The absurd and illogical in legislation could hardly go further than the British have gone in these complicated enactments. In view of all this one naturally inquires, If it be right to prohibit gunja, why should it not be proper to forbid opium? If opium ought to be kept from every race in Upper Burma but one, and they immigrants from a foreign country and a very small minority, why not go further and shut it out altogether? If liquor and opium are denied to Upper Burmans, why should they be allowed to the same race in Lower Burma, where they have done so much mischief? If liquor is bad for Burmans in Upper Burma, how can it be good for Europeans, Chinese and natives of India? We should have entire prohibition of the opium curse in Upper Burma if it were not for the Chinese; that lets in all the mischief. Why is this? Why indeed, unless it is that having forced opium upon them in China at the point of the bayonet, we cannot for very shame withhold it from them in Burma, but must grant them the indulgence, at any cost to the inhabitants, lest we become a byword and a laughing-stock among the nations. There is no consistent standing place between total prohibition on the one hand, and the cynical tone adopted by the advocates of licensing on the other: “It comes to this, that if the Burmans cannot learn to use these indulgences in moderation they must take the consequences.” If we persist in driving the Burmans to “_take the consequences_” God will surely require it at our hands. The further we go into the question the more does it demonstrate the utter futility of a vacillating, partial, halting policy like this our latest in Burma. There is nothing for it but to make that clean sweep of it which the Burmans have always requested we would, and to repent and do our first works, however late in the day it is for us to begin. A brief review of the history of the opium difficulty in our older province of Lower Burma gives emphasis to this view. There is no wonder our rulers should in the new province show some signs of compunction, and some feeble attempt to prohibit opium to the Burmans, with the dreadful experience of Lower Burma before their eyes. But they should have gone further, and made prohibition complete. Lower Burma is in the unenviable position of having the largest consumption of opium, per head of the population, of any of our Indian provinces. The quantity supplied by Government for the year 1890-91 was 54,205 seers for a population of 4,658,000. It is evident from these startling figures that opium in Lower Burma has a history; and a sad and disgraceful history it is so far as our Government is concerned. I gather the following particulars from a publication issued by the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade. The provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim were annexed in 1826, and Pegu in 1853, and these three provinces formed what has since been known as Lower Burma or British Burma.