ay from it.

I think we may consider the point established that Great Britain is
directly responsible for the introduction of opium into China, and,
through the ingenuity and persistence of her merchants and her diplomats,
for the growth of the habit in that country. To-day, in spite of an
unmistakable tendency on the part of the Home government (which we shall
consider in a later chapter) to yield to the pressure of the anti-opium
agitation in England, the government of India continues to grow and
manufacture vast quantities of the drug for the Chinese trade. To-day the
representatives of that government at Hongkong are profiting largely from
a monopoly control of the opium importation. To-day, at Shanghai, where
the British predominate in population, in trade, and in the city
government, the opium evil is mishandled in a scandalous manner, and--as
elsewhere--for profit. Small wonder, therefore, that other and less
scrupulous foreign nations, where they have an opportunity to profit by
this vicious traffic, as at Tientsin, hasten to do so.

These three great ports--Shanghai, Tientsin, and Hongkong--are in constant
touch commercially with a grand total of very nearly 200,000,000 Chinese.
They are, therefore, constantly exerting a direct influence on that number
of Chinese minds. As I have pointed out, this influence, because it is
concentrated and tangible, is much stronger than the admittedly potent
influence of the widely scattered missionaries, physicians, and teachers.
From the life and example of the Western nations, as they exist at these
ports, the Chinaman is drawing most of his ideas of progress and
enlightenment.

In a word, the new China that we shall sooner or later have to deal with
among the nations of the world is the new China that the ports are helping
to make--for this new China is to-day in process of development. She is
struggling heroically to digest and assimilate the Western ideas which
alone can bring life and vigour to the sluggish Chinese mass. And yet,
turning westward for aid, China is confronted with--Shanghai, Tientsin,
and Hongkong. Turning to Britain for a helping hand in her effort to check
the inroads of opium, she hears this cheerful doctrine from the one
British colony which China can really see and partly understand,
Hongkong--"It is up to China." Dr. Morrison has stated in one of his
letters to the _Times_ that Britain's attitude towards China is one of
sympathy, tempered by a lac