) being at the rate of 44 per cent. The net receipts from
liquors and from drugs other than opium ... the increase at the rate of
48 per cent. This large increase is due not merely to the expansion of
consumption, but also to the imposition of progressively higher rates
of duty and the increasingly extensive control of the excise
administration. The revenue from drugs, (excluding opium) has risen in
ten years ... the increase being at the rate of 67 per cent."

A national psychology that can review these figures with complacency,
satisfaction and pride is not akin to American psychology. A nation
that can subjugate 300,000,000 helpless people, and then turn them into
drug addicts--for the sake of revenue--is a nation which commits a
cold-blooded atrocity unparalleled by any atrocities committed in the
rage and heat of war. The Blue Book shows no horror at these figures.
Complacent approval greets the increase of 44 per cent of opium
consumption, and the increase of 67 per cent in the use of other
habit-forming drugs. Approval, and a shrewd appreciation of the
possibilities for more revenue from "progressively higher rates of
duty," knowing well that drug addicts will sell soul and body in order
to procure their daily supply.

XI

TURKEY AND PERSIA

Next to India, the greatest two opium-producing countries in the world
are Turkey and Persia. The Statesman's Year Book for 1918 has this to
say about it. On page 1334: "The principal exports from Turkey into the
United Kingdom ... in two years were:

_1915_ _1916_

Barley L156,766 L49,413
Raisins 127,014 34,003
Dried fruit 375,519 540,633
Wool 36,719 143,216
Tobacco 149,100 3,711
Opium 262,293 48,090"

These are the only articles mentioned in this list of chief exports.
There are others, doubtless, but the Statesman's Year Book is a
condensed and compact little volume, dealing only with the principal
things exported. In 1915 we therefore notice that the opium export was
second on the list, being exceeded by but one other, dried fruit. In
1916, the third year of the war, the opium export is decidedly less, as
are all the other articles exported, except dried fruit and wool--which
were articles probably more vital to the United Kingdom at that time
even than opium.