Page:Chinese Pictures.djvu/132

 OPIUM CULTURE ENCROACHING ON THE RICE LANDS, SZE CHUAN.

great system of irrigation at Sze Chuan was intended for the cultivation of rice only; but the great and terrible growth in the demand for opium has caused the cultivation of the poppy so to increase that it is encroaching on the rice lands.

This may be regarded as the saddest and most terrible fact as regards the future of China.

The use of opium is of comparatively recent date, but the growth and spreading of the habit has been most rapid.

At the first, both local and government officials did their best to stop it and to stamp out the culture of the poppy; but although laws were passed making death the penalty for its cultivation they became a dead letter, until to-day it is estimated that eighty per cent, of the men and fifty per cent, of the women, in one or two populous provinces, are opium smokers. They do not all smoke to excess. There are moderate smokers as we have our moderate drinkers; but all through the province of Sze Chuan the opium shops are as thick as the gin shops in the lower parts of London.

It is not necessary to dilate on the effects of opium when freely indulged in. They are too well known. China's only hope is to emancipate herself from the vice that is eating away her manhood. But will she be able to do it?