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3007. Would you be willing to register domestic servants in Kedah?­
I think so; "domestic servant", of course, has a very wide mewn,.
Ordinary cooks and boys I would be prepared to register, but not all the
usual hangers-on to a Raja or people like that. I suppose they would come
under the heading of domestic servants.
3008. Would you be prepared to undertake the registration of opium
smokers in Kedah ?-I .:ertainly would not.
3009. Why?-In the first instance, I do not believe that half of them
would register.
3010. Why do you say that ?-From a sense of shame at being on the
register of opium smokers, and they might get some of their people, who
do not smoke opium at all, to register.
30Il. For what purpose ?-For the purpose of passing it on to them.
3012. But could you not tell the opium smoker and stop him doinr
that ?-It would be very difficult to tell if a man was an opium smoker: or not,
unless he was medically examined or watched.
3013. Do you think you could tell an ordinary opium smoker
yourself; could you distinguish between him and a non-smoked-I could
not. I could tell a man who smoked very heavily; I could give a fuess that
he was an opium smoker, but I would not be prepared to swear to it.
3014. He might be phthisical ?-He might be.
3015. Mr. lelf.-But the moderate smoker you could not distinguish?­
I could not.
3016. Chairman.-You would have to take everybody's word and
there would be risks about that?-Yes. Another point that struck me was
that Chinese might register themselves as opium smokers and obtain
quantities of opium and pass them along to heavy smokers who were too
lightly rationed, at a price; and then, I think it would give rise to' an army of
informers and blackmailers.
3017. Then, supposing you only insisted that a man registered and
did not il!sist on rationing him, all the same objections would not hold?­
The man that was registered then could obtain more than he required and
pass it along to somebody else.
3018. The one that I am suggesting is a very much more free and
easy system than the original proposal we started with, that is, to have no
rationing but only registration ?-Then a man can obtain as much opium
as he wants and pass it along to his friends who do not themselves register.
Take a Chinese family with two or three brothers living in the same house.
'One registers as an opium smoker, the others do not, but they get their
opium through the man who has registered. You would not then have a
proper register of opium smokers. You would have to ration them. I
know one Chinese Towkay who smokes one tahH a day and who has done so
for years
3019. Does he show any signs of it ?-Yes, he is very emaciated. I
know that for the last ten years he has been smoking a tahil, if not more,
every day.
3020. What sort of a man is he; is he mentally competent ?-He is a
man who owns an estate: he is getting old now, but mentally he seems all
right. He had a case in court the other day and appeared to be quite clear
in his mind about his case.
3021. I gather that my registration bystem would not, in your opinion,
amount to a census of opium smokers, because it would not get all the opium
smokers ?-I am afraid that is w. .
3022. But, of course, under my system, that is a system of registration
only-speaking to you as a Police Oflicer-you could afford to put in much
more severe penalties for a man being fonnd smoking without a permit than
under the rationing system?-Yes.