authorities in Singapore would only lay before the Legislative council a plain statement of the evils resulting from its use, I feel sure that for the sake of $7,500 a month (the revenue obtained from the sale of the opium farm last year) they would not by its encouragement, physically deteriorate and demoralize so many thousands of the inhabitants of this island. To finish this epistle, I will give the remarks on the trading in opium by a partner in one of the most extensive mercantile houses in China, and which has dealt more than any others in the drug.
IS THE OPIUM TRADE TO CHINA ONE IN WHICH A CHRISTIAN MERCHANT CAN ENGAGE?
The morality or immorality of the opium trade has been much discussed during the last twelve years, and it is undeniable that the question admits of able arguments on both sides, if we take no higher ground than the ordinary morality of the world.
On the one hand, it has been said that opium is a pernicious article of luxury or a poison, and that by smuggling it into China, we break the laws of that Empire and injure our fellowmen; while on the other hand it has been argued, with some show of truth, that opium is only poison to those who abuse it, that the foreign merchant does not smuggle it into China, but merely brings it to its shores, to be purchased by the natives under the very eyes of their own government, with litle more than a show of objection, and therefore, that it does not deserve the epithet of smuggling, and further that a merchant is a mere agent between supply and demand, and that when these two elements of industry are brought to bear upon one another in any given field of commerce, their consequences concern him no farther than the extent to which he can benefit himself by the interchange of the commodities.
But to those taking a leading management or having a leading interest in the trade, and who believe in the Christian religion, it is submitted for their serious consideration, whether the opium trade to China is not exerting a directly hostile influence on the spread of Christian truth, and whether they are not thereby exposing themselves to the frown of that God whose truth they are engaged in counteracting?
Let it be borne in mind that the importation of opium into China, and its consumption in the country, are really and truly prohibited by the Chinese government, however much its efforts may have been frustrated by the corruption of its
