tia can arouse great nations and can play a part
in the moving of great fleets, it is not difficult to imagine the
world-importance of a complete breakdown. Every great Western nation has a
trade or territorial footing in China to defend and maintain. Every great
Western nation is watching the complicated Chinese situation with
sleepless eyes. Such a breakdown might quite possibly mean the
unconditional surrender of China's destiny into the hands of Japan;
which, with Japan's growing desire to dominate the Pacific, and with it
the world, might quite possibly mean the rapid approach of the great
international conflict.

We have seen, in the course of these chapters, that China appears to be
almost completely in the grasp of her master-vice. The opium curse in
China is a dreadful example of the economic waste of evil. It has not only
lowered the vitality, and therefore the efficiency of men, women, and
children in all walks of life, but it has also crowded the healthier crops
off the land, usurped no small part of the industrial life, turned the
balance of trade against China, plunged her into wars, loaded her with
indemnity charges, taken away part of her territory, and made her the
plundering ground of the nations. She has been compelled to look
indolently on while Japan, alight with the fire of progress, has raised
her brown head proudly among the peoples of the West. So China has at last
been driven to make a desperate stand against the encroachments of the
curse which is wrecking her. The fight is on to-day. It is plain that
China is sincere; she must be sincere, because her only hope lies in
conquering opium. She has turned for help to Great Britain, for Britain's
Indian government developed the opium trade ("for purposes of foreign
commerce only") and continues to-day to pour a flood of the drug into the
channels of Chinese trade. Once China thought to crowd out the Indian
product by producing the drug herself, as a preliminary to controlling the
traffic, but she has never been able to develop a grade of opium that can
compete with the brown paste from the Ganges Valley.

This summing up brings us to a consideration of two questions which must
be considered sooner or later by the people of the civilized world:

1. Can China hope to conquer the opium curse without the help of Great
Britain?

2. What is Great Britain doing to help her?

In attempting to work out the answer to these questions, we must think of
th