t of the Commission, but
somehow or other its findings have failed to satisfy public opinion in
this country and to ease the consciences of those who have taken up the
matter."

The methods employed by a Royal Commission which could arrive at such
remarkable conclusions could hardly fail to be interesting. The Government
opium traffic was a scandal. Parliament was on record against it. There
was simply nothing to be said for opium or for the opium monopoly. It was
"morally indefensible"--officially so. It was agreed that the Indian
government should be "urged" to cease to grant licenses for the
cultivation of the poppy and for the sale of opium in British India. This
was interesting--even gratifying. There was but one obstacle in the way of
putting an end to the whole business; and that obstacle was, in some
inexplicable way, this same British government. The opium monopoly,
morally indefensible or not, seemed to be going serenely and steadily on.
If the Indian government was urged in the matter, there was no record of
it.

Two years passed. Mr. Gladstone, the great prime minister, deplored the
opium evil--and took pains not to stop or limit it. Like the House of
Peers in the Napoleonic wars, he "did nothing in particular--and did it
very well." So the vigilant crusaders came at the government again. In
June, 1893, Mr. Alfred Webb moved a resolution which (so ran the hopes of
these crusaders) the most nearly Christian government could not resist or
evade. Sure of the anti-opium majority, the new resolution, "having regard
to the opinion expressed by the vote of this House on the 10th of April,
1891, that the system by which the Indian opium revenue is raised is
morally indefensible,... and recognizing that the people of India ought
not to be called upon to bear the cost involved in this change of policy,"
demanded that "a Royal Commission should be appointed ... to report as to
(1) What retrenchments and reforms can be effected in the military and
civil expenditures of India; (2) By what means Indian resources can be
best developed; and (3) What, if any, temporary assistance from the
British Exchequer would be required in order to meet any deficit of
revenue which would be occasioned by the suppression of the opium
traffic."

The crusaders had underestimated the parliamentary skill of Mr. Gladstone.
He promptly moved a counter resolution, proposing that "this House press
on the Government of India to continue their p