THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JULY 1. 1911. A NEW ANTI-OPIUM AGREEMENT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15184, 1 July 1911, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES SATURDAY, JULY 1. 1911. A NEW ANTI-OPIUM AGREEMENT.

Advocatks of tlie abolition of tho Opium traffic in China are rejoicing over the fact that a new Anglo-Ghinese opium agreement h-ts been signed and are indulging the hope that the traffic which has long bsen regarded as a black blot oa the honour of Groat Britain will terminated at no distant date. This jnew agreement was signed at Peking last month by Sir John Jordan, on behalf of Groat Britain, and by the Wai-wu-pu, or Foreign Office of China, and modifies in an important respect that made in ISO 7. At that time it was agreed that the export of opium from India to China should be reduced by one-tenth annually, so that the trade should be brought to an end in 1917. This arrangement is now superseded, however,* by an agreement that Indian exports ohall cense at an earlier date if China can prove to tho satisfaction of British officials that 6he has ceased to grow and manufacture tho hurtful drug. . The second article of the now agreement runs thus: " China having adopted a rigorous policy for prohibiting the production, transport, and smoking of native opium, the British Government agrees that the export. of opium froyi India shall oease in less than seven years if proof is given that the production of native opium has completely ceased," Another article stipulates that Indian opium shall not, be convoyed into any province of China which I has ceased to cultivate or import " native opium." This will enable vast areas of China to exclude the pernicious drug before the whole Empire haa abolished it. There will be local nolloanse before national prohibition! Certain provinces have rigorously suppressed the cultivation of the poppy and inflicted heavy penalties upon opium* snickers, and these will now have tho right of forbidding the importation of the foreign article. Indian opium will in future enter China only at the ports of Canton and Shanghai, and these will be the last 1 ports to be closed against the ding. As a further assistance to China in her heroic effort to rid herself of the opium habit, Great Britain agrees to a heavy increase in the opium duty on condition that China makes a, corresponding advance in the excise duty on the . looally-produoed article. Finally, Great Britain agrees, in addition to the pre- , scribed annual reduction of one-tenth, to reduoe the Indian exports by an amount equal to one-third of the amount of uncertificated opium in bond in China on given dates. It is estimated that under these new provisions the opium traffic in China may be brought to an end by 1914. Everything is made to depend uport. the sincerity and success of China heraelf in enforcing the great reform to which she has addressed herself. But thoee who know best the attitude of her rulers towards tho opium habit and the resolute elfarts they have already made to jet the nation free from this curse have no doubt that China -will avail herself to the full of the opportunity which now lies bsfore her. She is fully alive to tho gravity of tho peril which has menaoed her ever since opium was forced upon her at the cannon's mouth. She has seen that opium-smoking threatened to strangle the very life out of her, and has'mado pitiful appeals to Great Britain to free her from treaties which compelled her to receive the destructive drug. It must not be imagined that India will incur any financial loss by the adoption of this new agreement. Owing to the increased price of opium the Indian Treasury has received during the past three and a-quarter years no less than £13,183,900 as opium duty, or two millions more than she would have received in ten years in ordinary circumstances. Sir Robert Laidlaw, who recently'spent five months in the East, affirms, moreover, that the Indian poppy-growers are already cultivating crops of cereals and cotton, which pay them better than the poppy did. As Dr Ya Mei Kin, tho first Chinese lady to obtain a medical diploma, 'said at the annual meeting of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, held in London on April 21: "It is not the Indian peasant and fanner who want to be paid [for the suppression of the opium]. The people who say it is financially indispensable are the millionaires. Now I think your consciences can bs quite easy, for you are not forcing these poor millionaires into ferious straits, and they can still put their money into other things and gain sonic more millions if they choose." At this same meeting the following resolution was unanimously adopted:—

That this • meeting, while holding as firmly as ovor the essential moral wrongfulness of the opium trade, and tho duty therefore of this country to cease at once ami unconditionally from all complicity with it, and while deploring tho fact tfliat we have surrendered to China tho moral leadership of this question, welcomes with great thankfulness tho prospect of an agreement between Great Britain and China, which would permit tho possibility of a. complete ending of tho trade within a pcricrj of one year, or at most within two; tihat it congratulates His Majesty's. Government on so truly interpreting tho mind of the people of' England at this crisis: and that it sincerely trusts that no pressure from India may bo permitted to interfere with tho speedy conclus'ion of the proposed agreement. Many in this Dominion who have closely studied the opium question will heartily endorsa this resolution. During last year some 1500 petitions were sent Home from the colonics pleading that Great Britain should liberate China from uho treaties which compelled her to admit opium, and the prospect of the early of their desire will be regarded by tho petitioners with the liveliest satisfaction. Dr Morrwon, special correspondent of The Times in China, in forecasting the recant agreement, expressed the belief that tho resolutions passed at the Edinburgh Missionary Conference and the day of humiliation and prayer held on the fiftieth anniversary of the ratific-jjoor'

of the Treaty of Tientsin (Octobcr 24, 1910) largely helped to make the modification, of the previous arrangement neccssaiy,