The opium industry in British India

Abstract

As Erskine Perry, one of the Bombay justices sitting on this and associated suits, later wrote: ’It has been a practice, for many years past, with the wealthy native merchants of India, to speculate on the price which the opium to be sold by Government, at their first periodical sale of the season, would produce’ .’ Each year two dominant syndicates formed-one betting on a higher price per chest and one betting on a lower price. Determined to recoup after suffering large losses in earlier years, Ramlal Thakursidas headed the ’Tejiwallahs’ or high price syndicate in 1846. When on 26 August Government published its intention to auction 1,690 chests of Patna opium on 23 November, Ramlal’s syndicate began offering