The position was still furiber complicated by the fact that the regulations of the Indian Government made it necessary that the total amount of opium certified for China should be despatched to Hongkong and Shanghai before February this year. With this further accumulation of stocks financing became more and more difficult, especially until a few weeks ago sales and clearances were practically nil.
If it had only been thes factors which contributed to the difficulties of the trade, and if the Chinese Government had adhered to the treaties, even so far as in possible in these troublous times, the rolution would have been simple. The opium merchants took the risk of the trade in waiting for better prices and a better market; and when the result was contrary to their anticipations they should naturally have been resigned to their fate. But the crisis in trade, they aver, has been brought about by the Chinese officials contravening the treaties, such as placing obstacles in the way of their trade, as in Chekiang province, and by the recrudescence of the cultivation of poppy in the country. Independent evidence, however, has shown that with the fall of the Manchus and the disappearance of order and authority in the country, province jatter province, even in Shansi where the suppression of poppy cultivation was complete in 1911, was radiant with the glow of the red flower in the fields, the authorities in sinest cases being unable to check the progress of such cultivation. In curious contrast to the position in the country the officials were over-zealous in the suppression of opium smoking
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.