Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/275

Rh not; but because they perceived that the demand for their own opium would be greater—because they, in place of the importer from abroad, would be enabled to administer the drug to "the poor suffering sons and daughters of sorrow" to the extent of precisely one-tenth more than they were doing at the present time.

The most urgent of all reforms, then, is the gradual suppression, with a view to final extinction, of the production of the drug in China itself. The Chinese are, of course, quite alive to this, and have drawn up and issued a set of regulations not the least important of which is the one dealing with the home production. In order to reduce the area under cultivation, all magistrates are charged to investigate and make returns of the land under the poppy in their districts. No new land may, under penalty, be sown with the poppy, while certificates are to be issued for all land