His Excellency Tang-K'ai-Sun spoke the Chinese mind when, in an eloquent speech at the Shanghai Conference, he told of the awful desolation that opium was bringing to his land. But it is unnecessary to quote the opinion of individual Chinamen; they are practically unanimous on this subject. One has only got to point to what China has done to show two things. First, that the curse of opium-smoking was far greater and more horrible than anything that we have experienced on this side of the globe; next, that there is latent in the Chinese character a vigour and an energy which, when it is called into action, despises all obstacles and acts so efficiently as to leave the world lost in astonishment. Realise what China has done. China is addicted to a vice which has a far greater hold upon her than alcoholism has upon us; she determines that within ten years that vice is to cease. The production of the poppy is to be diminished till none is produced; opium-smokers are to be held up to public scorn; opium dens--which are really the equivalent of our public-houses--are to be closed; all officials who take {117} opium are to be turned out of Government employ; the only exception that is made is for old men, and that exception was quite unavoidable. So vigorous was the action of the Government that men who have for forty or fifty years of their lives taken opium, tried to give it up; the result was in several cases that they were unable to support the physical strain; a great illness, even death, ensued; and so the edict was relaxed; men over sixty were allowed to continue smoking. When all this was published, every one smiled. They argued that China was trying to do the impossible. A vice like opium-smoking may be extirpated, but only after years of struggle. A generation must come and a generation must go before opium or any similar vice shows appreciable diminution.