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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 15 April 1908, Page 1

A Shanghai correspondent of n New York paper, writing last year about China's first step in tho prohibition of tho opium traffic, declared that opium had eaten into the morals of China's governing and literary class, and tho result had been a corrupt Government of the first order. Japan, on the other hand, had long prohibited smoking, which was a crime punishable by ten years' penal servitude. A students' journal, conducted by Chineso at Shanghai, declares that '-among tho many social ovils from which our nation is at present suffering, none, perhaps, is more widespread and more destructive in its effect than the opium habit. Tho relation of our reforms with tho opium question is, in fact, so gre>it tbat to neglect the latter would moan an ineffective attempt to improve tho existing condition of onr people. For many years it has been the greatest obstacle in our efforts at reforms. The deleterious effect is too well known to need explanation, and the worst of it is that the victims aro found not only among the lower classes, but among our most brilliant scholars and statesmen, in whoso hands lies the destiny of the nation."