One incident of official import happened last year, almost synchronizing with, and completely confirming Sir A. Hosie's opinion. For some time the Treasurer of the Province was Mr. Tsao. He put his back into the matter of stopping the opium traffic in a different way from any of his predecessors, They had dealt with the small dealers, but had left the large warehouses practically untouched. Sundry regulations, it is true, had been made that seemed to hit the dealers very hard; but it was only seeming. A regulation in this direction was carefully turned round by dodges known to the trade—and of course to the officials concerned, but screened from the vulgar gaze. Mr. Tsao tried to put @ stop to all this. He exposed the tricks o* the trade and took measures to make the government regulations effective. This was too much for the dealers.
In true "Changsha gentry" style, the wires at Peking were pulled and the Treasurer was sent for. On course, no word about " opium" was as much as whispered in the message that sent for the Treasur-
It would seem, therefore, that when the Republicans took over the reins in October last, they were not in possession of " peaceful sit-nation as regards opium in the far' west of the province. Probably, not a man in Changsha at that time gave a thought to the scarcely known hsiens on the western border, nor to the fact that while we were in the throes of revolution, the farmers would be busy (unless they were somehow stopped) planting opium. It is true, beyond dispute, that no orders were sent to the farmers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.