ECTORATE--THE FIRST INFORMAL POSTAGE
SERVICE--THE FRENCH TREATY OF 1885--OFFERED POST OF BRITISH MINISTER

Curiously enough, almost as soon as Robert Hart was back in Peking
(1880) the opium question was brought to his attention again. This
time it was by a Chinese official--one Yuan Pao Heng, an uncle of the
famous Yuan Shih Kai, whose influence is paramount in the Flowery
Land to-day, and who more than any other single man was probably
responsible for the Imperial Edict (1906) which ordered the opium
traffic to be abolished within ten years.

The uncle was as bitter an enemy of the drug as his nephew, but though
his views were sound they were in advance of his time, and the I.G.
very properly pointed out to him that the cultivation of the poppy
could not be stopped suddenly. However wise theoretically it might
be to do this, practically it would be dangerous. A great source of
revenue must not be cut off abruptly, or China might find herself in
the position of the man in the old fable, who thoughtlessly mounted
the tiger, and then found out too late that he had forfeited the right
to dismount when and where he pleased.

Haste in the Far East is a commodity for which it is easy to pay too
high a price--when it is obtainable at all--which, to tell the truth,
it generally is not. "Change slowly--if change you must" has ever been
the motto of China, and for years the capital itself was an example
of the saying. Improvements were not encouraged. There were no more
public buildings in 1879 than in 1863. I doubt if a single tumble-down
wall had been replaced--the dirt and smells still remained, and the
roads were no smoother. Only a few more Legations had established
themselves there, and, by clustering together, they formed what might
by courtesy be called a Legation Quarter, which lay between the pink
wall of the Imperial City--the innermost of the ring of three cities
that form Peking--and the frowning, machicolated grey wall of the
Tartar town.

The Chinese, partly no doubt with the idea of keeping all the
foreigners together and partly for the convenience of business,
presently gave the I.G. a piece of land in this quarter, and he
accordingly moved down to comparative civilization--as we understand
it--from his far-away corner of the suburbs, as soon as the buildings
were ready. He had a modest row of low offices, several houses for his
staff, each standing, Indian fashion, in its own compound, and, in a
large ga