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A 62
XVII.
EDUCATION AS TEE MEANS or ERADICATING
TEE HABIT.
It appears to us to be self-evident that the eradication of the
opium smoking habit can only be achieved by stopping the supply
of prepared opium or eliminating the demand for it.
2. While the poppy is being cultivated in any cOIl!!iderable
quantity in other countries the stoppage in any particular country
would be merely artificial and would lead to devices to evade it
which would be attended with varying degrees of SUCceRS.
3. Elimination and avoidance of the habit can, in our opinion,
only be achieved by education, and in this several of our witnesses,
who were pressing for drastic legal measures, agreed.
4. In educational work it is natural to direct principal attention
to the young, and the institution of school lecture8 on the evils
of the habit appeals to those desirous of stamping it out.
5. We think that such lectures might well be encuuraged ill
Government Schools which have any considerable number of
Chinese children on their books, but we hold that it is desirable that
all such lectures, whether given by Government officers or by
interested unofficial members of the community to whom peruJission
has been accorded, should be approved by an officially
recognised Committee.
6. We would point out in passing that the Chinese children tu
whom lectures of this nature would be delivered would include
children of China-born as well as of Straits-born parents.
7. We must also observe, however, that immigrant Chinese
labourers who first come here- as adults provide the great majority
of the opium smokers in British Malaya.
8. School education in Malaya will, therefore, nut touch the
vast majority of our smokers in their youth and, if education of
youth is to be relied on as a main factor in elimination, that education
must be given in China and not here. -
- 9. Propaganda work in British Malaya, if it is to bo ill auy way
successful, must be carried on mainly outside of the schoulll, Ilnd we
were interested to see the way in which this is to be taken up in
the Federated Malay States.
10. The initial measures which are being taken m those States
are set out in Appendix LXVII, and are in our opinion worthy of
the consideration of other Governments in British Malaya.
11. - In this anti-opium propaganda work lies the real scope
of the local anti-opium movement. Provided that the methodf!
adopted are subject to the approval of a recognised body on which
the Government is properly represented, we think that the various
Governments might well foster this propaganda.
12. We are in favour of free treatment a.t Government hospitals
for all bona fide applicants for the cure of the habit.