Note 60 — Chapter XXXVIII · THE OPIUM POPPY AND ITS USE[57]

“This year the value of foreign goods imported amounted to more than eighty million [taels]. The export of Chinese products might be about fifty million [taels] or more. The foreign drug [i.e., opium] was valued at more than thirty million [taels]. Thus there was a leakage. China is not impoverished by commerce, but the impoverishment comes from the consumption of opium.”