Circular N. 4142 of the Territorial Department Revenue from the Officiating Secretary to the Government at Bombay Castle, Charles Edward Fraser Tytler, to the Resident in the Persian Gulf [‎25r] (39/44)

MINUTE BY THE HONORABLE MR. REID,
D ated 21 s.t S eptember 1848.
1. The Supreme Government has called for information on the whole opium system of
this Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. , which embraces two great questions, relative to th'e regulation of the inter
nal production and consumption of this drug within our districts, and to the security of our
revenue, derived from the export trade to China. Mr. Willoughby's Minute of the 20th
July last contains an able exposition of our present position in respect to them ; but I would
beg to submit a few further remarks upon them, since they are both at the present time in a
most unsatisfactory state.
2. The latter question affects that opium only which is the produce of Malwa, since that
alone now enters into the China trade, the export of all other being prohibited. The former
affects not only the Malwa produce, which enters to some small extent into our home
consumption, but also the produce of British territory, whether in Guzerat, Khandeish or
the Deccan, and that also of numerous Native States which border on, or are mixed up with,
that territory.
3. The engagements which were entered into with the Guicowar and other States in
O O
Guzerat, Kattiawar, kc. were originally intended to be in support of the monopoly which the
British Government then held of the whole produce of Malwa. This it had acquired the
exclusive right of purchasing from the cultivators, and it prepared it on its own account,
and despatched it to Bombay, where periodical sales were held similar to those now held in
Calcutta. The inconveniences of this system, as causing an interference in the affairs of the
Native Governments, and producing ill-will in the minds of the Chiefs and their subjects,
induced the Government to abandon the monopoly, and to throw open the trade in Malwa,
substituting the pass system, under which the drug was allowed a transit through British
territory to the port of shipment, &c. (Regulation XX. 1830.)
4. It is possible that the abandonment of the monopoly may in some measure have led
to the neglect of the engagements with those Native States who had bound themselves to
assist in its maintenance. The substitution of the pass system, by throwing open the trade
from the place of production, may have been viewed as authorising a relaxation of the
existing restrictions, though in reality so long as ready means existed of conveying the opium
of Malwa to the rival port ofDamauu, those restrictions were almost as necessary to us under
the one system as under the other.
5. It will be for the Supreme Government to determine how far it may be expedient
or just to insist on the continuance of all such restrictions where they still exist; their
revival where, having once existed, they have fallen into disuse; and their extension to those
States with whom n<o arrangements have heretofore been concluded, but whose co-operation
is requisite, in order to make the system of restriction perfect.
6. The expediency of such measures is dependent on our power, without their aid, of
preventing the export of the produce of Malwa to China. We now possess the control of
the whole sea-board of the western coast from this side of Sonmeeanee to Cape Comorin,
and if that control were efficient, there would be no possibility of that produce finding its
way by sea to any port, such as Damaun or Goa, whence it could be taken to China; and
we might safely leave the Native States in our neighbourhood unfettered in all matters con
nected with the transit of opium through their territories, since Goa and Damaun, the only