The history of the Opium Commission appointed by Mr. Taft is sufficient to show how any less comprehensive regulation would act. When Mr. Taft was Governor-General of the Philippines, he found that an enormous quantity of opium was being smoked by the natives and the large Chinese settlement, of whom it was estimated that fifty-five thousand were smokers. He appointed a commission headed by Bishop Brent, now stationed at Manila, who has since headed two international opium conferences, at Shanghai in 1909 and at The Hague in 1911. Mr. Taft sent the commission into the most important opium-producing countries to find out how they were dealing with the problem and what progress was being made toward decreasing the use of the drug. The nearest approach they found to a reform was the method of the Japanese in their newly acquired island of Formosa. Japan, with the most stringent regulation of the sale of opium in the world, had made it a government monopoly in Formosa, had compelled the registration of all smokers, and was gradually lessening the amount which each smoker could buy. After the exhaustive report of the commission, our Government adopted the same tactics in the Philippines. To the surprise of the officials, they found that out of the fifty-five thousand opium-smokers they could obtain a registration of only from ten to twelve thousand, which meant that the great majority were getting smuggled opium. By special act of Congress the authorities at Manila were allowed to stop the importation of opium entirely. But this, while it meant a great loss of revenue to the local government, apparently did not lessen the amount smoked. After the sale was stopped, there were virtually no voluntary applications for opium treatment, as there must have been if anybody's supply had been cut off, which conclusively showed that nobody had discontinued the habit merely because importation had been discontinued. Stopping importation, then, is a farce, unless at the same time there is rigid governmental control in those countries that produce or import the drug. And, therefore, unless there should be a coöperation of all governments, it is futile to try to regulate the traffic. As long as people can get opium, they will smuggle it.