The nine incidents mentioned above show quite clearly that the transport and sale of opium is not a matter in which merchants engage privately at their own risk, but one which the executive government is itself carrying on to the harm of the people of the province and the realm. The matter is one of the utmost importance and it is useless for the government to say that it does not know who it is that doing these things, Knowing who the guilty parties are and doing nothing to contro] them is an extreme form of abandoning the work of actual government. But if it is urged that the power of the men who are doing this is so great that no one can control them, then what is the man in chief military command really doing?
Hunan is an independent province. But if opium is not swept away how can it be said to be self-governing. Its government is not one for the advancement, but for the harm of the people. That robber, Chang Chin-yao, did not bring his plans for the spread of opium cultivation to perfection. But the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.