"This is the sixth annual gathering' since the occasion was proclaimed the National Anti-opium day in 1929. JAt previous gatherings, we invariably Jooked back to what we have achieved during the preceding year. Tt was difficult to see any improvement from year to year. In fact, in addition to the deplorable condition, fof opium smoking, which showed little improvement, the extensive use of narcotics, an evil which is even more dangerous, had become uncontrollable.
"At the 18th meeting of the advisory committee on trafic in opium and other dangerous drugs of the League of Nations, held in May 1934, the representatives of various nations commented most unfavourably on the work of opium suppression in China. Their remarks were not unwarranted, but the unsettled condi-Mons in "the country had up until that time prevented the enforcement of any effective contro! over the cultivation, trafficking, selling, anc smoking of opium and the province had not worked in ce-operation with the Central Government.
"However, conditions have changed, Jand to-day. Tam in a position say that we have entered into a new epoch of opium suppression, "During the past year, Geners fssimo Chiang Kai-shek has taken into his hands the work of opium suppression and has enforced effectively a new set of regulations which give us new hopes of complete eradication. In the provinces of Honan, Hupeh,—Anhwei, Kiangsi, Kiangsu, Chekian Fukien, poppy cultivation completely suppressed. A recent Survey in these provinces has shown. that even in the most remote and unapproachable areas cultivation of, Poppies was not found.
"The provinces of Shensi and Kansu have resorted to annual reduction of cultivation and have achieved good results. In the provinces of Szechuen, Yunnan, and Kweichow and the northern provinces of Ning-tsia and Suiyuan, which have hitherto depended upon the income from poppy cultivation as their principal Fevenue, definite steps have been taken in "programmes of gradual annual reduction of cultivation
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.