of doing so." Sir Henry was, in view of the obvious facts we have noted, authorized to impress upon the Chinese Plenipotentiaries that it would be in the interest of the Imperial Government to legalize by a regular duty a trade which it could not prevent; but the Chinese Plenipotentiary foresaw trouble enough for himself at Peking without raising unnecessary questions; and things went on as before till 1859, when the Chinese had come to perceive the force of the argument and inserted opium of their own free-will in the tariff attached to the Treaty of Tientsin, at a rate of their own choosing. But conditions were attached, also of their own choosing, which restricted the trade entirely to Chinese hands. "Opium (ran the new Rule) will henceforth pay thirty taels per pecul import duty. The importer will sell it only at the port. It will be carried into the interior by Chinese only, and only as Chinese property: the foreign trader will not be allowed to accompany it. The provisions of Art. IX. of the Treaty of Tientsin, by which British subjects are authorized to proceed into the interior with passports to trade, will not extend to it; nor will those of Art. XXVIII. of the same Treaty by which the transit duties are regulated. The transit dues on it will be arranged as the Chinese Government see fit." And so matters remained till 1876, when Sir Thomas Wade agreed to insert in the Convention of Chefoo a provision that these Inland Dues (lekin) should be added to the Customs Dues and the whole collected at the port of entry-a provision subsequently expanded by the Marquis Tseng in negotiation with Lord Salisbury, at London, into what is known as an "additional article to the above agreement," in 1885. By this article, at the express wish of the Peking Government, lekin was fixed at a uniform rate of Tls. 80 instead of being left to the discretion

of the several provincial governments; and a proviso was added that, when opium which had paid this (Tls. 30 plus Tls. 80) 110 taels a chest reached its destination in the interior it should not be subject to any further tax "other than or in excess of such tax or contribution as is or may hereafter be levied on native (Chinese) opium."

So matters stood until the publication, in September 1906, of a Decree which gave the signal for a crusade that has been pursued with a decision which has surprised even those who were aware of the considerable body of opinion at the back of the new movement. That decree ordered the suppression of opium-smoking and the extinction of poppy cultivation in China in ten years; and the British Government agreed, in 1908, to reduce the sales of Indian opium in Calcutta by one-tenth annually, pari passu with Chinese action, if proof were forthcoming that that action was being effectively sustained. It is scarcely surprising that doubt was felt at first whether it would be sustained. Similar edicts issued more than once during the last and previous century had failed altogether of purpose or effect. But forces were at work, this time, that had not been previously operative. The American Association of China probably struck the key-note in remarking, to the Secretary of State, that "previous movements had begun at the top, having been actively supported only by the Emperor and a few of the highest officials; whereas the present movement began from below, its most ardent advocates being Chinese who, during the last thirty years, have been educated in Western knowledge-some of them abroad, others in the mission schools." Allusion has been made also in recent telegrams to collateral pressure which has been brought to bear on the Peking Government from outside China; and it is likely that, as the

Association also remarked, "the leading officials of the nation feel, to an extent never before felt, that they are before the bar of public opinion; and that, having put their hand to the plough, they will be discredited by any weakening in their announced purpose. The pressure has at any rate been sustained, and China has been able to show results which-if not quite commensurate with the allegations of those who are urging and supporting her action-were held to justify it in asking the Indian Government to reduce its sales more rapidly to keep pace with her effort. Seven years of the 1908 agreement have yet to run. But "China having (runs a new agreement just signed) adopted a rigorous policy for prohibiting the production, transport, and smoking of native opium, the British Government agrees that the export of opium from India shall cease in less than seven years if proof is given that the production of native opium has completely ceased." The prediction has been hazarded that this means extinction within two years; but, while admitting that progress has been, so far, more rapid than even the leaders of the movement ventured, we suspect, to hope, we doubt whether the end is quite SO near. We are heretical enough, for the sake of other interests than those of the opium-smokers, even to hope that it is not. For there is India to be considered, and we venture to think that the Indian cultivator and tax-payer is entitled to consideration as well as the habitué of the drug. Enthusiasts want the opium trade extinguished immediately, just as a similar school of teetotallers would extinguish the trade in alcoholic liquors in these islands, without regard to the economic interests involved. It is nothing to them that a number of Indian ryots should be impoverished and disaffection excited in Gwalior, for instance, and other native States. By dint of

much repetition they have persuaded themselves that England forced opium upon China by war, and continues to force her to purchase and presumably consume it, so long as a certain quantity continues to be offered yearly for sale. It does not occur to them to represent to the Courts of Holland or Portugal that it is their moral duty to stop the export to England of gin and port wine, in order to deprive British subjects of the opportunity of buying these liquors if they wish; any more than it occurred to them that if Chinese were being used as "slaves" in the Transvaal, it lay with the Chinese Government to prohibit their engagement, or with the slaves themselves to stay at home. It is always their own countrymen who are in fault, and who must be made to suffer vicariously in order that their views of propriety may be enforced. But Governments have to take a wider view; and to moderate people it will doubtless seem that to march pari passú with China is to go as fast as can reasonably be required. Nor must it be forgotten that this agreement condones evasions and breaches of treaty rights which have caused irritation and loss during the last two years. One of the causes which really led to the war of 1841-2 was the creation, by the Canton authorities, of a body of merchants to monopolize foreign trade-not in opium, which was unrecognized, but commerce of all kinds; and one of the clauses of the treaty of Nanking stipulated that that practice should be abolished in future at all ports where British merchants might reside. But the Viceroy of Canton has lately again granted to a syndicate of twelve Chinese firms an exclusive right of dealing in opium, and has imposed an additional tax of $300 a chest on Indian opium in transit, in breach of the agreement fixing the comprehensive tax at Tls. 110. By Article VI of the new agreement his Majesty's

Government have consented to an increase to Tls. 350 on condition, only, that Chinese opium is taxed equivalently and that the equality of opportunity stipulated for in 1885 is preserved. Telegrams from India express acquiescence in the new arrangement; as a reasonable definition of existing facts. It is recognized, apparently, that the situation has changed since China set herself to put down the cultivation of the poppy within her own The Saturday Review.

borders, and that conventions designed to regulate a trade openly carried on with the assent of both parties ceased to be applicable when the purchasing nation gave evidence of a desire to limit its purchases and gradually extinguish the trade. But it is expected that the process of extinction will be carried on in order and with due regard to the protection reserved for the great interests concerned.

"The male is, as it were, a mere afterthought of Nature-a variation of the original female sex."-Fortnightly Review.

Miss Trotter, in moving the second reading of the Men's Enfranchisement Bill, said that she based her case, in the first place, on the broad grounds of reason and justice. Once the cry of votes for men was raised, it could neither be ignored nor overcome by the mere reassertion of the natural right of women to sway the fortunes of the State, to the exclusion of the other sex. In the next place, she invited them, in the interests of mankind, to extend to men the refining and sobering influences of political thought and action.

Men would be found not incapable of playing a part-it might be a modest part-in the field of government. Already, as voters for the parish council, they had displayed an undoubted sense of what was becoming in the sphere of local government. In the course of the last generation their standard of civilization had appreciably risen. They drank less and fought less, and statistics showed that the brutal and ignoble pastimes which formerly occupied the leisure of all classes of men were steadily declining. She asked them to show their sense of

the efforts which the other sex were making to lead decent human lives by extending to them this small and carefully safeguarded instalment of British citizenship.

Lady Lorimer said that she would be the first to oppose any step that would lead towards a reversion to barbarism, but men had long been admitted to opportunities of enjoying all, or nearly all, the best influences of civilization, and it was acknowledged that they had thus acquired a higher ethical and social standard. She was convinced that the time was ripe for a moderate and cautious measure of enfranchisement.

The Hon. Mrs. Brown, in moving that the Bill be read that day three months, said the hon. member had overlooked one vital point. Did men as a class want the vote? Did even a majority of them desire a vote? She absolutely denied it. The number of men who had signed petitions against the Bill largely exceeded those who had petitioned in its support. The best and wisest men deeply deplored and bitterly resented the agitation carried on in their name. They valued too much their positions as husbands, fathers, and breadwinners to desire a change, and, above all, a change which threatened

to subvert the ancient sanctities of our domestic and social life. Nature after all had given women the leadership which they exercised. That House had never failed to redress the grievances of men when brought to their notice, and she challenged hon. members to cite a single case of economic or political hardship on which men had appealed to them in vain. It was useless to invoke logic in such a case, and, as to justice, she was unable to see how justice was promoted by forcing the vote upon a profoundly unwilling class. Democracy, as she understood it, was best served by confining political power with those who were at once willing and competent to exercise it, or, in other words, by resisting any and every encroachment on our existing franchise system.

Lady Lascelles said she objected to the Bill because it sought to obliterate nature's line of demarcation. Man was not necessarily inferior because of his marked political incapacity. He had his own aptitudes, and his muscular superiority and power of specialization within certain well-defined limits were admitted. But was there a woman amongst them, with any experience of the other sex, who was prepared to argue that because men were useful as breadwinners, capable in commerce, and sturdy in physique, they were therefore fitted to play a responsible part in public life? Το women it had been given to rule over the home and over that dear motherland which was the home of the nation. They held their position in virtue of their intimate knowledge of human needs and their instinct for management and statecraft, and they had held it unchallenged up to the present because they had exercised their power with a single eye to the good of the

standards, the material motives, and the clumsy and tactless methods of men into the region of high politics? They were without any knowledge of the character and conduct of men that could enable, them to forecast the result. No one could have the faintest notion what this Bill would lead to. She besought the House to stay its hand and to keep intact the majestic fabric which generations of devoted Englishwomen had built up.

Mrs. Coxwood, while agreeing in the main with the moving speech to which they had just listened, felt constrained to put in a plea for bachelors and widowers of position, whose situation as employers of domestic servants with votes was not without its painful aspects. The case of husbands was different, and she was content to leave that class to be represented by the votes of their wives, who were perfectly competent to express, so far as they called for expression, the opinions, convictions, and aspirations of husbands.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking as an economist, and as the national housekeeper, declared herself immovably opposed to any step in the direction of the Bill. As wage-earners men were incapable of constructing or administering the simplest household budget. They knew nothing of the woman's great art of making both ends meet, or of wise, fruitful, and thrifty expenditure. How, then, could they be trusted with a vote involving the raising and expenditure of millions? The economy of the home and of the nation should be in the same hands, and she was convinced that the enfranchisement of men would lead to the adoption of tariffs and other expedients for illicit gains and bogus economies.

Mrs. Barton said that the great obstacle to the admission of men to the franchise had been the widespread fear

that politics would thereby be debased and brutalized, that physical force would be glorified, and that a vulgar self-assertion and pugnacity would begin to color our diplomatic relations. She asked the House to consider, however, that the Bill would enfranchise only a million men. She had been privileged to know men in diverse ranks of society who might fairly claim to share the burden of government with women, and she thought that in the Committee stage they might secure some kind of franchise which would, if she might so express it, enable them to skim the élite from the mass. If she thought that men would by such a step be encouraged to aspire to occupy seats in that House and positions of Ministerial power, she would vote against the second reading, but she credited them with the possession of a certain amount of common sense.

The Prime Minister, in asking the House to come to a decision, said that some of the more potent categories of conviction lay outside the sphere of argument, and she held that this was one of them. She asked them not to

The Nation.

be swayed by sentiment, logic, or reason, but to review the problem submitted to them in the dry light of experience. The truth was that the qualities and functions, which fitted men for the discharge of the duties Providence had marked out for them, disqualified them absolutely and for all time from participating in the government of the State. With some irrelevant exceptions, men had never been entrusted with political power, and their incapacity for it was thus a matter of daily and universal experience. Whether they had regard to man's infirmity of purpose, to his ceaseless pursuit of sport and pleasure, his material standards, his ineradicable bias towards physical violence, his indifference to the spiritual and moral aspects of life, or his dependence on woman, they found that nature had marked him out not to govern, but to be governed. The most truly manly men recognized the limitations of sex, and looked to women to protect them against a movement which outraged nature and threatened to destroy the equilibrium of the State.

A great many people who would hardly stoop to pick up a sixpence would walk miles rather than be cheated out of a threepenny bit; being cheated, they would willingly spend half-a-crown in order once more to come by their own. A small deception involving a small loss, wrongs so insignificant to the onlooker that they are best described in slang terms which convey a sense of the ridiculous, touch in them a source of anger which in others is only tapped by insult. To half their friends their righteous indignation is incomprehensible.

If

these puzzled people find that they themselves have been "done." the thought leaves them rather sad, or quite indifferent, according to the loss involved. Occasionally even they feel a little amused at their own expense, and nothing would induce them to risk a further loss for the sake of equity in the abstract-(we are of course speaking of insignificant sums, of being "had"-not of the cruel injustices which involve of necessity suffering and resentment).

But though we are only dealing with trifles, they are trifles which show a