I am aware of no subject, involving only simple matters of fact, and outside the region of party politics, upon which so much discussion has been expended, and about which such widely different opinions are prevalent, as this opium question. On the one side, it is said that, for selfish purposes, we have forced and are still forcing opium upon the people of China; that the Indian Government, with the acquiescence and support of the Imperial Government, cultivates the drug for the purpose of adding seven or eight millions sterling to its revenue, and, with full knowledge of its alleged baneful consequences to the natives of China, exports it to that country. A further charge, moreover, is brought against the British merchants, that they participate in this trade for gain, or, as it is put by the Rev. Mr. Storrs Turner, formerly a missionary clergyman at Hong Kong, but now and for many years the active and energetic Secretary of the Anti-Opium Society, to enable them to make "princely fortunes." That is the favourite expression of Mr. Turner, who finds, no doubt, that it takes with certain small sections of the public, readier to believe evil of their own countrymen than of the people of other countries, under the belief, perhaps, that in doing so they best display the purity and disinterestedness of their conduct. The Anti-Opium Society and its supporters assert as an incontestable fact that opium smoking is fatal, not only to the body but to the soul; meaning, I suppose, that the custom is destructive to the physical, and demoralising to the moral nature of its votaries, and that the opium traffic is regarded by the people of China with such horror that it prevents the natives from receiving the Gospel from those who help to supply them with this drug, viz., the British people. It is alleged that the use of opium demoralises the Chinese, that it ruins and saps the manhood of the whole nation, with a host of concomitant evils, to which I shall by and by refer more particularly, the whole involving the utmost turpitude, the greatest guilt and the worst depravity on the part of England and the English Government, and still more especially on that of the Indian Government and the British merchants in China. Here I may observe, in passing, that if the objection to opium on the part of the Chinese is so strong, it is rather remarkable that they should not only greedily purchase all the Indian opium we can send them, but cultivate the drug to an enormous extent in their own country. The Anti-Opium Society and its supporters further say that opium culture and opium smoking are of comparatively recent origin in China; and although they do not directly allege that we have introduced those practices, there is throughout all their writings and speeches "a fond desire, a pleasing hope" that the readers or hearers of their books and speeches will form that opinion for themselves. I should tell you that those who hold directly contrary views