some of the greatest men
in England have been steadfastly opposed. The great Gladstone has
described it as "morally indefensible." The time has now come for us,
people of both countries, to unite to stop it.

THE OPIUM MONOPOLY

I

GREAT BRITAIN'S OPIUM MONOPOLY

In a book shop in Shanghai, we came upon a small book with an arresting
title, "Drugging a Nation," by Samuel Merwin. It was published in 1908,
eight years before we chanced upon it, shabby and shop worn, its pages
still uncut. The people of Shanghai, the great International Settlement
of this largest city and most important seaport of China, did not have
to read it. They knew, doubtless, all that its pages could disclose.
We, however, found it most enlightening. In it there is this
description of the British Opium Monopoly:

"In speaking of it as a 'monopoly' I am not employing a cant word for
effect. I am not making a case. That is what it is officially styled in
a certain blue book on my table which bears the title, 'Statement
Exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress of India during the year
1905-'6,' and which was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed,
May 10, 1907.... Now to get down to cases, just what this Government
Opium Monopoly is, and just how does it work? An excerpt from the
rather ponderous blue book will tell us. It may be dry but it is
official and unassailable. It is also short.

"'The opium revenue'--thus the blue book--'is partly raised by a
monopoly of the production of the drug in Bengal and the United
provinces, and partly by the levy of a duty on all opium imported from
native states.... In these two provinces, the crop is grown under the
control of a government department, which arranges the total area which
is to be placed under the crop, with a view to the amount of opium
required.'

"So much for the broader outline. Now for a few of the details: 'The
cultivator of opium in these monopoly districts receives a license, and
is granted advances to enable him to prepare the land for the crop, and
he is required to deliver the whole of the product at a fixed price to
opium agents, by whom it is dispatched to the government factories at
Patna and Ghazipur.'

"The money advanced to the cultivator bears no interest. The British
Indian government lends money without interest in no other cases.
Producers of crops other than opium are obliged to get along without
free money.

"When it has been manufactured, t