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Besides, in the treaty made at Tientsin in 1858 British opium was to be admitted into China. Therefore, the curse was to be fastened upon her no matter what position she took.
If China held aloof from the degrading business, the Christians would not. In other words, she could not pay the idemnity and the British would with their terrible fighting machinery proceed to collect it, and this meant the loss of much, or probably all of her domain.
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For a time China wavered, then took the great step. All restrictions on opium growing were removed.
A half century has passed since China took this step, with what terrible results is very vividly described by Mr. Samuel Merwin, to whom the writer is indebted for some of his information on this subject.
Mr. Merwin spent considerable time in China, making personal investigation of the opium evil. He in part says: "This is the land into which the enterprising Christian traders introduced opium, and into which they fed opium so persistently and forcibly that at last a 'good market' was developed. England did not set out to ruin China. One finds no hint of a diabolical purpose to seduce and destroy a wonderful old empire on the other side of the world. The ruin worked was incidental to that Far Eastern trade of which England has been so proud. It was the triumph of the balance sheet over common humanity. And so it is today British India still holds the cream of the trade, for the Chinese-grown opium cannot compete in quality with the India drug
The British-India government raises the poppy in the rich Ganges Valley. (More than 600,000 acres of poppies were raised there last year.) Sixty-five tons of Indian opium goes to China every week.
No one knows how much opium was grown in China last year.
There are estimates—official, missionary and consular—and they disagree by thousands and tens of thousands of tons. But it is known that where the delicate poppy is reared it demands and receives the best land. It thrives in the rich river bottoms. It has crowded out grain and vegetables wherever it has spread, and has thus become a contributing factor to famines. Its product—opium—has run over China like a black wave, leaving behind it a misery, a darkness, a desola-
