uman race. The buyers of
this opium are not agents of the British Government. They are merely
the distributors, through whom this drug is directed into the channels
of trade. The British Government derives a certain portion of its
revenue from the sale of opium, therefore depends upon these dealers to
find a market for it. They are therefore, as distributors, the
unofficial agents of the British Government, through whom it is sold
legitimately, or smuggled around the world. In seeking to eradicate the
drug evil, we must face the facts, and recognize clearly that the
source of supply is the British Government, through whose agents,
official and unofficial, it is distributed.

America, so they tell us, is now menaced by the drug evil. Now that
prohibition is coming into effect, we are told that we are now
confronted by a vice more terrible, far more deteriorating and
dangerous. If that is true, then we must recognize our danger and guard
against it. Some of the opium and morphia which reaches this country is
smuggled in; the rest is imported by the big wholesale drug houses.
There is an unlimited supply of it. As we have seen, the British
Government encourages poppy production, even to the extent of lending
money _without interest_ to all those who are willing to raise this
most profitable crop. The monopoly opium is sold once a month to the
highest bidders, and some of these highest bidders are unscrupulous men
who must find their markets how and where they can. That fact, of
course, is of no moment to the British Government. It is of deepest
concern to Americans, however. To the north of us we have the Dominion
of Canada. To the south, the No-Man's Land of Mexico. At the present
moment, the whole country is alarmed at the growing menace of the drug
habit, which is assuming threatening proportions.

II

THE INDIAN OPIUM MONOPOLY

Let us quote from another dry official record, of unimpeachable
veracity--the Statesman's Year-Book, for 1916. On page 140, under the
heading of The British Empire: India and Dependencies, we read: "Opium.
In British territory the cultivation of the poppy for the production of
opium is mainly restricted to the United Provinces, and the manufacture
of the opium from this region is a State monopoly. A limited amount is
also grown in the Punjab for local consumption and to produce poppy
seeds. In the monopoly districts the cultivator receives advances from
Government to enable him to p