III. JAPAN AS AN OPIUM DISTRIBUTOR 11

IV. SINGAPORE 18

V. THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS OPIUM COMMISSION 23

VI. OPIUM IN SIAM 26

VII. HONGKONG 30

VIII. SARAWAK 35

IX. SHANGHAI 37

X. INDIA 44

XI. TURKEY AND PERSIA 54

XII. MAURETIUS 56

XIII. BRITISH NORTH BORNEO 58

XIV. BRITISH GUIANA 62

XV. HISTORY OF THE OPIUM TRADE IN CHINA 65

XVI. CONCLUSION 73

INTRODUCTION

We first became interested in the opium traffic during a visit to the
Far East in 1916. Like most Americans, we had vaguely heard of this
trade, and had still vaguer recollections of a war between Great
Britain and China, which took place about seventy-five years ago, known
as the Opium War. From time to time we had heard of the opium trade as
still flourishing in China, and then later came reports and assurances
that it was all over, accompanied by newspaper pictures of bonfires of
opium and opium pipes. Except for these occasional and incidental
memories, we had neither knowledge of, nor interest in the subject. On
our way out to Japan, in the July of 1916, we met a young Hindu on the
boat, who was outspoken and indignant over the British policy of
establishing the opium trade in India, as one of the departments of the
Indian Government. Of all phases of British rule in India, it was this
policy which excited him most, and which caused him most ardently to
wish that India had some form of self-government, some voice in the
control and management of her own affairs, so that the country could
protect itself from this evil. Without this, he declared, his country
was powerless to put a stop to this traffic imposed upon it by a
foreign government, and he greatly deplored the slow, but steady
demoralization of the nation which was in consequence taking place. As
he produced his facts and figures, showing what this meant to his
people--this gradual undermining of their moral fiber and economic
efficiency--we grew more and more interested. That such conditions
existed were to us unheard of, and unbelievable. It seemed