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the foreign drug's importation, no effort was made to check the cultivation of the poppy at home. More than one European or American writer has affirmed that the ancient laws of China forbade the growing of the poppy and the use of opium throughout the Empire. But that is an error, caused apparently by a desire to establish a case complete at every point against foreign importers. Evidently, if it could be shown that though endeavouring to restrain the vice by depriving it of home-produced sustenance, the Peking Government's aim was defeated by illicit supplies of the drug from abroad, the guilt of the European and American smugglers would be much increased. The fact is, however, that the Peking Government seemed to show themselves persistently indifferent to the production of opium in China, and such indifference could not but tend to discredit the good faith of their vetoes against the purchase of the drug from abroad. On the other hand, it may be urged in their behalf that they regarded the domestic drug as comparatively harmless, and that its manufacture grew so gradually as to escape attention until a late period. Prior to 1729, when the first prohibitive edict was issued, no conception of opium's evil potentialities had been entertained. Its medicinal uses alone being recognised, the expediency of legislating against its manufacture within the Empire did not present itself to the mind of Chinese statesmen, and when they dis-