The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-10-20

tiai joints. During he civil war the heights of Vfcksburg were termed the snag of the Mississippi'; Shanghai. whose public spirit seems at present more commercial than ethical. may be called the opium-reef of the Yangtze.
 The Imperial Customs took prompt measures in carrying out the Imperial prohibitions. and after July l, no opium smoking employees remained on their stan. Many know of the wealth of scholarship in this service and of this the anti-opium league has been a ben eficiary. MT. Guy Achison, the Superin- tendent of Likin in the soochow dis trict. who Is numbered among the lead ing sinologues of the Empire. and is Ing into English of documentary Chi nese--one who equally combines exec utive ability and wide learning and of whom the Chinese say he has the thousand Ii eye'--hae very kindly trans lated several papers for us, and well merits our special thanks.
 The Centenary Missionary Confer. ence passed three anti-opium resolu- lions. First. that of the Medical As- sociation; second. the resolutions of the Rev. A. Poster. whose review of the British Opium Commission report gave him undying fame: and third, the International Opium Commission reso- lutions, prepared by Bishop Brent. of Manila and presented by Bishop Graves The latter resolution was sent by ca- 'bie to the Peace Conference to Lon don and to Washington--the cost of these telegrams being about $3oo---and also by mali to Tokio
 At the suggestion of the anti opium league, the Nanking viceroy wired the Chinese representatives at The Hague H. P Yuan Fang personally requested the writer of this repor. to send a second telegram to M Nelidorff. the president of the Peace Conference, urg- ing the appointment of the Internat- pressed in this request could not fail to be appreciated. The answer. by tel egram. of Sir Edward Grey was that the question was without the scope of the Peace Confarence'
 The United States. July 2, replies. ( The spbject belongs to ; class of limited administrative questions not in- cluded in The Hague program. The United states is moving, with every prospect of success, for concurrent treatment of the opium problem by all the nations. including China, that have territorial domain or interests in the Far East. 71
 international Action.
 since that time the teIegrams in- form us, at the Instance of the United States, that Great Britain, Germany, France, Hoiiands Japan and China have agreed to an International Opium Com mission which will naturally bind both the Orient and the Occideft to thk ex- tirpation of the evil. The French gov- ernment has agreed to prohibition in her Asiatic possessions. Great Britain, so says the Vfceroy, is now making an anti-opium treaty with China. The German Governor of Tsingtaol says, Our government has nothing to do with opium Japan points to Formosa as an example for the nations. Amer freedom Is the phiianthropic leader in world wide reform: and a new era. crystaiiisiqg in the anti-opinm move ment, Is being introduced in regard to the treatment of the moral problems of the human race.
 "Dr Crafts, whose speech many -se- lect ladies' pronounced the most elo- quent delivered at the Centenary Con- ference, came from Washington in the interests of anti-opium, and MT. !. e. Alexander, the representative of the British aFitf-Opium societies. dame from London. .ai1d since the return of the latter. the foreign office has been in- duced 10 undertake the suppression of opium fin the Straits and in Ceyion.
 'rhe use of morphia has received the earnest attention of the Executive Committee. Since duty of Ills. per ounce was imposed by the imperial customs the smuggling of this drug has been wholesale, and 1t is stated that it has been manufactured at the. ports A letter was sent early in the year to Hon. John IT. Morgan concern ing morphia. with the request that he forward tho same to the State Depart ment.
 since that time this venerable sen- ator. of whom it is said that no see tionai but only national questions re- eetved his attention, at the age of four-score and three has passed away
 Three years ago the Philippine Nre- port lay in the archives at Washing ton. He obtained for us { typewritten copy and we issued an edition of 10,- 600. Last summer his letter to the Secretary of state agAinat opium, to- gether with the dispatch from the De- partment was forwarded to the lega- ton at Picking. Again he sends for us that anti-morphia paper to Mr. Root Thus on three separate occasions this wise and able statesman used his po- tent influence on behalf of China, and the opium reform made resplendent his sunset hour.
 ..The Hon. Elihrr Root replied on June ts to our antf-morphia petition: The anti-opium movement in China, in which so many Americans are in- terested. has received the sympathetic attention or the President and of this government. Your communication has