he crowded streets as rapidly as
they choose. After a number of accidents the Chinese sought to
establish a speed-limit law, but this was positively objected to by
one of the foreign ministers, who said that he did not intend to have
his liberty interfered with by the Chinese!

Throughout China are the foreign concessions, small holdings of land
which belong to the various European nations. In each of the treaty
ports these concessions are established,--Russian, English, French,
German,--and although they lie in the heart of a Chinese city, they
are absolutely the property of the Russians, English, French, or
Germans, as the case may be. The Chinese have no authority or control
over them, and are unable to regulate them in any way. This brings
about a very difficult situation for the Chinese. For example, the
opium traffic. On Chinese soil the sale of opium is strictly
prohibited; yet it is freely sold in the foreign concessions, and the
Chinese are powerless to prevent it. At present they are making a
determined and gallant fight against the opium habit, which was
forced upon them by Great Britain as the result of two successful
opium wars, and legalized by treaties that, to say the least, were
extorted from the helpless Chinese. The ratification of these treaties
made it all right for Great Britain to import opium as freely as she
liked. Well, ten years ago, after a century and a half of opium
traffic, poor old China made a stand against this evil and determined
to overcome it. She entered into a contract with Great Britain, by the
terms of which England agreed to decrease her opium imports year by
year, for a period of ten years, in proportion as China decreased,
year by year, her poppy cultivation. Both sides have kept the faith,
and the end of the bargain will be celebrated by rejoicing (Chinese)
on April 1, 1917, when the ten-year contract expires.

It has been a colossal struggle against almost overwhelming odds. For a
nation as weak, as unwieldy, as corrupt as China to undertake such a
stupendous task seems almost inconceivable. Accurate statistics are not
available, but it would seem that one-half of the Chinese were in the
grip of this vice. In some provinces about ninety per cent. of the
officials were addicted to opium-smoking, and in all provinces a huge
percentage of the people were addicts. Anyway, China has made this
gigantic effort to get rid of opium, and she has almost succeeded; April
1 of next yea