That the use of the drug is spreading rapidly in China, and that, therefore, the possibility of coping successfully with the evil is becoming more hopeless every day. In 1834 the foreign import was twelve thousand chests; in 1850 it was thirty-four thousand chests; in 1870 it was ninety-five thousand chests; in 1880 it was ninety-seven thousand chests. _To this must be added the native growth, which, in the last decade, has increased enormously, and now at least equals, and according to some authorities doubles, the foreign import._ That while the clause legalizing the opium traffic remains in the British Treaty, the Chinese Government do not feel free to deal with the evil with the energy and thoroughness the case demands, and declare their inability to check it effectively. That the opium traffic is the source of much misunderstanding, suspicion, and dislike on the part of the Chinese towards foreigners, and especially towards the English. That the opium trade, by the ill name it has given to foreign commerce, and by the heavy drain of silver it occasions, amounting, at present, to about thirteen million pounds sterling annually, has greatly retarded trade in foreign manufactures, and general commerce must continue to suffer while the traffic lasts. That the connection of the British Government with the trade in this pernicious drug excites a prejudice against us as Christian missionaries, and seriously hinders our work. It strikes the people as a glaring inconsistency, that while the British nation offers them the beneficent teaching of the Gospel, it should at the same time bring to their shores, in enormous quantities, a drug which degrades and ruins them. That the traffic in opium is wholly indefensible on moral grounds, and that the direct connection of a Christian Government with such a trade is deeply to be deplored. That any doubt as to whether China is able to put a stop to opium production, and the practice of opium smoking in and throughout her dominions should not prevent your Honourable House from performing what is plainly a moral duty. Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that your Honourable House will early consider this question with the utmost care, take measures to remove from the British Treaty with China the clause legalizing the opium trade, and restrict the growth of the poppy in India within the narrowest possible limits. Your Honourable House will thus leave China free to deal with the gigantic evil which is eating out her strength, and creates hindrance to legitimate commerce and the spread of the Christian religion in this country.