Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/107

Rh fact of all is, that the trade is constantly increasing. The following statement exhibits the consumption of opium during the last twenty years:—

By this it will be seen, that while the consumption has been increasing, the price has been falling, from 1139 to 660 dollars per chest, or nearly one half its original value. Still the enterprising speculator has been pushing his article into the market, determined to furnish the Chinese with it at any price, rather than lose so large a customer. Thus the appetite has been created, and is largely fed, until nearly three millions of victims have been drawn into the snare; and there is every prospect of its increasing still more, until the consumers dying off in proportion as the consumption extends, the country will be thinned of its inhabitants, and Mammon at length be disappointed of his prey.

But is there no remedy? The emperors of China have wisely and patriotically determined, from the very moment they spied the onward march of the threatened evil, to denounce and resist it: and instead of admitting it, on the payment of a duty, have, as rulers, resolutely refused to derive any profit from the vices of the people. In the first year of the late emperor, Këa-king, 1796, the introduction of opium was interdicted