u last year, this same Commissioner Tso
called a mass-meeting for him, at which the native officials and gentry
sat on the platform with representatives of the missionary societies, and
ten thousand Chinese crowded about to hear Mr. Alexander's address.

The most disappointing region in the matter of the opium prohibition is
the upper Yangtse Valley. In the lower valley, from Nanking down to
Soochow and Shanghai (native city), the enforcement ranges from partial to
complete. But in the upper valley, from Nanking to Hankow and above, I
could not find the slightest evidence of enforcement. At the river ports
the dens were running openly, many of them with doors opening directly off
the street and with smokers visible on the couches within. The viceroy of
the upper Yangtse provinces, Chang-chi-tung, "the Great Viceroy," has been
recognized for a generation as one of China's most advanced thinkers and
reformers. His book, "China's Only Hope," has been translated into many
languages, and is recognized as the most eloquent analysis of China's
problems ever made by Chinese or Manchu. In it he is flatly on record
against opium. Indeed, when governor of Shansi, twenty odd years ago, this
same official sent out his soldiers to beat down the poppy crop. Yet it
was in this viceroyalty alone, among all the larger subdivisions of China,
that there was no evidence whatever last year of an intention to enforce
the anti-opium edicts. The only explanation of this state of things seems
to be that Chang-chi-tung is now a very old man, and that to a great
extent he has lost his vigour and his grip on his work. Whatever the
reason, this fact has been used with telling effect in pro-opium arguments
in the British Parliament as an illustration of China's "insincerity."

The situation seems to sum up about as follows: The prohibition of opium
was immediately effective over about one-quarter of China, and partially
effective over about two-thirds. This, it has seemed to me, considering
the difficulty and immensity of the problem, is an extraordinary record.
Every opium den actually closed in China represents a victory. Whether the
dens will stay closed, after the first frenzy of reform has passed, or
whether the prohibition movement will gain in strength and effectiveness,
time alone will tell. But there is an ancient popular saying in China to
this effect, "Do not fear to go slowly; fear to stop."

We have seen, then, that while the Chinese are