"It is both my concern and your concern," replied the young man solemnly, "both yours and mine. Your race, your country, is sinning against my race and my country——"
"Your country!" interrupted the Bishop disdainfully.
"Yes, my country!" exclaimed the young man proudly. "Mine still, for all that you have conquered it, and civilized it and degraded it!"
The Bishop sprang up from his chair angrily, and then sank back again, determined to listen. He would let this fellow say all he had to say, and then have him arrested afterwards. He would let him condemn himself out of his own mouth. How well they spoke English too, these educated natives.
"What is this Colony, Sir," continued the young man gaining control of himself, "but a market for the opium your Government sells? For you know, Sir, as well as I, that the sale of opium is a monopoly of your Government. And we are helpless, defenceless, powerless to protect ourselves. And do you know what your Government makes out of this trade, Sir—the revenue it collects from selling opium to my people? Three quarters of the revenue of this Colony are derived from opium. Your Government runs this colony on our degradation. You build your roads, your forts, your schools, your public buildings, on this vice that you have forced upon us. Before you came, with your civilization, we were decent. Very decent, on the whole. Now look at us—what do you see? How many shops in this town are licensed by your Government for the sale of opium—and the license money pocketed as revenue? How many opium divans, where we may smoke, are licensed by your Government, and the license money pocketed as part of the revenue?"
"You needn't smoke unless you wish to," remarked the Bishop drily. "We don't force you to do it. We don't put the pipe between your teeth and insist upon your drugging yourselves. How many shops do you say there are—how many smoking places? Several hundred? We don't force you into them, I take it. You go of your own choice, don't you? We Europeans don't do it. It's as free for us as it is for you. We have the same opportunities to kill ourselves—I suppose that's how you look at it—as you do. Yet somehow we abstain. If you can't resist——"
The Bishop shrugged his shoulders. Yet he rather despised himself for the argument. It sounded cheap and unworthy, somehow. The youth, however, did not seem to resent it, and went on sadly.
"It's true," he said, "we need not, I suppose. Yet you know," he continued humbly, "we are a very simple people. We are very primitive, very—lowly. We didn't understand at first, and now it's too late. We've most of us got the habit, and the rest are getting it. We're weak and ignorant. We want you to protect us from ourselves. Just as you protect your own people—at home. You don't import it into your own country—you don't want to corrupt your own people. But what about the races you colonise and subject—who can't protect themselves? It's not fair!" he concluded passionately, "and besides, this year you have sold us two millions more than last year——"
"Where did you get your figures?" broke in the Bishop with rising indignation. This cowering, trembling boy seemed to have all the arguments on his side.
"From your own reports, Sir. Government reports. Compiled by your own officials."