China has been increasing in volume and spreading its baneful influence wider and wider. Americans have been engaged in the trade in common with other foreigners; but the United States, by a bold and noble declaration against opium, now stands in the right before the world and the God of nations. It has, he writes, encouraged long deferred hope, confirmed oft-defeated determination; it has nerved the arm of the government with new strength, and we shall see China once again grappling with the monster that is stealing away the prosperity and energies of her people.
But these hopes proved entirely illusory. Prince Kung again urged the British government to stop the importation of opium, upon the stipulation that its cultivation in China would be prohibited, but the proposition was not entertained. An association was organized in England to create a public sentiment in favor of the suppression of the trade; and Li Hung Chang, in an interview with the American minister, Mr. Young, in 1882, spoke hopefully of its influence on the British government, and gave him for transmittal to his government a copy of a letter which he had written to the Anti-Opium Association, which presents the Chinese view of the question with much force.
The following extract will indicate the spirit of the letter: "Opium is a subject in the discussion of which England and China can never meet on common ground. China views the whole question from a moral standpoint, England from a fiscal, England would sustain a source of revenue in India, while China contends for the lives and prosperity of her people. . . . The
