shamed?"

"Nevertheless, he is," replied the guide. "You see what he looks
like--what he has become. He is not quite so far gone as the others--he
is a more recent victim. He still feels that he has become degraded.
Most of them do not feel that way--after a while."

So we went on and on, down the long street. There was a dreadful
monotony about it all. House after house of feeble, emaciated, ill
wrecks, all smoking Monopoly Opium, all contributing, by their shame
and degradation, to the revenues of the mighty British Empire.

[Illustration: Packet of opium, actual size, as sold in licensed opium
shop in Singapore. The local government here derives from forty to
fifty per cent of its revenue through the sale of opium.]

That evening after dinner, I sat on the wide verandah of the hotel,
looking over a copy of the "Straits Times." One paragraph, a dispatch
from London, caught my eye. "Chinese in Liverpool. Reuter's Telegram.
London, January 17, 1917. Thirty-one Chinese were arrested during
police raids last night on opium dens in Liverpool. Much opium was
seized. The police in one place were attacked by a big retriever and by
a number of Chinese, who threw boots and other articles from the
house-top."

Coming fresh from a tour of the opium-dens of Singapore, I must say
that item caused some mental confusion. It must also be confusing to
the Chinese. It must be very perplexing to a Chinese sailor, who
arrives in Liverpool on a ship from Singapore, to find such a variation
in customs. To come from a part of the British Empire where opium
smoking is freely encouraged, to Great Britain itself where such
practices are not tolerated. He must ask himself, why it is that the
white race is so sedulously protected from such vices, while the
subject races are so eagerly encouraged. It may occur to him that the
white race is valuable and must be preserved, and that subject races
are not worth protecting. This double standard of international justice
he must find disturbing. It would seem, at first glance, as if subject
races were fair game--if there is money in it. Subject races,
dependents, who have no vote, no share in the government and who are
powerless to protect themselves--fair game for exploitation. Is this
double-dealing what we mean when we speak of "our responsibility to
backward nations," or of "the sacred trust of civilization" or still
again when we refer to "the White Man's burden"?

Pondering over these things