government until the statement was made.... The policy has been for some
time to sell about the same amount every year, neither diminishing that
amount nor increasing it. I should say decidedly, that at present our
desire is to obtain the maximum revenue from the opium consumed in India."
As regarded the China trade, Sir David added: "We will not largely
increase the cultivation because we shall be attacked if we do so." And
this--"We have adopted a middle course and preserved the _status quo_ with
reference to the China trade."

Mr. Gladstone's resolution was adopted by 184 votes to 105, the anti-opium
crusaders voting against it. And the Royal Commission, with instructions
not, as had been intended, to arrange the details of a plan for stopping
the opium traffic, but with instructions to consider whether it would pay
to stop it, and if not, whether the people of India could be made to stand
the loss, started out on its rather hopeless journey.

One thing the crusaders had succeeded in accomplishing--they had forced
the government to send a commission to India. They had got one or two of
their number on the body. The commission would have to hear the evidence,
would be forced to air the situation thoroughly, showing a paternal
government not only manufacturing opium for the China trade, but actually,
since 1891, manufacturing pills of opium mixed with spices for the
children and infants of India. If the Indian government, now at last
brought to an accounting, wished to keep the opium business going, they
could do two things--they could see that the "right" sort of evidence was
given to the commission, and they could try to influence the commission
directly. They adopted both courses; though it appears now, to one who
goes over the attitude of the majority of the commission and especially of
Lord Brassey, the chairman, as shown in the records, that little direct
influence was necessary. Lord Brassey and his majority were pro-opium,
through and through. The Home government had seen to that.

The problem, then, of the administrators of the Indian government and of
this pro-opium commission was to defend a "morally indefensible" condition
of affairs in order to maintain the revenue of the Indian government. It
was a problem neither easy nor pleasant.

The Viceroy of India was Lord Lansdowne. He went at the problem with
shrewdness and determination. His attitude was precisely what one has
learned to expect in the vicero