Abstract
A SOMEWHAT unexpected sequel to the mission which Sir Francis Younghusband led to Lhassa in 1903-4 was the appreciation by Chinese officials of the fact that the trade in Indian opium, which has at times been held up as a reproach to England, was in reality due to the demand of China for the drug. It is interesting to reflect that the truth should first have dawned upon a Chinese envoy who had been educated in the United States. The novel idea took root and engendered a movement which spread in China with such rapidity that in 1906 an imperial edict dealing with the opium question was promulgated. This rescript embodied elaborate provisions for the immediate curtailment and the gradual extinction of the use of the drug. Necessarily, therefore, it took account not only of the enormous Chinese out-turn of opium, but of the smaller, though still important amount imported from India. Proposals and counter-proposals were accordingly formulated in 1907 by the Governments of China and Britain, and certain regulations, to remain effective for three years, were agreed upon by the high contracting parties and became operative in 1908.
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Two Chinese Tours 1 . Nature 95, 90–92 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/095090e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/095090e0