Practically every foreign bank involved, and practically every big Chinese piece-goods yarn or metal dealer is involved and thus the whole trade of the Settlement is interconnected in this business. If the step proposed of stopping all licences were adopted, it would mean that Shanghai trade, and indirectly Chinese trade, would suffer a dead loss of Tls. 40,000,000. When it is remembered that the nett loss in the rubber boom—which was not over Tls. 5,000,000 to Tls. 6,000,000—brought about a blight on the trade of Shanghai for a considerable period—not to speak of its effects on China—it dors not need much stretch of imagination to picture what the effect of the attack on opium would be.
Even from the point of view of stopping opium the proposals of the anti-opiumists are impracticable. Apart from the unreliability of news with regard to the growth of and trade in native opium, it must be remembered that no rao? and no country can be made moral by legislation. Take liquor traffic, for it taxes are laid on spin have never confiscated licences wholesale without compensation, nor made spirits unsaleable. Our policy with regard to drink is to make it more costly to the consumer with a double object; to act as a deterrent on the consumer, and to secure for th state the benefits arising from the sale of a luxury. does The Municipal Council has only followed the practice at home by increasing the licence fee from Tls. 4 in 1908 to Tis, 164 in 1914. That the Council again does not seek to encourage or "perpetuate" the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.