Word: opium
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Japan staggered the Congress at one point of the proceedings by injecting into a motion, expressing confidence in China's willingness to stamp out the opium trade, a resolution placing the Powers on record as determined to abide by a policy of non-intervention in Chinese affairs. After a prolonged palaver over this and a counter-motion blaming China, the whole matter was dropped...
Another misunderstanding between East and West had cropped out during the first Opium Conference at Geneva, now suspended for five days. Japan has opposed, as a matter of national honor, the British proposals restricting the discretion of officials in issuing certificates of legitimacy to exporters of opuim. The Japanese proposal, it seems, would permit customs officers to observe the letter of the proposed international convention, while violating its spirit...
...will appear to many critics that the plea of national honor is a mere bluff to hide the real objection Japan's reluctance to cripple effectively this highly profitable trade. It is well known that Japan gains most from the unrestricted trade in Chinese opium, and that Japanese merchants now handle most of this dope trade, having replaced the British as the foremost traffikers. This disingenuous attitude of quibbling over means of enforcement will not blind the world to the fact that Japan, while anxious to pretend cooperation with western nations in a humanitarian program, is at bottom unwilling...
Said the Acting Dean of a great cathedral: "War cannot go until the sweatshop goes. War cannot go until the opium dens and bucketshops go; war cannot go until the fevered cruelty of much business competition goes . . . until churches learn to tolerate each other without jealous rivalry. . . . The seed of war lies in the soil of the soul...
...Resolutions were passed concerning legal assistance to the poor; concerning a conference to be held in November to restrict the growth and distribution of opium...