Sketches from Formosa.

THE JAPANESE AS COLONIZERS 327
attempting to carry out an almost too generous policy
of public improvements in Formosa ; Second, the sub-
stantial profit which the Government derives from its
opium monopoly ; this profit amounting last year to
more than One Hundred Thousand Pounds sterling,
even after paying for the yearly surplus of crude opium,
with all the expenses of refining and distribution ; and,
Third, that, while 165,752 male and female natives of
Formosa or 6* 18 per cent of the whole population are
now paying for licenses to gratify their pernicious craving,
any Japanese subject who takes to opium-smoking
thereby commits a crime, and renders himself or herself
liable to penal servitude.
But it is time that these Notes were brought more into
line with the title under which they have been placed.
Not that I am conscious of having wandered very much,
because the remarks already made proceeded on the
assumption that it would be well to give, from personal
observation, a preliminary glimpse of the Japanese
actually at work in several of their colonizing undertakings
in Formosa. Still, the subject is capable of more general
treatment, and it is to this aspect of it I should like now
to crave a little more of the reader's indulgence.
Let me begin by saying that Formosa is not the only
field in which the Japanese have appeared as colonizers ;
for while the Luchu Islands were till lately governed
under a monarchy of their own, they now form the
important Okinawa Prefecture of Japan ; and, despite
the peculiar language and customs which were prevalent
there, the process of absorption was accomplished both
with quietness and to the great advantage of those
islanders. Several years ago, Luchuans were scarcely
ever seen in Formosa, but now they are frequently to be
met with, and their well-stocked shops are to be found in
all the more important centres of population.