Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 3.djvu/27

poisoning, while, on the other hand, English publicists ridiculed such demonstrations as emotional "fads." In the midst of the discussion, China's neighbour, Japan, had to consider the opium question as applied to herself. She did not hesitate for an instant. Laws so stringent were enacted, and their observance was enforced with such stern efficiency, that the import and sale of opium for smoking purposes became an impossibility within her realm. No Occidental nation would fail to take similar precautions in the face of a similar emergency. Academical discussions might be carried on with much show of earnestness, but when the practical test came to be applied every civilised people would do as the Japanese did.

While noting the excuses made for the opium-smugglers by themselves and by their fellow merchants, it must not be forgotten that the foreign traders of Canton en masse made no pretence of openly approving such doings. At the beginning of the complications described above, the records of the Canton Chamber of Commerce show that "an almost unanimous feeling existed in the community as to the absolute necessity of the foreign merchants having nothing to do with the opium traffic."

Simultaneously with his own departure from Canton, accompanied by the proscribed opium-smugglers, Captain Elliot interdicted the entry of any British ship into the port or the residence