Illicit Trade Which Is MONFiling a Nation: Large Quantities Seized The Chinese delegate to the recent Anti-Narcotie Conferences at Geneva made light of the present opium conditions in China, and ifed the disastrous effects of the narcotic drugs upon the Chinese people. He put the whole Confer-fence in a bad temper with the result that opium conditions in China were used as an excuse for shelving' urgent reforms in all the Eastern Opium Monopoly Countries.
The amount of these drugs find. ing their way into China by tnderground channels is simply enormous and shows no signs of decreasing despite the Lengue's Certificate System (says a communique from the International Anti-Opium Association, Opium may have slain its thousand, but morphia will kill its 10,000. China does not manufacture morphia: or heroin, and every ounce used in this country comes from foreign countries who ure signatories to the Hague Convention, The whole resistance to reform at Geneva has been based upon the liberty to make the supply equal to the demand. We-are wise if we draw wide' distinction between opium and narcotic drugs both in speech, and in their effects on the health of the people, The fact common both is obviously the quantity used, but the ease with which morphia pills can be carried about and swal-Towed at stated intervals, and the greater effect produced by such a small quantity of the drag adds no: only to its subtlety, but saves both time and face.
Opium smoking is w tedious process, requiring much time and leisure if more than a small daily quantity used, and it cannot be done secretively, for the sickly pungent odour fills the house and neighbourhood. The opium habit neverthe: Jess has social side, hence the amoking dens, whilst the morphin pill habit in masked by secrecy. Except when the habit has produced its routine physical effects, all but the habitue may be ignorant that the habit exists.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.