ar, no less clearly is it
_our_ duty who remain at home to make the most strenuous efforts to aid
the good cause by subscribing more largely to the missionary fund (instead
of expending our money for the purpose of raising an agitation against
opium in England), and so, by increasing the remuneration offered to
workers in this large field (for the labourer is worthy of his hire), to
induce the ablest and most intellectual of our clergy to go out to
encounter Buddhism and Taouism--opponents quite worthy of our
steel--feeling sure that success, though delayed, is certain in the end,
and that the Chinese only need to become Christians in order to be one of
the greatest nations upon earth.

It remains now only to mention the remedies proposed by the supporters of
the Anti-Opium Society for the evils of the opium traffic, pointing out
such objections as may occur to us; and finally to state the alternative
course which we ourselves propose. We may premise, however, before dealing
with this part of the subject, that there is a considerable divergence of
opinion manifest in the ranks of the Anti-Opium Society with regard to the
nature of the remedies suggested. Some are for merely washing our hands of
the monopoly, so that the Government would have no direct participation in
the _manufacture_ of the drug, but would, by means of an export duty,
retain more or less of the revenue therefrom. This course, it must be
said, does not find favour with the majority, who demand, consistently
enough, the total abandonment by India of the manufacture of opium _and_
the revenue from it.

Let us consider the less radical proposal first.

As long ago as 1832, the question of abolishing the opium monopoly
suggested itself to the East India Company; and the same course was
proposed by Sir Charles Trevelyan in 1864.[127] If the opium revenue is
to be retained while the monopoly is abolished, there is only one
practicable course to be pursued. A Customs duty must be laid on the
export of all opium. And this method has obtained the support of many able
men who, objecting to the opium traffic as at present conducted, and at
the same time seeing the difficulties in the way of its total abolition,
propose this compromise. Such are Sir Bartle Frere,[128] Sir Richard
Temple, the Marquis of Hartington, and others. But there are many serious
drawbacks even to this solution of the difficulty, and such as have always
prevailed against it when it has bee