and a further reduction to 50,000 chests is
contemplated.[58] The revenue, therefore, is not likely to be in excess of
the amount received 1881-2, which was eight and a half millions (net), of
which three and a half millions are due to the export duty on Malwa, the
other five millions to the direct profit on the Bengal drug.

The amount of land at present under opium cultivation in British India is
about 500,000 acres,[59] and this amount does not admit of any
considerable extension.

It was in 1826 first that the East India Company made an agreement with
Holkar and other native chiefs that the former should have the exclusive
right to purchase all opium grown in the table-land of Malwa.[60] But, in
spite of this agreement, opium grown in these estates found its way to the
Portuguese ports of Damaum and Diu on the Persian Gulf, for export to
China. Consequently, after an unsuccessful attempt to limit the
production in the native states, which almost occasioned a civil war, the
existing system was abandoned, and a tax upon opium exported through
Bombay substituted.

The number of chests annually exported out of India is about 45,000, which
gives the Indian Government a revenue of L3,150,000; whereas a similar
amount of Bengal would bring in five and a half millions sterling. It is
difficult to estimate the exact revenue that accrues to the native princes
from the culture of the poppy, but in any case it must form a main portion
of their whole income, amounting in some cases to as much as half, in
spite of the enormous duty we can lay upon its export. The cultivation is
very popular in the native states, and the people, we may be sure, have no
scruple in supplying China or any other nation that will buy their
produce. "No rajah," says Dr. Christlieb, "under a purely native system,
would administer the opium revenue as we do; the Brahmins would soon
starve him out." What this remark precisely means, it is difficult,
perhaps impossible, to discover; but the general meaning desired to be
conveyed, no doubt, is that a native ruler would not be allowed to engage
in so iniquitous a traffic by the superior sense of justice and morality
inherent in his Brahmin councillors. Credat Judaeus! Whether it would be
possible[61] or in accordance with justice, or consistent with the policy
hitherto pursued towards the native states, to prevent opium from being
grown by the native princes (if so be that the doctrines of the anti-opium
le