der these conditions it is not surprising that the anti-opiumists have
succeeded in enlisting popular sympathy to a certain extent on their side.
But, with the single exception of missionaries, they have against them the
vast majority of those who, from personal knowledge and experience, are
competent to form an opinion on the subject. Sir Rutherford Alcock, for
twenty years Her Majesty's Minister in China, who has had opportunities
for forming a correct judgment on the subject such as have fallen to the
lot of few, and who can have no bias[2] or prejudice in the matter, has
recently before the Society of Arts, in a paper of singular ability and
fairness, vindicated the policy of the British Government. Mr. Brereton,
for fifteen years resident in Hongkong, has challenged and, on the
authority of his own experience, denied _every_ assertion of the
Anti-opiumists. As to the missionaries, from whom the majority of the
arguments against the trade are drawn, no one doubts their good faith, and
everyone gives them credit for the best of motives; but, for reasons to be
afterwards given, their evidence is likely to be biassed, and in any case
cannot be considered worthy to be set against that of all the other
residents in China.

But what are the enormities of which England has been guilty? Here is the
indictment, stated with all the energy of conviction: That England, and
England only, is responsible for the introduction into China of a highly
deleterious, if not wholly poisonous, drug, for which, till India took
upon herself to supply it, there was in China no demand whatever; that she
is responsible, further, for forcing this opium _vi et armis_ upon the
Chinese, contrary to all obligations of international morality, and in
the face of the sincere and determined opposition of the Chinese people;
that, in fine, Christian England, with a single eye to gain, is wilfully
and deliberately compassing the ruin of heathen China. Such is the
indictment brought against England by her own sons; and the tribunal which
they would arraign her before is the public opinion of their own
countrymen and of Europe.

The original habitat of the poppy plant, which is now extensively
cultivated in Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt, India, China, and even in Africa,
was probably Central Asia. It must have made its way very early into
India, as it is mentioned in the _Laws of Manu_. But it was not till the
tenth century that the Hindoos learnt from the Moha