"The Manchester Guardian" has recently been taking the Shanghai Municipal Council to task for its refusal to close down instanter the opium dens in the Settlement. It is not concerned with the impracticability of despotic action without due notice in a.self-governing community, but finds the whole secret of the Council's attitude in its resolve not to part with a revenue of £10,000 a year. We have no doubt that the Council's decision—the only possible one in the circamstances—to leave the matter in the hands of the Ratepayers to be settled at the next where a dispassionate view of public questions is still possible. In the meantime we may refer "The Manchester Guardian" et hoc genus one to an article in the December number of "The Nineteenth Century" by Professor H. A. Giles, who cannot be accused of commercial taint or indifference to Chinese interests. The Cambridge Professor of Chinese proves from their literature that " the Chinese have not always been the generally sober people we now find them, and points out that it becomes a question of some importance to consider whether or not they will be likely, when opium is no longer available, to revert to the use of strong drinks." He adds, " The evils of.drink in this country are so extensive and 0 loathsome (90 per cent of the The Hi-€. herald and S. C. & C, Gazette. crime in England being traceable, directly or indirectly, to drink) that anyone who really knows anything about the matter must deeply regret the time and money wasted by an English philanthropic society over an effort in which they have wholly failed to! influence the Chinese Government or! the Chinese people; while there is some reason to fear that the present national movement, if such there be, may only result in transferring the Empire from the frying pan of opium to the still more deadly fire of alcohol."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.