The Statistical Department of the "Chinese Maritime Customs, with its figures that cannot ie of exaggerate, must be giving ver Tnaterial sistance to" those Who still determinedly fight on in the battle against the cultivation and luce of opium in Chins. Up to 1921 there was a remarkable increase the seizures, the figures jumping from just over 11 tons in 1918 to 67 tons in the former year. After that (here was another decline, just over 30 tons being seized in' i922 and 23 tons in "1028, But the trouble is not, all with opium, for the seizures of morphia and cocaine have been ever grenter proportion ately. In 1018 the figures were comparatively trifling, "but thereafter they ineteased, falling slightly in 1922, but going' up with a tre mendous and most alarming bound in 1928, when the seizures of morphia were 1,100 1b. as compared th 557 Ib. in 1922"and of coe 204 Th, as against 406, Nor do these figures tuke into account large quantities of harmful preparations of the drugs seized by the Customs. The Department very definitely states that opium rapidly is coming' tek to the place it held before the Yan was placed upon it, whilst there the added peril of morphia and cocaine, It is reasonable to assume that more of the drags gets throuich than is seized and a consideration of that fact suggests startling statistics. It can be argued with a terrain amount of truth that Chin ese brought up to opium can continue to smoke it regularly without eny really very harmful effects, but the ease is different with mor phia and cocaine, Many foreigners frankly admit that they have given opium smoking at least one rial, just to see what it is like" and the conse i ly have been 30 disagreeable that they have not had the slightest inclination to repeat the test, The beautiful dreams the blissful state of contentment are 2 myth and the experiment is, not worth the consequences. The other drugs have not stich wapleas~ lint associations in the taking: and that i what makes them so danger-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.