id,
as before, to the officials in the shape of bribes. India would certainly
not lose _all_ its revenue; for a considerable part, one-seventh at least,
goes to the Straits Settlements and the neighbouring islands, to the
Netherlands of India, to Hongkong for export to the islands of the
Pacific, and to California. Moreover, Indian opium has a monopoly value,
and is, besides, superior in flavour to all other opium--holds, in fact,
that place among the various kinds of the drug which champagne holds among
wines. So that, on the whole, this policy, which would strike at the very
root of the anti-opium agitation, would not, as it seems, have any very
alarming effects upon India.

And now we have done. We have tried to point out the fallacy of the
principal arguments urged by the Anti-Opium Society against the traffic,
and the injustice and dangers involved in the remedies which they propose.
But we have not hesitated to acknowlege it when their objections seemed
well-founded. Their opinions, it need not be said, have undergone
considerable modification since the days of Earl Shaftesbury's memorial;
and it is by no means clear yet what the actual policy advocated by a
majority of their supporters is. "Some shout one thing and some another,
and the greater part know not wherefore they have been called together."
And though we have condemned their measures, we must not be thought to be
condemning the men. They, we freely admit, are actuated by the highest and
noblest motives of benevolence and philanthropy; but in their sensibility
to the sufferings of others, they are apt to disregard the justice due to
their own countrymen. If one half of the allegations of the missionaries
and their supporters could be accepted as true, and brought home to the
intelligence of the nation, there would not be a voice raised for the
traffic. The cry would not indeed be "Perish India," but "Perish the opium
revenue," at whatever cost to England. The very rejection of these extreme
opinions by a large majority of those who, from their position and
experience, are best qualified to form a judgment on the question, is in
itself a strong argument against their truth; and if not true, how
pernicious must be the effect of their dissemination! Here is what an
Englishman of ability and experience, for many years resident in Hongkong,
says: "I say that the missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society, in the
course of their agitation for the abolition of the