A tariff is not usually a matter of general interest; but this tariff is of more than mere commercial importance, as having for the first time regulated, and therefore legalised, the trade in opium.[1] Hitherto this article had been mentioned in no treaty, but had been left to the operation of the Chinese municipal law, which prohibited it altogether. But the Chinese would have it; there was no lack of foreign traders, chiefly British and American, ready to run the risk of smuggling it for the sake of the large profits to be made upon it; and the custom-house officials, both natives and foreign inspectors, hardly even kept up the farce of pretending to ignore the fact. At one port, indeed, the authorities exacted from the opium traders a sort of hush-money, equivalent to a tax about 6 per cent. _ad valorem_. It might well be said that 'the evils of this illegal, connived at, and corrupting traffic could hardly be overstated; that it was degrading alike to the producer, the importer, the official, whether foreign or Chinese, and the purchaser.' To remedy these evils two courses were open. One was effective prohibition, with the assistance of the Foreign Powers; but this, the Chinese Commissioners admitted, was practically hopeless, mainly owing to the inveterate appetite of their people for the drug. The other remained: regulation and restriction, by the imposition of as high a duty as could be maintained without giving a stimulus to smuggling. It was not without much consideration that Lord Elgin adopted the latter alternative; and it was a great satisfaction to him that his views on this subject were ultimately shared by Mr. Reed, the Envoy of the United States, who had come to the country with the intention of supporting the opposite opinion. In the course of the conferences on these points, which were carried on in the most friendly spirit, Lord Elgin induced the Commissioners to make a separate agreement that he should be permitted, irrespectively of the conditions imposed by the Treaty, to make an expedition up the great river Yangtze Kiang; a permission of which he gladly availed himself, not only for the sake of exploring a new and most interesting country, but even more with the view of marking how entirely and cordially his Treaty was accepted.