Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/267

Rh that "certain of the high officials who wrote the most eloquent letters condemnatory of the opium traffic, and appealing to foreign nations to prevent its introduction into China, are believed to have steadily increased the areas under opium cultivation in their own domains," and they also learned that "one provincial official who endeavoured to forbid the use of opium in his province was removed by the Imperial Government." The members of the commission spoke with knowledge, but not so every one who feels called upon to talk glibly, if ignorantly, upon the opium question. Just as there are some people who really believe that opium, and not insolence, was the cause of the so-called "opium war," so there are those who appear to be under the impression that all that is necessary to bring about the abolition of the opium curse in China is to place an embargo upon the import into that country of the drug from India. "Our sin against China could be ended at one stroke if Britain would pay the cost," wrote the Rev. Eric Lewis in 'The Church Missionary Review' for May 1908. That may be, but what I am