e spectacle of the magnificent, panoplied government of India
gone bankrupt, or so embarrassed as to be calling upon the Home government
for aid, would not please it at all. Of the two evils, debauching China or
gravely impairing the finances of India, there has been reason to believe
that it would prefer debauching China. That, at least, is what successive
governments of Britain and of India seem to have concluded. It has seemed
wiser to endure a known quantity of abuse for sticking to opium than to
risk the cold British scorn for the bankrupt; and, accordingly, the Indian
government with the approval of one Home government after another, has
stuck to opium. The only alternative course, that of developing a new,
healthy source of revenue to supplant opium, the unhealthy, would involve
real ideas and an immense amount of trouble; and these two things are only
less abhorrent to the administrative mind than political annihilation
itself.

But there came a time, not so long ago, when a wave of "anti-opium"
feeling swept over England, and the British public suddenly became very
hard to please. Parliament agreed that the idea of a government opium
monopoly in India was "morally indefensible," and even went so far as to
send out a "Royal Commission" to investigate the whole question. Now this
commission, after travelling twenty thousand miles, asking twenty-eight
thousand questions, and publishing two thousand pages (double columns,
close print) of evidence, arrived at some remarkable conclusions. "Opium,"
says the Royal Commission, "is harmful, harmless, or even beneficial,
according to the measure and discretion with which it is used.... It is
[in India] the universal household remedy.... It is extensively
administered to infants, and the practice does not appear, to any
appreciable extent, injurious.... It does not appear responsible for any
disease peculiar to itself." As to the traffic with China, the Commission
states--"Responsibility mainly lies with the Chinese government." And,
finally (which seems to bring out the pith of the matter), "In the present
circumstances the revenue derived from opium is indispensable for carrying
on with efficiency the government of India."

To one familiar with this extraordinary summing-up of the evidence, it
seems hardly surprising that the Rt. Hon. John Morley, the present
Secretary of State for India, should have said in Parliament (May,
1906)--"I do not wish to speak in disparagemen