Of the anfion, or opium [Bernaldez describes the efforts made by the English East India Company to import opium into China, although against the will of the Chinese government, and states that a certain amount is smuggled into Manila to supply the Chinese settled in Filipinas; he supposes that the prohibition of this trade in the islands arose from the fear of the governors that the Indians would become habitual users of this drug and thus be injured; but in his experience of seventeen years in various judicial positions in Filipinas he has never seen a scandalous case of opium inebriacy among the Chinese of Luzon, nor any Indian brought into court for using the drug; and "the Indians without exception regard the use of opium with the utmost indifference and contempt." He thinks that it should not be prohibited in Filipinas, since its use appears not to injure the Chinese there, or to be necessary for the Indians; while the islands] ought not to be deprived of a revenue that is exceedingly lucrative for agriculture, commerce, and the treasury; of an article which in the order of nature ought to be exclusively for the trade and benefit of the islands; and a means by which the Manila commerce would draw great wealth from China, turning in its favor, and with large sales, the balance of trade with that empire, which is now and always has been against Manila. A chest of opium, weighing one pico of Filipinas or 100 cates of China (each of 22 onzas), would probably cost the Manila grower for all expenses at most 100 pesos; and its value in China is usually 1,400 to 1,600 pesos. Add to this advantage that of the large and secure market which Filipinas has close at hand, since there would be annually consumed in China more than eight millions pesos' worth of this article from the islands; this would permit all the extension which they choose to give to the cultivation of this article. And if 8,000 chests of opium produced in Filipinas would yield in China 12,000,000 dollars, the royal exchequer, which ought to secure its proportion of the great advantages to agriculture and commerce, could without any difficulty load that product with a duty so considerable that it would produce four to six millions of pesos a year. [Bernaldez therefore recommends: That the government, without abrogating the present prohibition of the importation and use of opium in the islands, give free permission to capitalists to cultivate the poppy and export opium from Filipinas; that the poppy-fields be close to the capital and enclosed; that the harvest be superintended by trustworthy persons from the revenue service, as is that of tobacco; and that the entire product be deposited in the magazines of the custom-house. That at the time of its exportation a duty of 25 per cent be collected on the value of the opium, at the prices current in China. That the concession of raising opium should be granted by preference to the planters who