the opium problem at Hongkong; and it would put it up to the
municipal authorities at Shanghai and Tientsin in an interesting fashion.
It would in no way jeopardize Britain's interest in the diplomatic balance
of the Far East. It would work for the good rather than the harm of the
trade with China. And it would be the first necessary step in the arduous
matter of cleaning up the treaty ports and setting a higher example to
China.

To this course Great Britain would appear to be committed by the
utterances for her government. But the world, like the man from Missouri,
has yet to be "shown." In a later chapter we shall consider this question
of promise and performance in the light of Britain's peculiar governmental
problem.

VII

HOW BRITISH CHICKENS CAME HOME TO ROOST

We have seen, in the preceding chapters, that the Anglo-Indian government
controls absolutely the production of opium in India, prepares the drug
for the market in government-owned and government-operated factories, and
sells it at monthly auctions. Let me also recall to the reader that
four-fifths of this opium is prepared to suit the known taste of Chinese
consumers. The annual value to the Anglo-Indian government of this curious
industry, it will be recalled, is well over $20,000,000.

Now we have to consider the last strong defense of this policy which the
British government has seen fit to offer to a protesting world, the report
of the Royal Commission on Opium. Against this stout defense of the opium
traffic in all its branches, we are able to set not only the findings of
other governments, such as those of Japan, the Philippines, and Australia,
which have opium problems of their own to deal with, but also the
curious attitude of a certain British colony, amounting almost to what
might be called an opium panic, on that occasion when the Oriental drug
found its way near enough home to menace British subjects and British
children.

[Illustration: WEIGHING OPIUM IN A GOVERNMENT FACTORY, INDIA]

The men who administer the government of India have a chronically
difficult job on their hands. In order to keep it on their hands they have
got to please the British public; and that is not so easy as it perhaps
sounds. It would apparently please both the government and the public if
the whole opium question could be thrown after the twenty thousand chests
of Canton--into the sea. But the British public is hard-headed, and proud
of it; and th