THE OPIUM CONFERENCE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1358, 8 February 1912, Page 6

THE OPIUM CONFERENCE.

AN INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM. discussing tho Opium Conference at Iho Hague, a correspondent of the london "Times" snv.-,:-"Tho problem is no longer merely that of helping China to suppress opium smoking. The Powers are now concerned with international measures of hygiene and economics. Since the beginning of the present, antiopium movement public opinion in the l.nited States has become convinced (largely by Dr. Hamilton Wright's activity) that it has a national as well as a humanitarian interest in the opium qup-stion. Already, coincident with tho findings of tho Shanghai Commission, Congress has been led to enact legislation tu prevent tho importation of opium into tho country except for legitimate purposes. But it has come to be realised that, in order to make such legislation in any sense effective, international legislation is essential, and th? loyal cooperation of every Government concerned becomes a sine qua non. Throughout tho United Slate?, where no opium is produced, noitlirr laws, tariffs, excise, nor strength of public opinion have proved sufficient to keep in eliecl: evils far more deadly (ban the opium-smoking habit. If the movement is to be productive of prrniainMH KiK-d, the Chinese Government must be in a position to effect and to maintain the complete abolition of poppy-growing in every part of Ihe Empire.' the destination of tho permissible annual maximum of Indian opium exported hereafter for medical purposes in lift be strictly controlled and supervised, and other producing countries (e.?.. Persia and Turkey) must bo bound by similar sclMenyhiß ordinances. Only by such means ran the poppy bo restored (oils proper place as a benefactor of humanity, and tlio illicit trade in morphine, with all it-s frightful consequences, finally abolished."