We ourselves have not been unsuccessful in struggling against the vice of alcoholism; but consider the number of years since Father Mathew first spoke against drink. England may be growing sober, but it is by slow if steady degrees. But China hopes to accomplish in ten years what has taken England so many patient years of toil to effect partially. The idea that China could do this was regarded by most Westerns as almost laughable. In 1907, when the edict was first put forth, all those we met in China held this view; even missionaries, while they gave every credit to the Government for what it intended, shook their heads and foretold disappointment. We noticed as we passed along that {118} wonderful line that links Hankow to Peking and Peking to Harbin in 1907 that the country was beautiful with the white and pink crops of poppy, till at times one might imagine that the transformation scene of a London theatre was before us rather than the land of China, and remembering what we had been told, we also confidently expected failure to the edict which requires the destruction of so many miles of this pernicious if beautiful crop. In 1909, when we again traversed the same country, we could not see a single poppy flower; not only so, but we made every effort to see if we could find a field. We went for a twenty mile walk at Ichang through the country, where no one could have expected a foreigner to come, and we only found one tiny patch of poppy, and one in which the ruthless hand of the law had rooted up the growing crop. As we went up the Gorges of the Yangtsze we scanned with a strong glass the hillside, and never once on those glorious mountains did we see any sign of opium cultivation. We asked about the officials; not only was the Government enforcing the law that officials must give up opium-smoking, but they were taking a more effectual action; they were requiring all those who were going to be officials to spend some time under supervision, to ensure that they should not be opium-smokers. Could any Western power hope to accomplish such a feat? Would the most extreme temperance reformer suggest that all public-houses should be closed, that the amount of barley {119} should be diminished every year till within ten years none should be grown, and that all the Government officials, from the Prime Minister downwards, should become total abstainers within that period? The reason of this vigorous action of China and its present success is to be attributed to two things: first, to the terrible and very real national fear that this vice will destroy the nation, as it has destroyed countless families and individuals; secondly, to the vast store of energy which enables China to accept new ideas and act vigorously on them.