Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1911. THE OPIUM TRAFFIC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10259, 10 June 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1911. THE OPIUM TRAFFIC.

llhe announcement recently made that an agresmerft had been reached between Britain and China which will practically end the opium traffic created 'Considerable exoitement in India, the crux of the problem ap.pearing to be—shall India be allowed to coerce Oliina to ; take her opium for the sake of the Indian revenue? "The facts are of the simplest, and speak for themselves. The Indian Government holds l a lucrative monopoly in the manufacture and sale of ©paxim," says the London 'Daily News. "Wie had three wars with China, in order to compel her, •by the treaty of Tientsin, in 1860, to legalise the import of opium, which had previously been contraband. In 1869 China appealed but in vain, for the abolition of this dangerous traffic. In despair, the prohibition of iP°PPy growth, which had hitherto prevailed in China, was- relaxed: in order to drive out the Indian drug. The result was dreadful. Qpmmsraiofeing became the national scourge. Witlh the national awakening in China a new era dawned. The trade was condemned by a resolution of the Liberal House of Common's on May 30th, 1906. In prompt response, an anti-opium edict was issued from Pekin the (following September. So miraculous has been the result that the poppy is rapidly disappearing from China. The growth- has diminished by nearly .seventy per (cent., wind the disappearance of the homegrown product is within sight. The opium denis have been (suppressed practically everywhere throughout, this great Empire. The hMwry of |

(the world cannot show such, a revolution of national character in so short ia period. The main points of this agreement were:— (1) That the importation of Indian opium would cease a* soon as the cultivation of opium ceased m China. (2) That in the meanwhile the duty on imported opium might (be increased threefold. (3) That the accumulated 'stocks of Indian opium, amounting to about 20,000 chests, anight be sold 'without a time limit, but that the Indian imports would be correspondingly decreased.

China in the last three years has reduced her cultivation of opium by about seventy per cent," the Daily News continues. "It is. therefore almost certain that within the next two years or even less the poppy "will (be no longer grown in China, aaid that consequently in accordance with the projected treaty the lucrative returns from India will automatically be brought to an end. The most strenuous resistance, it appears, is being offered by the Indian Government to the efforts of the Home authorities to put an end to this national crime, condemned as it has been by the Imperial Parliament itself and every party and section of opinion in England,"