Sir Rutherford Alcock's new Treaty with China is not to
be ratified, but we are not a little afraid that the opium revenue has found an enemy much more dangerous than that wonderfully long-winded diplomatist. The Americana are growing the poppy in the South at a profit, and, it is said, propose to grow it on a large scale by Chinese labour. Now, it is true that the Indian opium is protected at once by its quality and by the habit of the smokers, just as Havannah cigars are ; but Americana are apt to hit their customers' taste. If they succeed, we must bid good-bye to opium, and tax tobacco, which will be a difficult business, more especially as natives consider smoking eating, and object to heretic interference with food. They will, in the end, invent some clever excuse, as they have done about Droitwich salt, but there will be trouble first. If the Greeks of the Levant were a little sharper, they would beat both India and the Union yet.
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