plant poppies, may borrow money from the Government free of interest, the sole condition being that the crop be sold back to the Government again. It is manufactured into opium at the Government factory at Ghazipur, and once a month, the Government holds auctions at Calcutta, by means of which the drug finds its way into the trade channels of the world--illicit and otherwise.[2] [2] This description of the Opium Department is to be found in Statistics of British India, Financial Statistics, Vol. II, 8th Issue, page 159: