The Customs returns for the past few ears give the value of our imports at Ins. 80,000,000, and the exports at Tls. 50,000,000. The balance of Thirty Afillion Taels represents what has been consumed in smoking the pernicious opium pipe! Assuredly, it is not foreign intercourse i China but this dreadful ison. Oh, the grief and desolation it wrought to our people! A hundred years ago the curse came upon us more blasting and deadly in its effect than the Great Flood, or the Scourge of the Fierco Beasts; for' the waters assuaged after nine years, and the ravages of the man-caters were confined to one place. Opium he spread with frightful rapidity and heartrending results through the Provinces. Millions upon millions of the people have
it is running like wildfire In its rapid, been struck down by the plague. To-day deadly course it is spreading devastation everywhere, wrecking the minds and eating away the strength and wealth of its victims, The ruin of the mind is the most woeful of its many deleterious effects. The poison enfeebles the will, saps the strength of the body, renders the consumer incapable of performing his regular duties, and unfit for travel from one place to another. It consumes his substance, and reduces the miserable wretch to poverty, barrenness, and senility. Unless something is soon done to arrest this awful scourage in its devastating march, the Chinese people will be transformed into satyrs and devils! This is the present condition of our country.
The Chinese government formerly prohibited the importation and use of opium under penalty of death, but this prohibition was of no avail. It was said that the curse came from heaven, and the efforts of men to escape it would be futile. In these days we look upon the case differently. There is a remedy for the evil other than the prescriptions of law. It is said in the Analects: If the people are to be brought to a state of order by the fear of punishment, they will seek merely to escape the punishment and have no sense of shame; but if they are reduced to order by what is just and right, they will preserve the senso of shame and at the same time be reformed." What the enactions of law could not accomplish, Confucianism will effect. The Book of Rites says: "If the philanthropist wishes to convert the people and establish their morals What the government could not do must be done by means of Learning."
prohibition can be perfected by intellectual and moral suasion.
The habit of smoking opium is generated by sloth, and sloth by the want of employment. This want springs from ignorance, and ignorance from having no desirable object of knowledge. The stock of infor-motion possessed by Chinese literati is obtained from incomplete commentaries and cightlegged essays; the knowledge possessed by the officials is derived from "precedent." The military know nothing beyond the use of a few blunt instruments, and the antique methods of ancient warfare paces fame for all their needs. The ciable profit from his land, as haean produce armer has no means of deriving any appre-nothing new; the merchant cannot engage in distant trade, and the traveller has no means of easy and rapid transit.
There is, then, no incentive to thought or action, no intercourse among the people, and the condition of things has become stagnant and effetes. Effeteness has begotten stupidity, and stupidity, lethargy.; lethargy has produced idleness, and idleness waste. And these are the reasons the hearts of the Chinese are shot to the core with sensuality and vice.
'A renaissance of learning then would save the world [China] by directing attention from opium to more worthy objects. All classes, the rich and the poor, in city and country, would have something desirable to learn. Even those physically disqualified from going abroad could read the current literature of the day whilst' the strong could learn from travel. The literati would become thoroughly conversant with the affairs of the world and the lower classes would become expert in their various trades.
With alluring objects of knowledge held out to the Chinese, such as the study of the heavens and of the earth and'all therein, under modern appliances, who would elect to change the day into night(as the wretched opium smoker does) and spends his whole life on advan by a lamp sucking a filthy opium pipe? Therefore, we say bring Learning to the front in order to remedy the opium evil. Many thoughtful people in China are apprehensive lest opium finally extirpate the race, and efforts are being made to mitigate the curse. Anti-opium societies have been formed in Shanghai and Yangchow. 'The members of these societies pledge themselves to refrain from the' uso of the drug, and to exercise their power and influence in fe grea! the habit in others. Masters forbid their servants to use the drug, teachers their students, Generals their troops, landlords their tenants, merchants their assistants, and foremen their journey-
But this method although very come mendable, does not reach the large class of wealthy and influential officials and gentry, whic are addicted to opium; nor lees it affect the lower orders who can leave their temperate masters, find employment elsewhere, and still keep up the habit. Again, our officials are always on the move from one post to another, theirinfluenceisnot permanent, and there is an unwillingness on their part to leave off the habit, is plan of reformation by learning, which we recommend, will reach only men of discernment, and the younger class. The foolish and wayward we will deal with as best we can. Confirmed smokers will have to be let alone, as no power on earth can save them. Rightly administered, it will do much to bring about the desired result. In ten years the young and wealthy men will have grown up and become established in life, and qualified to control the actions of their subordinates. In twenty more, opium will be eradicated In the Provinces of China, Societies for the promotion of learning have. already been established. We suggest an. antiopium annex to these bodies, and that-a rule be made forbidding admission to the society to all opium smokers under forty years of age. household, each village, and each institution What grand results would follow if each
of learning in the Empire would discount tenance the use of opium Then would the winter of our distress be made glorious summer by the coming of better times for China. Now is the time for action! Confucius says: "Know what shame is, and you will not be far from heroism." "And Mencius: "(If one has not-the sense of shame, in what can he be equal to other men?" All the countries of the world recoil with disgust at the idea of smoking this vile, ill-smelling, poisonous stuff called opium. Only our Chinese people love -to sleep'with and est the drug; and in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.