a written authority.

"The under-secretary for the colonies has also stated, 'that the Chinese
Labour Importation Ordinance, 1904, has been amended to penalize the
possession by, and supply to, Chinese labourers of opium.'"

Apparently opium is not good for the children of South Africa. That it
would be good (to get still nearer home) for the children and infants of
Great Britain, is an idea so monstrous, so horrible, that I hardly dare
suggest it. No one, I think, would go so far as to say that the Royal
Commission would have reached those same extraordinary conclusions had the
problem lain in Great Britain instead of in far-off India and China. Walk
about, of a sunny afternoon, in Kensington Gardens. Watch the ruddy,
healthy children sailing their boats in the Round Pond, or playing in the
long grass where the sheep are nibbling, or running merrily along the
well-kept borders of the Serpentine. They are splendid youngsters, these
little Britishers. Their skins are tanned, their eyes are clear, their
little bodies are compactly knit. Each child has its watchful nurse. What
would the mothers say if His Majesty's Most Excellent Government should
undertake the manufacture and distribution of attractive little pills of
opium and spices for these children, and should defend its course not only
on the ground that "the practice does not appear to any appreciable extent
injurious," but also on the ground that "the revenue obtained is
indispensable for carrying on the government with efficiency"?

What would these British mothers say? It is a fair question. The
"conservative" pro-opiumist is always ready with an answer to this
question. He claims that it is not fair. He maintains that the Oriental is
different from the Occidental--racially. Opium, he says, has no such
marked effect on the Chinaman as it has on the Englishman, no such marked
effect on the Chinese infant as it has on the British infant. I have met
this "conservative" pro-opiumist many times on coasting and river steamers
and in treaty port hotels. I have been one of a group about a rusty little
stove in a German-kept hostelry where this question was thrashed out. Your
"conservative" is so cock-sure about it that he grows, in the heat of his
argument, almost triumphant. At first I thought that perhaps he might be
partially right. One man's meat is occasionally another man's poison. The
Chinese differ from us in so many ways that possibly they might have a
greate