the oreasion of the opening] of the Council of State His Ex. cellency the Viceroy made a very]
portant statement regarding the export trade in opium He said:
"My Government have recently had under their consideration the adop-
Imade a 2000,000-aere land. grant of a new policy regarding opium ich ig in accordance with the! on Magdalena Bay (in Lower Calitrend of op of fornia) to a Japanese syndicate. other countries and. also with views Both the State Department and the That have been freely expressed some quarters on different occasion Foreign Relations Committee have set in motion machinery to. investi-examined gute the matter—"investigations' taken by us under Article 1 of the are most popular these days—and Protocol to the Convention of the Second Opium Conference at the upshot of it may be some sharp to take such measur diplomatic correspondence.
The American Government's con-the prose coneed Me tees" Go Magdalena Bay is an immensely suppression the use of valuable location for a naval base, "Aa a result we have and the United States would view Come to thee ion that. marder with alarm thi alleged acquisition Internation: of lard by a syndicate or corpor tion, the majority of stockholm are' aliens. Members of the Foreign Relations Com mittee have: amount of 3,000 chests being put up for sale, usually 250 chests a month. The Government of India has now resolved to completely. abolish these auction sales and an arrangement has been come to with the French Government for direct purchase, This itself will probably prove very effective in the suppression of an illicit t in opium to which the auction sales [probably lent themselves.
Fortunes out of Opium The "Guardian" cortinues:—We congratulate the Government of India on their new policy and trust that within a definite period years the direct sales with the Far Kast Governments will be brought to an end, thus freeing India from: her moral responsibility for the degradation of thousands of people in the Far East. The Indian export opium trade has had a very long history behind it, As far back as the carly part of the 18th Century the Portugese had organized the trade which was in its turn taken over by the East India Company: the memory of the Opium War is not yet forgotten. India has had a very large responsibility for this immoral traffic in the El poration yet to be organized and located at Seattle, His offer was '$4,000,000 for the five craft.
'The bids were naturally referred to the president of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, and, in connexion with the opening' of them, mention was made of letters received at the Shipping Board bitterly criticizing the sale, While no recognition hi been given to these letters, there a feeling, 1 understand, that further opposition will be' made, though why docs not seem to be. clear. Letters alrendy received are believed to refer particularly the protest of Senator Jones, Republican, of Washington.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.