Drugging a Nation

tor House), you might also imagine yourself in a thriving English town. Set about this piazza are round tables, in bowers of potted plants, where sit Britishers, Germans, and Americans, with a gay

haw coolies at the curb, or the fat Chinese polic

n. It is Peking's seaport. The viceroy of the Northern Provinces makes it his seat of government. The chief point of contact between these Northern Provinces and Western civiliz

ish have their polo, golf, and racing grounds; the French have their wealthy church orders and their Parisian moving pictures; the Germans have their beer halls and delicatessen shops. The Japanese, the Russians, the Italians, the Austrians, all the powers, in fact, excepting the United States-which holds no land in China-contribute their lesser shares to the colour and the activity of this extraordinary p

vilization which the Chinaman can scrutinize at close range. The missionary tells him of the God of the Western peoples, and of how His Spirit regenerates humankind; the Chinaman listens stolidly, and then turns to look at the samples of regenerated peoples that fri

g. These Chinese districts demand their opium, and they have always been allowed to have it. The opium shops and dens are licensed, as are our saloons, and the resulting revenue is cheerfully accepted by the various municipalities. When the Chinese officials set out to fight opium last winter and spring, they asked the f

play for time, the enforcement in the native city, by driving the smokers over into the concessions, would actually increase the revenue. So the consuls played for time. They spread the impression "back home" that

hops and British homes, and there is no room for Chinese residents. The German concession had so few natives that it closed some

at the concessions were actually profiting, like Shanghai, by the native prohibition, that fact would

nti-opium leader, who personified, in fact, the reform spirit which is leavening the Chinese mass, was Yuan Shi K'ai, the Northern viceroy. Tientsin was his viceregal

top, a red-button mandarin, a viceroy, with a personality towering above the superstitious, tradition-ridden court, and yet sufficiently able and skillful to work with and through that court. We have seen, in an earlier chapter, how Yuan, then a governor, kept Shantung Province quiet during the Boxer outbreak. It is he who is building up the "new army" with the aid of German and Japanese drill-masters. It is he who succeeded in introducing the study

nds. Try to imagine a self-made, reform politician outwitting and beating down the traditions of Tammany Hall in New York City, multiply his difficulties by a thousand or two, and you will perhaps have some notion of the sheer ability of this great man, who has risen above the traditions, even above the age-old prejudices of his own people

ues the following document to the North and South Police Commissioners of Tientsin nati

which they presented to the throne, and which received their Majesties' consent. The evil effects of opium are

lowed to smoke at home. The said dens are to be closed at the end of the Tenth Moon (December 14th), at the same time notifying the keepers of restaurants

ed to open conference with the different consuls, aski

ion public; and, as is evident from the following "Repl

that the keepers cannot square their accounts with their customers, may be true, but

eport any violations occurring on their property; but if a violation occurred, and the owner failed to report, his property was promptly confiscated. Here we see successfully employed a method which we in this country have been unable as yet to put into effect. The futility of punishing engineers and switchmen for the sins of railroad corporations, of punishing clerks for the offenses of bank directors, of punishing keepers of disorderly houses in cases where we know that the real profit goes, in the form of a high rental, to the respectable owner of the property

facturers of opium and of opium accessories out of business. He cut his way through a tangle of "interests," vested and otherwise, not so different in their essence from the liquor interests of this country. Thanks to his own character and resource, thanks to the cheerful directness of Chinese methods of governing (when directness and not indire

municipalities. It was mainly to see whether or not the consuls were "helping" that I went down to Tientsin. There was no need to ask questions or to burrow among statistics. The opium dens of the concessions were either or they were not. Accordingly, I set out from the Astor House at nine o'clock one evening, by rickshaw. For int

unicipality astonished us. The Taiku Road, the main street, where one finds churches, mission compounds, o

partitions, sometimes but a few inches in height, into compartments, each of which accommodates two smokers, with one lamp between them. Sometimes a rug or a bit of matting is laid on this hard couch, sometimes not; for the Chinaman, accustomed to

se and throat and made breathing a noticeable effort. There was a desk by the door, behind which sat the keeper of the den, with a litter of pipes and thimble-like cups before him. In a corner of the desk was a jar of opium, a thick, sticky substance, dark brown in colour, in appearance not unlike molasses in January. The

ld ill afford the luxury. The number of smokes indulged in seemed to range from three or four up to an indefinite number. The youngest and healthiest appearing man in the room told us that after three pipes he could go home and go to sleep in comfort.

ss and that not the slightest concern was shown at our entrance, it seemed fair to believe that the keepers had no fear whatever of publicity or of the law. Even when we announced ourselves to be investigators, our questions were answered cheerfully and fully, and the man who escorted us from room to room was apparently proud of the establishment. The couc

ng in the nature of an exhaustive search. In the Italian and Russian concessions I found about sixty dens open, mostly of a very low grade. But the worst of the concessions, in this regard, was the Austrian. Lying nearest to the native city, it

neffaceable impression on the mind of one traveller. I have eaten and slept in native hostelries, in the interior, so unspeakably dirty and insanitary that to describe them in these pages would exceed all bounds of taste, but I have never been in a filthier place than at least one of these Austrian dens. And the other two were little better. It would require some means more adequate than pen, ink, and paper, to convey to the reader an accurate notion of the mingled, half-blended odours which seemed to underlie, or

a spirit of co?peration with the Chinese authorities in their vigorous attempt to check and control the ra

der the third important point of contact be

dded to the colony. Hongkong is one of the most important seaports in the world. It is the meeting place for freight and passenger ships from North America, South America, New Zealand and Australia, India, Europe, Africa, and the Philippines and other Pacific islands. It commands the trade of the Canton River Valley, which, though not geographically so imposing as the

imate source of revenue. The British gentlemen who administer the government seem never to have been disturbed by

f the colony is obtained from this source. The habit seems to be spreading. No effort-except the increased price demanded by the farmer to compensate f

1906: "It will take volumes of imperial edicts to convince us that China ever honestly intends or is ever likely to suppress the opium trade. It is up to China to take the initi

ider giving up its opium revenue until t

all 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

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 scat

ffort 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 lack of information. One very eminent British diplomat with whom I discussed the opium question assured me that that attitude of his government was "most sympathetic." Later, in Londo

contact, would work to the advantage of commercial interests. Anti-foreign riots are in progress to-day in China which have their roots partly in racial misconception, partly in a long tradition of injustice and bad faith; and it is hardly necessary to suggest that an atmosphere of injustice, bad fa

ted her guilt, and had pledged herself by a majority vote in Parliament, and by the promises of her governing ministers, to do something about it. Suppose that Great Britain be called upon to make good her pledge? It would be an interesting experiment. All that is necessary is to cut down the production of opium in India, year by year, until it ceases altogether, and with it the exportation into China. This course would solve automati

t the world, like the man from Missouri, has yet to be "shown." In a later chapter we shall consid