opium trade between India and China is to provide them with an opportunity of satisfying the demands of an increased home market. The British Government have adopted the policy best calculated to meet the case. They have undertaken to limit the quantity of opium exported from India to countries beyond the seas to 61,900 chests in 1908, 56,800 chests in 1909, and 51,700 chests in 1910. If at the conclusion of the three years they are satisfied that adequate measures have been taken to reduce the production of the drug in China in accordance with the provisions of the Imperial Edict, they agree to continue the reduction at the same rate until, at the end of ten years, the export from India will have been brought to an end. This does not, of course, satisfy the faddists who think that "such a gradual morality scale as this "is grievously humiliating to every right-minded man.[1] Practical reform, however, never has been, and never will be, brought about on lines advocated by the extremists, and the Government may rest assured that the common-sense
- ↑ 'National Righteousness,' January 1908.
