The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, MAY 1st, 1913. CHINA AND THE OPIUM EVIL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 97, 1 May 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, MAY Ist, 1913. CHINA AND THE OPIUM EVIL.

Oik; of the most significant signs of China’s awakening is the effort being made by tlie people of the country to purge themselevs of the deadly opium evil. As a people the Chinese are bitterly opposed to the traffic in this drug, and the agitation Tor its suppression is daily growing stronger. The effort to lift a race so large in numbers from the degradation of this vicious, soul , destroying habit, will however, lie neither so quickly accomplished uor so effectual without the moral, if not the active support of other nations. Dr. Sun Yat Sen appealed in May last to the British nation in these terms“We ask you in the name of humanity and in the name of righteousness to grant us the right to prohibit within our own land the sale of this fearful poison, both foreign and the native drug.” These words referred mainly to the importation of the drug from India—an importation which by treaty cannot be stopped for three years. Last year no less than 19,821 chests of opium grown on British soil found its way into China. At ruling prices this is worth about £2,000,000. In his appeal Dr. Sun Yat Sen urged that the sale and traffic of the drug he made illegal in order to stop its cultivation.