We did look into the matter. During a stay in the Far East of nearly a year, in which time we visited Japan, China, Hongkong, French Indo-China, Siam and Singapore, we looked into the matter in every country we visited. Wherever possible we obtained government reports, and searched them carefully for those passages giving statistics concerning the opium trade--the amount of opium consumed, the number of shops where it was sold, and the number of divans where it was smoked. We found these shops established under government auspices, the dealers obtaining their supplies of opium from the government, and then obtaining licenses from the government to retail it. In many countries, we visited these shops and divans in person, and bought opium in them freely, just as one goes to a shop to buy cigarettes. We found a thorough and complete establishment of the opium traffic, run by the government, as a monopoly. Revenue was derived through the sale of opium, through excise taxes upon opium, and through license fees paid by the keepers of opium shops and divans. A complete, systematic arrangement, by which the foreign government profited at the expense of the subject peoples under its rule. In European countries and in America, we find the governments making every effort to repress the sale of habit-forming drugs. Here, in the Far East, a contrary attitude prevails. The government makes every effort to encourage and extend it. Two notable exceptions presented themselves. One was Japan. There are no opium shops in Japan, and the Japanese Government is as careful to protect its people from the evils and dangers of opium as any European country could be. It must be remembered, however, that Japan is a free and independent country. It has never been conquered by a European country, and perhaps one explanation as to why the Japanese are a powerful, virile people, is because Japan is the one Oriental nation that has never been dominated by a European power, and in consequence, never drugged. The other exception is our own possession of the Philippines, which although a subject country, has never had the opium traffic established as part of the machinery of an alien government.