ANTI-OPIUM ASSOCIATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 65, 10 December 1907, Page 3

ANTI-OPIUM ASSOCIATION.

Tho report of the Wellington Anti-Opium Association, to bo submitted to the annual •meeting on Thursday night, states that ■he work of the Association during the past twelve months has been principally confined to the consideration of anti-opium literature, keeping in touch with the British Association, sending out circular letters when necessary, and getting the New Zealand newspapers to publish anti-opium news. It seems now that the wholo community, is very much more- awake'to a sense of t'no nation's sin than it was before the Association started. Thirty-three new members have been enrolled during the year. Some citizens have declined to join the Association because of tho obligation to pray daily "that God will awaken our national conscience to a sonso of the great sin we are committing against China, and will bring us to a state of rcpentanco and discontinuance of our.sin." It is felt, however, that this should not Iks in any degree modified. It was regrettable that last year's export of opium, to China was greater by four thousand chests than in any previous year since 1894, and China still remains bound by treaty to receive it into her country, and.still prevented from putting a prohibitive duty on tho drug. It is pitiable ~nd humiliating, states tho report, to read that after tho Chineso Government have closed tho 000 opium dens in The Chineso City, the foreign concessions in that city still keep thoir 1600 dens open, unheeding tho intreaties of the Chinese Government; and in tho Crown colonies of Hong-Kong and ihe Straits Settlements tho opium dens are still in full swing. It is true that Mr. Morley has ordered a reduction in tho acreage under poppy cultivation amounting to ono and a quarter millions of tho total area, but tho number of chests in store in December, 1906, amounted to the enormous quantity of 70,059.. A fow members of tho Association have met pretty regularly at tho prayer meetings on tho first Tuesday of each month — which is also a missionary prayer meeting — but it is desirod that greater numbers will attend in tho future, and that the membership of tho Association will bo largely, increased.