Note 190 — Chapter V · CHINESE MORALS: AN IDEAL OF FILIAL PIETY

The efforts of the Chinese government to put an end to the use of opium among its subjects—the anti-opium decree was issued in 1906—is the most noteworthy matter in the recent moral history of China. This movement is motived by moral feeling as truly as is the movement among ourselves for the suppression of the liquor traffic. It is, in the words of Professor Edward A. Ross, “the most extensive warfare on a vicious private habit that the world has ever known” (The Changing Chinese (1911), p. 146).