\ X 
 

THE 
 
 INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE 
 
 CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO 
 
 ITS HISTORY, MORALITY, AND EXPEDIENCY, 
 
 AND 
 
 ITS INFLUENCE ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 J. SPENCER .HILL, B.A., 
 
 I. 
 
 SCHOLAR OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 BEING THE ESSAY WHICH OBTAINED THE MAITLAND PRIZE 
 OF THE UNIVERSITY FOR 1882. 
 
 WITH PREFATORY NOTE 
 BY THE RIGHT HON. LORD JUSTICE FRY. 
 
 LONDON: .' SUIIOTJKEKK ) 
 
 HENRY FROWDE, \ / ^ ;-, ~r^ 
 AMEN CORNER, PATERNOSTER 
 
 1884. 
 
FEINTED BY E. PICKAED HALL, M.A., AND HOEACE HAET 
 PEINTEES TO THE UNIVEESITY 
 
TO 
 
 MY FATHER AND MOTHEB. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 I SHOULD not have published this Essay, which was 
 fortunate enough to obtain the Maitland Prize in the 
 University of Cambridge, had it not been required 
 by the regulations of that foundation. Some may 
 think the treatment of the subject one-sided. I can 
 only say that I commenced with a strong prejudice 
 against the Anti-Opium agitators ; but my investi- 
 gation of the facts and arguments on both sides of 
 the case compelled me to adopt their views, and 
 forced me to the conclusion that our connection 
 with the traffic is wholly unjustifiable. In such a 
 hackneyed subject original ityj.s necessarily impossibly 
 and I have, of course, made the fullest use of all avail- 
 able information : as however so much of what has 
 been written on this question is common property, I 
 have not thought it needful to give references in every 
 case, and hope that this general acknowledgment of 
 my indebtedness will be sufficient. 
 
 J. S. H. 
 
 ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
 
 March, 1884. 
 
 M312853 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 BY THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. LORD JUSTICE FRY. 
 
 THE MAITLAND PRIZE in the University of Cam- 
 bridge was founded by the friends of the late Sir 
 Peregrine Maitland, K.C.B., late Commander-in-Chief 
 of the Forces in South India, for an English Essay on 
 some subject connected with the propagation of the 
 Gospel through missionary exertions in India and 
 other parts of the heathen world. The subject 
 selected for the year 1882 was 'The Opium Traffic 
 between India and China viewed politically and 
 morally, and in its bearings on the efforts of Christian 
 missionaries/ The following essay was successful in 
 the competition for that prize. 
 
 I have read the essay with, much interest, and I 
 trust that it may be the means of calling the attention 
 of many persons to what I believe to be one of the 
 greatest sins that lie at our door as a nation. I am 
 particularly interested in observing that Mr. Hill 
 commenced his study of the subject with 'a strong 
 prejudice against the anti-opium agitators/ and that 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. Vll 
 
 he was compelled by the force of reason to concur in 
 their conclusions. 
 
 The subject is one on which great ignorance still 
 prevails, and it is not possible to form an intelligent 
 opinion upon it without some study. Few of those 
 who investigate it with honest and unbiased minds 
 can, I believe, come to any other conclusion than that 
 we are still year by year doing a grievous wrong to 
 China a wrong which, I believe, will some day, and 
 perhaps before very long, cause to our own nation 
 
 trouble and sorrow. 
 
 E. F. 
 
 February 1884. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I. THE HISTORY OF THE TRAFFIC .... i 
 
 II. THE MORALITY OF THE TRAFFIC ... 29 
 
 III. THE EXPEDIENCY OF THE TRAFFIC . . 61 
 
 IV. THE INFLUENCE OF THE TRAFFIC ON 
 
 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS ...... 86 
 
 V. CONCLUSION 92 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE TRAFFIC. 
 
 BEFORE 1773 the cultivation of the poppy was a monopoly 
 maintained by the civil servants of the East India Company 
 at its Patna factory for their own personal profit, and in 
 direct contravention of the strict orders laid down by the 
 Company. In that year however the Company itself as- 
 sumed the management and leased it to two natives for a 
 year only. The question of the monopoly was warmly 
 discussed by the new Council General, appointed on the 
 recommendation of the Indian Government by the Act of 
 1775. Even at that early period unfavourable comments on 
 its working and probable results were not wanting. One of 
 the ablest members of the Council, Mr. Philip Francis, 
 afterwards the well-known Sir Philip Francis, declared his 
 opinion that the monopoly of opium was highly prejudicial 
 to the trade of Bengal ; and he asserted that as the land 
 revenue beyond all doubt suffered from its production, it 
 was misleading to reckon the revenue gained from the drug 
 as absolute profit to the Company. The directors, while 
 assenting to the opinion thus expressed, thought it wiser to 
 continue the monopoly for their own benefit than to throw 
 it open for the benefit of individuals. Thus sanctioned, it 
 was worked for a time by selling the permission to the 
 highest bidder. After the first contract however had ex- 
 pired, Mr. Hastings, contrary to the express orders of the 
 Directors, farmed the concession first to a Mr. Mackenzie, 
 an Englishman, and afterwards, wishing to secure a friend 
 
 B 
 
2 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 in the council chamber at Leadenhall Street, he gave the 
 contract to Mr. Stephen Sullivan, the son of the then Chair- 
 man of the Company, a young gentleman who had only 
 just arrived in India and knew nothing whatever of the busi- 
 ness. Up to this time, though a very small trade in the drug 
 with China had been carried on, the bulk of the manufacture 
 was disposed of to the Dutch merchants at Batavia. In 
 1781 however the war with the Dutch, which had broken 
 out, closed this market, and Mr. Hastings had to find other 
 purchasers for his wares. He therefore, with the consent of 
 his council, approved a scheme for chartering a vessel ex- 
 pressly to sell opium in various Eastern ports, and specially 
 to develope the existing trade with China. A principal 
 reason for this latter undertaking was no doubt to be found 
 in the importance of obtaining if possible some new means 
 of sending the necessary supplies to the Company's repre- 
 sentatives in China, who had hitherto paid for their annual 
 purchases in tea and other Chinese commodities in bullion. 
 This method of payment however, always inconvenient, now 
 made itself particularly felt, as the other presidencies were at 
 this time drawing largely on Calcutta, and the advantage of 
 making the annual payments to China in Indian produce 
 instead of specie was of course obvious. Consequently we 
 need not be surprised that Mr. Hastings, as already men- 
 tioned, should have entertained the proposal. It was first 
 made by a Colonel Watson, who in a letter to the Board of 
 Revenue, written early in 1781, suggested that the Company 
 should endeavour to trade immediately with the North or 
 Eastern ports of China, as it would at least act beneficially in 
 counteracting the monopoly of the Hong merchants at 
 Canton, who by their arbitrary and unrestrained methods 
 of dealing seriously inconvenienced the Company's trade at 
 that port. 
 
 Though neither Mr. Hastings nor his council appear to 
 
ITS HISTORY. 3 
 
 have so looked at the matter, yet the proposed undertaking 
 was really nothing else than a smuggling adventure against 
 China openly carried out by the responsible rulers of British 
 India. For that the edict of Kea-King in 1796 was not, as 
 is commonly supposed, the first prohibition of opium in 
 China can be clearly proved. In the report of the Com- 
 mittee of 1783, Appendix 77, we find the following letter 
 from Mr. Fitz-Hugh to Mr. Gregory on the subject of ex- 
 porting opium to China, and severely condemning the pro- 
 ject. ' The importation of opium to China/ says Mr. 
 Fitz-Hugh, 'is forbidden by very severe penalties. The 
 
 * opium on seizure is destroyed, the vessel in which it is 
 4 brought to the port is confiscated, and the Chinese in 
 ' whose possession it is found for sale is punishable with 
 1 death.' After remarking that the trade, though thus pro- 
 hibited, has been carried on by the English and Portuguese, 
 and referring to the high estimation in which the Company 
 are held by the Chinese, he thus concludes, ' How must this 
 
 * opinion change when your servants are on the Company's 
 
 * account to deviate from the plain road of honourable trade 
 ' to pursue the crooked paths of smuggling/ But to return 
 to our story. Colonel Watson did something more than 
 merely suggest. He offered his own ship, the Nonsuch, to 
 carry the opium to China, and the offer was accepted, while 
 his requests for cannon, soldiers, and medical stores hardly 
 suggestive of a peaceable trading venture were all agreed 
 to. The terms of the arrangement that not less than 2000 
 chests should be sent, for which the Board of Revenue agreed 
 to allow 50 Sicca rupees a chest as freight from Bengal to 
 Canton were so advantageous that similar offers were made 
 by other persons, and another ship was engaged to carry 
 1490 chests of the drug on the same errand to the Straits of 
 Malacca and the Chinese coast. 
 
 The speculation however was not a success. The super- 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 cargoes of the Company at Canton were both surprised and 
 perplexed by this new development of their business, and in 
 their letters to Calcutta they say : ' The importation of 
 ' opium being strongly prohibited by the Chinese, and a 
 ' business altogether new to us, it was necessary to take our 
 ' measures with the utmost caution/ They were in fact com- 
 pelled to be satisfied with the very low price of 2 1 o dollars 
 per chest, and in writing to the Court of Directors they 
 strongly disapproved of the new enterprise. The Court itself 
 indeed condemned the whole transaction in the strongest 
 terms, and in the course of their despatch on the subject the 
 Directors say, ' with regard to the consignment of 2000 chests 
 ' of opium immediately to the supercargoes to be disposed of 
 as they shall think proper, we have been informed that the 
 ' importation of opium into China is forbidden on very severe 
 ' penalties. . . . Under any circumstances it is beneath the 
 ' Company to be engaged in such a clandestine trade : we 
 ' therefore positively prohibit any more opium being sent to 
 ' China on the Company's account/ Unfortunately, however, 
 the Directors, in accordance with their usual habit, contented 
 themselves with ordering the cessation of the enterprise 
 without taking the needful steps to enforce their commands. 
 As Macaulay well says, their despatches contain many excel- 
 lent precepts and an admirable code of political ethics, but 
 the force of the exhortation was always nullified by a demand 
 for money. And their attitude towards the opium trade was 
 no exception to the general rule. In common with many 
 other people, they desired to share the profits of evil doing 
 without the odium and ill repute which were its necessary 
 concomitants. Indeed, in one despatch we find them, after 
 piously observing ' that they would on no account wish to be 
 'concerned with an illicit trade,' proposing the opening of 
 communications with the Eastern ports of China. ' We 
 1 might/ they continue, ' then meet with a market for the 
 
ITS HISTORY. 5 
 
 ' whole produce of our opium farms . . . and whatever opium 
 ' might be in demand with the Chinese, the quantity would 
 'readily find its way thither, without the Company being 
 ' exposed to the disgrace of engaging in an illicit commerce.' 
 In 1796 however the Chinese government, distrusting one 
 might almost fancy such a superficial and hollow morality, 
 began to take alarm, and the Emperor issued a proclamation 
 enforcing with additional penalties the existing restrictions on 
 the importation of the drug. In view of the new edicts the 
 supercargoes at Canton strongly urged the necessity of laying 
 some additional restraint on the servants of the Company to 
 prevent them from engaging in a traffic so recently condemned 
 by the Chinese authorities. The Company, though quite ready 
 to profit by the evil doings of others, was fully alive to the 
 necessity of maintaining its own reputation. Accordingly, 
 stringent regulations were issued, which forbade any servant 
 of the Company on pain of immediate dismissal to carry any 
 contraband article to China. But though the Company thus 
 acknowledged itself responsible to the Chinese government 
 for the honourable trading of its own servants, with its usual 
 inconsistency it encouraged, or at least did not attempt to 
 prevent, the systematic violation of Chinese regulations by all 
 other traders. For during all this time the control of the 
 Company over ships trading to China was absolute. Every 
 captain sailing to China bound himself to obey the orders of 
 the Company's supercargoes at Canton, so that nothing could 
 have been easier than for the Company to have stopped the 
 trade, if there had been any real desire to do so. But the 
 traffic was far too lucrative, and if it was inexpedient to under- 
 take the actual introduction of the drug to the Chinese con- 
 sumer, no such reasons could be urged against manufacturing 
 it for those who were not hampered by such unfortunate 
 restrictions. Accordingly, the Company continued deliberately 
 and openly to grow and prepare the drug for the Chinese 
 
6 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 market. Every seer of the drug produced was openly sold at 
 Calcutta to the opium merchants and shipped off for ' China 
 direct/ unhindered, and unimpeded. Nay more. On one 
 occasion at least the Indian Government actually paid (Pros 
 and Cons of the Opium Trade, p. 21) a large sum to those 
 engaged in the trade, and who had suffered in consequence 
 of a stoppage occasioned by unwonted severity and activity 
 on the part of the Chinese authorities. The Directors indeed 
 expressed ' their utter repugnance to the trade, and longed to 
 ' abolish the consumption of the drug ' : but to ordinary minds 
 the increased production of the ' pernicious ' article appears a 
 most extraordinary method of carrying out their benevolent 
 intentions. 
 
 The Chinese authorities continued to expostulate, and in 
 1821 the Governor of Canton took active measures to sup- 
 press the traffic. The opium vessels, however, when driven 
 from Whampoa, merely retired to Lintin, an island close to 
 the mouth of the Canton river, where they established them- 
 selves, and the trade ' almost assumed a regular character.' 
 The attempts made to extend operations along the coast 
 were generally successful, and the local authorities, finding 
 themselves unable to drive away the opium dealers, con- 
 tented themselves with the easier process of issuing mere 
 paper edicts, and connived, for a consideration, at a' trade 
 to repress which they lacked either the energy or the power. 
 
 Matters remained thus till 1834, when the termination of 
 the Company's monopoly, and the consequent opening of 
 the trade, commenced a new chapter in the history of the 
 Company, and seriously modified the conditions under which 
 the trade with China had hitherto been carried on. For not 
 only did the new order of things abolish the select body of 
 traders with whom alone China had hitherto had any dealings : 
 it extended at the same time to all British traders men who 
 had been specially distinguished from the Company's ser- 
 
ITS HISTORY. 7 
 
 vants, and had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Chinese 
 government by their notorious smuggling and other irregular 
 operations the right to open communications with the most 
 exclusive of nations. Nor was this all. Before the trade 
 was thus thrown open the control exercised by the Com- 
 pany's supercargoes had been some guarantee for the good 
 behaviour of British traders, but now even this slight check 
 was removed and no new method of supervision was 
 substituted in its stead. Moreover the action of the British 
 Government at this conjuncture, though no doubt well-inten- 
 tioned, was in effect most unfortunate. Lord Napier was 
 appointed to the new office of Superintendent of British 
 trade in China, and while one paragraph of his instructions 
 enjoined him ' to avoid all such conduct, language, and de- 
 1 meanour ... as might unnecessarily irritate the feelings or 
 ' revolt the opinions or prejudices of the Chinese people or 
 ' government/ it was a cardinal point of his mission to intro- 
 duce direct communication with the provincial authorities, 
 a claim which had never been conceded to the supercargoes 
 of the Company, and was wholly contrary to established 
 usage and precedent. When he reached the outer waters of 
 Canton in July 1834, and his arrival had been made known 
 in an unofficial manner to the authorities, the Hong mer- 
 chants, who hitherto had been the recognised medium of 
 communication between foreigners and the governor, were 
 instructed to explain to him the state of the case. He de- 
 clined to receive them. Thereupon, in consequence of this 
 refusal on the part of the English to receive communications 
 from the Chinese through the persons appointed for the pur- 
 pose, the Hong merchants were required to stop the trade, 
 and this was done on the i6th of August. In return, Lord 
 Napier most unwisely published in Canton a statement de- 
 nouncing the conduct of the governor in language which, to 
 say the least, was most impolitic. On the yth of September 
 
8 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 he determined to try the effect of force, and in direct contra- 
 vention of his instructions, ordered his ships of war to force 
 their way through the entrance of the Canton river. This 
 they succeeded in doing, in spite of the forts on the river, and 
 took up their station under the walls of Canton. The Chinese, 
 however, steadily held their ground, and refused to hold any 
 communication with him or to permit any trade until the 
 ships were withdrawn. The English merchants, at length 
 finding that the stoppage of the trade was becoming serious, 
 urged upon him more conciliatory measures, and in conse- 
 quence of their representations, and of failing health, he 
 yielded and, amid the taunts and insults of the Chinese, 
 withdrew to Macao, where he died soon afterwards. Though 
 we may well sympathise with his troubles and deplore his 
 untimely fate, yet we cannot exonerate Lord Napier from 
 blame in this matter. He was no doubt placed in a very 
 difficult position, and his instructions were certainly out of 
 harmony with the plain facts of the case. At the same time 
 it must be pointed out that the spirit in which he executed 
 his mission was most harsh and unconciliatory. An envoy 
 who says, as he does in one of his despatches, i I cannot for 
 
 * one moment suppose that in dealing with such a nation Her 
 
 * Majesty's Government will be ruled by the ordinary forms 
 
 * prescribed among civilized peoples ; ' who urges Her 
 Majesty's Government to ' command ' a commercial treaty, 
 and who thinks it ' would be worthy of the greatness and the 
 4 power of England ' to ' demand the same personal privileges 
 ' for all traders that every trader enjoys in England ' on pain 
 of * abiding the consequences all the horrors of a bloody 
 ' war against a defenceless people/ was certainly not the 
 man to negotiate successfully with a nation so sensitive and 
 jealous as the Chinese. They may have been exclusive, 
 supercilious, and overbearing, but the spirit of brutal greed 
 and violence which Lord Napier sanctioned could only make 
 
ITS HISTORY. 9 
 
 reconciliation and a good understanding still more difficult, 
 even if it did not actually pave the way for the wars and 
 troubles which ultimately followed. 
 
 Soon after the reopening of trade the Chinese authorities, 
 through the Hong merchants, requested the English Govern- 
 ment to appoint a commercial superintendent of the trade 
 without delay, thus showing that they looked at the matter 
 merely as a question of trade, not in the international aspect 
 in which it was so persistently regarded by Lord Palmerston 
 and the English Government. The words of the Governor 
 of Canton make this very clear. * Let/ says he, ' a commer- 
 1 cial man be appointed by the said nation to become a 
 ' superintendent, and come to China to direct and control. 
 
 * This is a matter of buying and selling: it is not what military 
 'officers can attend to the management of. In the inner 
 ' land the Hong merchants are always held responsible, and 
 ' so too the said nation must positively select and appoint 
 
 * a trading man. On no account should a government officer 
 'be again appointed to occasion, as Lord Napier did, the 
 'creation of trouble and disturbance/ (China Papers, 1840, 
 p. 55.) In other words, what the Chinese desired was the 
 re-establishment of the purely trade supervision previously 
 exercised by the supercargoes of the East India Company. 
 
 For some time after the death of Lord Napier his successor, 
 Sir George Robinson, as far as possible adopted this view of 
 his position, and established his head-quarters at Lintin for 
 the better regulation of the general trade. In his despatches 
 to the home government he argued strongly in favour of the 
 course he had adopted, and urged that the duties of the 
 superintendent should be ' to receive the registers and papers 
 
 * of ships arriving, and to issue distinct and precise orders for 
 ' the guidance of captains, who should appeal to him in all 
 ' serious cases of disturbance and complaint on board ship, 
 ' and invariably where natives of China are concerned, in- 
 
10 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 1 stead of taking the law into their own hands and seeking to 
 ' redress their real or imaginary grievances : to listen patiently 
 ' to any Chinese who may be aggrieved, and by the power 
 ' with which he is invested to afford them redress, and if pos- 
 1 sible indemnification ; to attend to the better ordering and 
 ' discipline of the ships, by watchful observation over both 
 6 commanders and seamen ; and by every means in his power 
 ' to improve and ameliorate the present disorganised state of 
 1 the mercantile marine.' (China Papers, 1840, p. 1 1 6.) Such 
 a view of his official position, incidentally disclosing as it 
 does a state of things hardly creditable to the character of 
 British traders, required for its satisfactory accomplishment 
 more definite powers and authority than that with which the 
 superintendents had been invested. Lord Palmerston how- 
 ever, while ' recognising the inconveniences of the existing 
 ' state of things, and hoping that at no distant period some 
 ' effectual remedy may be provided/ recommended him ' at 
 ' present to confine his interference as much as possible to 
 * friendly suggestion and advice/ (China Papers, 1.840, p. 
 128.) Eventually the Government, obviously in the interests 
 of the opium trade, declined to adopt his proposal, and 
 recalled him, though the policy he followed was completely 
 acceptable to the Chinese and resulted in a decided increase 
 of trade, and appointed Captain Elliott as superintendent in 
 his place, with earnest instructions to establish if possible 
 political communication with the Chinese Government. 
 
 Meanwhile, the importance of the question had engaged 
 the serious attention of the highest authorities in China. 
 Memorials were presented to the Emperor both in favour of, 
 and adverse to, the policy of legalising the trade ; and 
 though we may call the Chinese barbarians and uncivilised, 
 yet a perusal of the arguments urged in the different docu- 
 ments cannot but impress the unbiased reader with a high 
 sense of the acuteness and statesmanlike views which they 
 
ITS HISTORY. II 
 
 display. In urging its legalisation, Heii Naetze, Vice-Presi- 
 dent of the Sacrificial Court, pointed out that the existing 
 laws had fallen into disuse, and that it was impracticable to 
 prohibit the illicit importation of the drug, not only because 
 of the negligence and corruption of the ' extortionate under- 
 lings/ but also because the carrying-boats plying up and 
 down the river ' are well armed with guns and other weapons, 
 ( and are manned with some scores of desperadoes. 1 The 
 same argument was urged by the Governor of Canton in his 
 report on the subject, and he also proposed various rules for 
 the due regulation of the trade in the event of its legislation. 
 On the other side, Choo Tsun, member of the Council of 
 the Board of Rites, protested against the doctrine that laws 
 should be allowed to fall into desuetude, maintaining that 
 their vigorous execution was quite possible, and that their 
 occasional abuse was no reason for their repeal. After con- 
 tending that the levy of a duty is improper and ill-beseeming, 
 and that if the exportation of sycee silver can be prevented, 
 it was also possible to prohibit the importation of opium, he 
 earnestly drew attention to the serious material and moral 
 damage inflicted on the people by the use of the drug. 
 ' In the people/ he says, ' lies the very foundation of em- 
 ' pire. A deficiency of property may be supplied, but it is 
 < beyond the power of any artificial means to save a people 
 ' enervated by luxury.' And he declares that the object of 
 the English 'in introducing opium into this country has 
 ' been to weaken and enfeeble the Celestial Empire. 1 Heu 
 Kew, a Censor of the Military Department, supported this 
 view, and urged the strict enforcement of the laws against 
 the habit. Every smoker guilty of its use should be punished, 
 and the foreign traders required to desist, or to leave the 
 country. ' They should be required/ he proposes, ' to write 
 ( a letter to the queen of their country, telling her that opium 
 ' is a poison which has pervaded the inner land to the material 
 
12 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 1 injury of the people : that the Celestial Empire has in- 
 * flicted on all the traitorous natives who sold it the severest 
 ' penalties : that with regard to themselves, the resident 
 L foreigners, the Government taking into consideration that 
 1 they are barbarians and aliens, forbears to pass sentence of 
 ' death upon them ; but that if the opium ships will desist 
 4 from coming to China, they shall be indulgently released 
 1 and permitted to continue their commercial intercourse as 
 ' usual : whereas, if they will again build receiving-vessels, 
 1 and bring them hither to entice the natives, the commercial 
 ' intercourse granted them in teas, silks, etc., shall assuredly 
 1 be altogether interdicted, and on the resident foreigners of 
 ' the said nation the laws shall be executed capitally.' ' While 
 1 in their own country/ he goes on to say, ' no opium is 
 ' smoked, the barbarians yet seek to poison therewith the 
 ' people of the central flowery land. ... Of late the foreign 
 1 vessels have presumed to make their way into every place, 
 1 and to cruise about in the inner seas. Is it likely that in 
 ' this they have no evil design of spying out our real strength 
 ' or weakness ? ' 
 
 Before however deciding between the two views here set 
 forth, the Emperor determined to take the opinion of the 
 various officials throughout the Empire a notable instance 
 of an absolute despotism referring an all-important question 
 to the arbitrament of those who were best calculated to form 
 a correct judgment, and who would be most affected by the 
 decision. Unfortunately for the contentions and the confident 
 expectations of the opium dealers, among whom were nine- 
 tenths of the British merchants trading to China, the great 
 majority of the reports received were unfavourable to the 
 traffic and urged its immediate and entire prohibition. Acting 
 on this advice, the Chinese Emperor determined to attempt 
 the suppression of the traffic. He despatched the well-known 
 Commissioner Lin to Canton invested with the fullest powers 
 
ITS HISTORY. 13 
 
 for effectually accomplishing the work, and issued the most 
 stringent orders for the enforcement of the laws against the 
 sale and importation of the drug. Some time before urgent 
 representations had been addressed to Captain Elliott request- 
 ing him to send away the opium receiving-ships. In accord- 
 ance with our usual policy, these requests were not complied 
 with, but were met in a spirit of the most dishonourable 
 evasion. The British Representative replied that he was 
 Superintendent of the regular trade alone, and could take no 
 cognisance of the illegitimate traffic which did not come 
 under the terms of his commission. The rejoinder of the 
 Chinese Governor to this piece of diplomatic shuffling is so 
 natural, and so much to the point, that it may be inserted 
 verbatim. ' The vessels/ observes the Governor, l having 
 ' been so long anchored off the coast that the great Emperor 
 ihas been informed respecting them, and the Superintendent 
 'having resided for some years at Macao, how can he be 
 
 * ignorant of the circumstances and places of their anchorage ? 
 ' . . . The king of the said nation being apprehensive lest 
 'merchants and seamen coming hither should infringe pro- 
 ' hibitions and transgress the laws, and so bring shame upon 
 ' their country, he specially sent Superintendent Elliott to 
 ' Canton to keep them under control and restraint. But 
 ' these two receiving-ships have now remained for a very long 
 ' time at anchor, and though two months have passed since 
 
 * the said Superintendent received our commands he has not 
 ' yet sent them away to their country. We fear he is unfit to 
 ' bear the designation of Superintendent. If he can willingly 
 ' subject himself to reproach on account of these receiving- 
 1 vessels how will he be able to answer to his king?' (China 
 Papers, 1840, p. 239.) To an ordinary mind the contention of 
 the Governor is unassailable, and we who now read it can only 
 blush to think that those who were responsible for the honour 
 of England abroad should in the first place have deserved, and 
 
14 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 in the second place done nothing to free themselves from, the 
 bitter reproaches which such a document contains. 
 
 Towards the end of the year preceding the arrival of Lin 
 at Canton the stringent measures of the Chinese, as we learn 
 from Captain Elliott, 'had produced a complete and very 
 ' hazardous change in the whole manner of conducting the 
 ' trade/ In other words, as the vigilance of the Chinese had 
 made it difficult for the opium dealers to obtain the services 
 of native smugglers, they were now obliged to employ Euro- 
 peans, who were (Fry, ' Facts and Evidences of the Opium 
 Trade/ p. 28) generally ' a set of desperate fellows who would 
 ' not stick at burning and destroying anything that might 
 ' prevent them from disposing of their opium/ Under these 
 circumstances one need not wonder at the anxiety of Captain 
 Elliott to hide these iniquities under the decent cloak of 
 legalisation. When however he advised that the Chinese 
 Government should be informed ' that her Majesty was without 
 ' the power to prevent or to regulate the traffic,' he can hardly 
 have considered the impression which such a confession of 
 English administrative impotence would be likely to make on 
 the Chinese government. 
 
 Though in January, 1839, Captain Elliott reported that 
 1 the stagnation of the trade may be said to have been nearly 
 ' complete for the last four months/ the ten British receiving- 
 ships still lay at Lintin with more than 20,000 chests of 
 opium on board, hoping for a favourable opportunity to dis- 
 pose of them. When therefore the Chinese Commissioner 
 arrived at Canton on March 10, these ships first claimed his 
 attention; and as repeated requests to the Superintendent to 
 send them away had merely produced renewed protestations 
 of his inability to do so, Lin was compelled to resort to 
 forcible measures to effect the object of his mission. Accord- 
 ingly, he at once issued an order to foreigners of all nations, 
 requiring them to deliver up all the opium in their store- 
 
ITS HISTORY. 15 
 
 ships. He also demanded from them a bond that for the 
 future they would altogether abstain from attempts to intro- 
 duce opium into the country. ' I have heard/ the edict con- 
 tinued, ' that you foreigners are used to attach great import- 
 
 * ance to the words " good faith." If, then, you will really do 
 ' as I have commanded, deliver up every particle of opium that 
 
 * is already here, and will stay its future introduction . . . the 
 4 past may be left unnoticed . . . you will continue to enjoy 
 4 the advantages of commercial intercourse, will be enabled 
 4 to acquire profits by an honest trade, and will you not indeed 
 ' stand in a most honourable position ? If however you 
 4 obstinately adhere to your folly, and refuse to awake : if 
 4 you think to make up a tale covering your illicit dealings, 
 ' and pretend that the merchants have nothing to do with it, 
 
 * ... it will be evident that you retain a spirit of contumacy, 
 . ' that you uphold vice and will not reform/ The cogent 
 
 logic and the forcible appeal of this edict must be apparent 
 even to those who are most prejudiced against the Chinese, 
 and if ' gain-seeking desires had not cauterised their souls/ 
 to use the biting words of the Governor of Canton, the opium 
 merchants themselves must have winced at some of its pas- 
 sages. Three days were allowed for obedience to the 
 edict, which was of course wholly ignored by the foreign 
 merchants. When they had elapsed, Lin surrounded the 
 foreign factories at Canton, and informed the inhabitants 
 that until the opium at Lintin was given up a strict blockade 
 would be maintained. At this juncture Captain Elliott 
 joined them, but though he planted the English flag on 
 the factories, he was not treated with more consideration 
 than the others. At length, in order to free himself and his 
 companions, he took upon himself the responsibility of 
 ordering the merchants to give up the opium to him for 
 delivery to the Chinese government, * holding himself re- 
 ' sponsible in the most free and unreserved manner for and 
 
]6 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 ' on behalf of Her Majesty's government to all and each of 
 ' Her Majesty's subjects surrendering the said British-owned 
 ' opium into his hands to be delivered over to the Chinese 
 ' government.' His orders were quickly obeyed, for the 
 opium merchants looked upon the transaction as a most 
 fortunate sale of unsaleable opium to the British government ; 
 and 20,285 chests an amount amply proving that the trade 
 was almost wholly confined to the British subjects were 
 duly surrendered, the blockade was raised, and the imprisoned 
 merchants liberated. Contrary to the confident anticipations 
 of the opium merchants, to whom such a proceeding was 
 inconceivable, the Emperor ordered the entire destruction 
 of the opium though valued at more than three million 
 sterling and his commands were faithfully carried out. In 
 the words (quoted in Fry, < Facts and Evidences,' p. 17) of an 
 eye-witness, ' the degree of care and fidelity with which the , 
 ' work of destruction was conducted far exceeded our ex- 
 ' pectations, and I cannot conceive how any business could 
 ' be more faithfully executed.' 
 
 In reviewing this crucial proceeding of the Chinese Com- 
 missioner, the crowning act of his policy, and the principal 
 cause of the war with England which immediately followed, 
 while it cannot be admitted with Captain Elliott that ( the 
 ' demand was an act of forcible spoliation of the very worst 
 ' description' (Ch. Papers, 1840, p. 389), it may be acknow- 
 ledged that it was hardly in accordance with the strict letter 
 of the law. The opium ships, being stationed in the ' outer 
 waters' of Canton, were technically beyond the jurisdiction 
 of the Chinese government, while the rough and ready mode 
 of imprisoning the whole of the foreign residents could only 
 be justified by extreme necessity. At the same time, it should 
 be remembered that legal technicalities have never main- 
 tained in similar crises the force or validity which at other 
 times they are supposed to possess, while the connection of 
 
ITS HISTORY. I/ 
 
 the whole foreign community with the prohibited traffic, and 
 the repeated failures of the Chinese authorities to obtain the 
 dismissal of the ships from the English Superintendent, 
 almost warrant us in holding, with an English judge (Sir 
 Edward Fry, ' England, China, and Opium/ p. 9), ' that the 
 1 demand of the Chinese government appears not to have 
 ' been unreasonable, or beyond the rights of a sovereign state 
 ' in defence of its own institutions, and for the protection of ' 
 ' its people from what it honestly believed to be a curse.' 
 
 The details of the war which ensued a war concerning 
 which public opinion has ratified the emphatic declaration of 
 Mr. Gladstone that justice was on the side of the Pagan not 
 the Christian need not be here related. Of course the 
 Chinese, though they made a gallant resistance, were utterly 
 defeated, and compelled to accept any terms of peace which 
 the English conquerors chose to dictate. These were em- 
 bodied in the Treaty of Nankin, signed in August 1842, the 
 main stipulations of which were the following : Five ports 
 Canton, Amoy, Foochovv, Ningpo, and Shanghai were to be 
 opened to British trade, and British goods were to be admitted 
 at a very moderate duty. The Chinese were to pay six 
 million dollars for the destroyed opium a stipulation hardly 
 consonant with another clause enacting, that ' if any smuggle 
 ' goods the goods will be liable to confiscation ' three million 
 dollars for debts due to British subjects by the Hong mer-. 
 chants, and twelve million dollars as a war indemnity. Hong 
 Kong was also to be ceded to England, 1 All these conditions 
 were duly carried out, but as the feeling at Canton was so 
 hostile to the English, the opening of that port was deferred 
 for the present. 
 
 In all these transactions the attitude of England is hardly 
 
 1 'For the purpose of careening and refitting ships/ a clause in- 
 serted to please the Emperor who contemplated nothing more in the 
 
1 8 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 one which can command our admiration. It may be allowed 
 that the arrogance and exclusiveness of the Chinese were very 
 galling to our national pride ; and the opinion of many excel- 
 lent authorities, that chastisement to enforce concessions and 
 more courteous treatment was inevitable, may be well founded. 
 At the same time it must be remembered that these methods 
 of dealing and communication, undignified though they were, 
 had been readily assented to by the East India Company, 
 and that the Chinese, with their imperfect knowledge of 
 European affairs and their stereotyped modes of action, could 
 hardly have been expected to change them hastily, or to 
 admit the favourite contention of Lord Palmerston as to the 
 indefeasible rights of a British subject. And further, it is at 
 least a disputed question how far one state is justified in 
 forcing another to enter into communication with it. In 
 private life the theory is, as we all know, entirely rejected, 
 and in international relations is at least not gaining ground. 
 Still, even if both these considerations be decided against the 
 Chinese, our obvious patronage of, or at least our failure to 
 prevent our own subjects from engaging in, the illicit traffic 
 in opium, which was certainly the primary cause of the war, 
 must count heavily in our disfavour. How much better, how 
 much, more 'worthy of the power and greatness of England, 
 ' would it have been had we used that power to put down the 
 1 opium traffic, as far as we were concerned, by suppressing 
 1 the cultivation of the drug in India, and preventing, as far as 
 ' possible, British subjects from selling it in the China seas. 
 ' Would not such a course have commanded the respect and 
 ' gratitude both of the government and of the people of 
 1 China ? ' Would it not have ' been lovely and of good report 
 ' among the nations -of the earth ' if we had cleared ourselves 
 from all participation in the unholy commerce, and had 
 assisted, instead of hindering, the Chinese government in its 
 honest endeavours to suppress what it at least believed to be 
 
ITS HISTORY. 19 
 
 a stupendous evil. Unhappily for our fair fame and for the 
 future of China the opportunity was missed, and no attempt 
 was made to deserve a more favourable estimation among the 
 Chinese than our shot and shell were able to procure for us. 
 But, cowed and defeated as the Chinese were, they altogether 
 refused to sanction the legalisation of opium, and though this 
 permission was an important point in his instructions, the 
 English representative was quite unable to obtain it. When 
 however the subject was raised in private conversation, the 
 Chinese Commissioner Keying anxiously asked why the 
 British would not assist the Chinese to suppress the trade ? 
 The English negotiator replied that the development of the 
 trade was chiefly due to the corruption of the Chinese offi- 
 cials, and to the inability of the Chinese government either 
 to suppress smuggling or to enforce their own edicts among 
 their own people : and that if the British did not satisfy the 
 craving of the Chinese people for the drug, other nations 
 would. Afterwards, in writing to the governor of Hong 
 Kong, Keying, the Chinese Commissioner, in reply to his 
 proposals for the legalisation of the drug, says (Ch. Papers, 
 1842-1856, p. 21): 'It would indeed be to the advantage 
 ' of the Chinese revenues if, as you observe, opium paid 
 ' duties like all legal articles, whereby smuggling would like- 
 ' wise be avoided. But whilst looking to benefit the customs, 
 ' and allowing foolish and ignorant people to use this article 
 ' so injurious to man, we should thus certainly put a value on 
 ' riches and slight men's lives.' But though the Chinese thus 
 steadily refused to legalise the trade, and fully retained the 
 right of confiscating it as contraband, they hardly dared to 
 exercise their power. The action of the British had made it 
 perfectly plain that they were at least not unfavourable to the 
 trade, and after their late experience the Chinese naturally 
 concluded that any interference with the opium smugglers 
 would only involve them in new difficulties with the British 
 
20 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 nation. The edicts against opium therefore were no longer 
 issued, and the laws against it, though not repealed, were 
 seldom or never enforced. Under these circumstances we 
 need not wonder that the traffic more than recovered from its. 
 momentary stagnation, and indeed grew apace. The opium 
 ships cruised up and down the coast, while the receiving 
 vessels anchored comfortably and openly in the near 
 neighbourhood of the treaty ports. Piracy and smuggling, 
 fostered by European intervention, surpassed all previous 
 limits, and to the scum of Oriental populations who had 
 always infested the Chinese waters were now added the refuse 
 of the European peoples. At Hong Kong, now made a free 
 port, the basest and most lawless of the Chinese congregated 
 in great numbers. Free from their own police, and under 
 a lax and careless administration, they obtained facilities 
 for their illegal trading which enabled them safely to defy 
 any preventive service which the Chinese government might 
 employ. By an arrangement, which now seems hardly 
 credible though it was a notorious fact, a colonial register, 
 carrying with it liberty to use the English flag and all its 
 unequalled privileges, was granted to any Chinese who resided 
 in the colony. As Sir John Bowring, the Governor of Hong 
 Kong, expressed it (Corresp. concerning Colonial Registers 
 at Hong Kong), 'a vessel no sooner obtains a register 
 1 than she escapes colonial jurisdiction, carries on her trade 
 ' within the waters of China, engages probably in every sort of 
 < fraudulent dealing, and may never again appear to render any 
 1 account of her proceedings or to be made responsible for 
 1 her illegal acts/ How a state of things so flagrantly dis- 
 honourable and so openly disgraceful to the British flag can 
 not only have been tolerated but actually encouraged is 
 almost unaccountable. Such a manifest abuse could hardly 
 fail to make our name stink in the nostrils of the people and 
 to cause sooner or later the rupture between the two nations, 
 
ITS HISTORY. 21 
 
 of which the boarding of the lorcha ' Arrow ' by command of 
 Commissioner Yeh in the Canton river on October 8th, 
 1856, was the immediate occasion. The stubborn contention 
 of Yeh that the vessel was Chinese and not British, a con- 
 tention of sufficient strength to obtain the assent of an English 
 Chancellor, and the indecent haste with which Sir John 
 Bowring, inspired by his ' monomania ' of entering Canton, 
 pressed on hostilities, are too well known to need recapitula- 
 tion. Nor need we linger over the incidents of the war, or 
 that supreme act of Vandalism, the burning of the Emperor's 
 Summer Palace at Pekin, further than to point out the result 
 of this force and violence on ' the obstinate morality ' of the 
 Chinese government. For our purpose the interest of the 
 whole scene centres in the supplementary agreement to the 
 treaty of Tientsin, which was concluded at Shanghai on the 
 8th of November, 1858, and in particular on the fifth Article of 
 that agreement. It is headed, ' Regarding certain commodities 
 ' heretofore contraband/ and is in the following terms : ' The 
 ' restrictions affecting trade in opium, cash, grain, pulse, 
 ' sulphur, brimstone, saltpetre, and spelter, are relaxed under 
 ' the following conditions : Opium will henceforth pay 30 
 ' taels per picul import duty. The importer will sell it only at 
 4 the port. It will be carried into the interior by Chinese only, 
 
 * and only as Chinese property ; the foreign trader will not be 
 ' allowed to accompany it. The provision of Article 9 of the 
 { Treaty of Tientsin, by which British subjects are authorised 
 ' to proceed into the interior with passports to trade, will not 
 ' extend to it ; nor will those of Article 28 of the same Treaty, 
 4 by which the transit dues are regulated ; the transit dues on 
 
 * it will be arranged as the Chinese Government see fit ; nor 
 ' in future revisions of the tariff is the same rule of revision to 
 ' be applied to opium as to other goods/ In the history of our 
 relations with China this clause is of the highest importance, 
 as it was the first occasion in which the Chinese Government 
 
22 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 legalised the trade in opium. While it is perfectly ' true that 
 ' Lord Elgin postponed the subject till the Supplementary 
 ' Treaty, because he could not reconcile it to his sense of right 
 1 to urge the Chinese Government to abandon its traditional 
 ' policy under the kind of pressure which he brought to bear 
 ' upon it at Tientsin;' and while it may also be perfectly true 
 that Messrs. Lay and Oliphant are correct in asserting (as they 
 are quoted in the recent despatch of the Indian Government), 
 that ' the Chinese Government admitted opium as a legal 
 6 article of import not under constraint, but of their free will 
 ' deliberately/ it can hardly be doubted that the pressure 
 which operated on the Imperial Government at Tientsin in 
 June, 1858, was also operating on them at Shanghai on the 
 8th of November in the same year. Lord Elgin tells us 
 (quoted in the Nonconformist for Nov. n, 1880), that the 
 Chinese and English Commissioners met at Shanghai to 
 discuss the different questions to be dealt with. One of these 
 was the legalisation of opium under duties. When it was 
 discussed, one of the Chinese Commissioners who had been 
 judge at Canton, ' admitted the necessity of a change. 
 ' China,' he said, ' still retains her objections, to the use of 
 ' the drug on moral grounds, but the present generation of 
 ' smokers at all events must and will have opium. To deter 
 ' the uninitiated from becoming smokers the Chinese would 
 ' propose a very high duty, but as opposition was naturally 
 ' (mark that !) to be expected from us (i. e. the British 
 ' Deputies), in that case it should be made as moderate as 
 ' possible.' Further proof of the unwillingness and reluctance 
 with which ' of their own free will deliberately ' they admitted 
 the hated drug may be found in the strange and unfriendly 
 restrictions with which the concession was surrounded. 
 Again, at the decennial revision of the tariff, as provided by 
 the Treaty, the earnestness with which they urged Sir Ruther- 
 ford Alcock to annul the stipulations respecting opium, form 
 
ITS HISTORY. 33 
 
 a strange and significant commentary on the f free will ' and 
 deliberation with which they are supposed to have admitted it 
 ten years before. Or, if this be denied, the only other alternative 
 must be that the ten years experience of the new system had 
 not increased the favour with which it was then regarded. 
 After repeated appeals to the British Minister, Prince Kung, u 
 the head of the Chinese Foreign Office, presented his views in ' 
 a statement ot such force, acuteness, and interest, that its quo- L 
 tatioa in full, as it appears among Sir Rutherford's Evidence c 
 before the East Indian Finance Committee in 1871, may 
 perhaps be excused. It runs as follows : 
 
 ' From Tsungli Yamen to Sir R. Alcock, July, 1869. The 
 ' writers have on several occasions, when conversing with 
 ' his Excellency the British Minister, referred to the opium 
 ' trade as being prejudicial to the general interests of com- 
 ' merce. The object of the treaties between our respective 
 'countries was to secure perpetual peace, but if effective 
 ' steps cannot be taken to remove an accumulating sense of 
 1 injury from the minds of men, it is to be feared that no 
 'policy can obviate sources of future trouble. Day and 
 1 night the writers are considering this question with a view 
 'to its solution, and the more they reflect upon it the 
 ' greater does their anxiety become ; and hereon they cannot 
 1 avoid addressing his Excellency very earnestly on the 
 . ' subject. That opium is like a deadly poison, that it is 
 ' most injurious to mankind, and a most serious provocative 
 ' of ill-feeling, is, the writers think, perfectly well-known to 
 'his Excellency, and it is therefore needless for them to 
 ' enlarge further on these points, The prince [the Prince of 
 ' Kung is the President of the Board] and his colleagues are 
 ' quite aware that the opium trade has long been condemned 
 ' by England as a nation, and that the right-minded merchant 
 ' scorns to have to do with it. But the officials and jpeogle 
 ' of this Empire, who cannot be so completely informed on 
 
24 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 1 thejsubject, all say that England trades in opium because 
 1 she desires to work China's ruin, for (say they) if the 
 
 * friendly feelings of England are genuine, since it is open to 
 1 her to produce and trade in everything else, would she still 
 ' insist on spreading the poison of this hurtful thing through 
 ' the Empire ? There are those who say, Stop the trade by 
 ' enforcing a vigorous prohibition against the use of the drug. 
 ' China has the right to do so, doubtless, and might be able 
 ' to effect it, but a strict enforcement of the prohibition 
 ' would necessitate the taking of many lives. Now, although 
 
 * the criminals' punishment would be of their own seeking, 
 { bystanders would not fail to say that it was the foreign 
 ' merchants who reduced them to their ruin by bringing the 
 ' drug, and it would be hard to prevent general and deep- 
 ' seated indignation ; such a course would indeed tend to 
 'arouse popular anger against the foreigner. There are 
 1 others again who suggest the removal of the prohibitions 
 ' against the cultivation of the poppy. They argue that as 
 ' there is no means of stopping the foreign (opium) trade, 
 ' there can be no harm as a temporary measure in with- 
 '' drawing the prohibition on its growth. We should thus 
 
 * not only deprive the foreign merchant of the main source 
 'of his profits, but should increase our revenue to boot. 
 ' The sovereign rights of China are indeed competent to 
 ' this. Such a course would be practicable, and indeed 
 ' the writers cannot say that as a last resource it will not 
 ' come to this : but they are most unwilling that such pro- 
 ' hibition should be removed, holding as they do that a right 
 ' system of government should appreciate the beneficence of 
 ' heaven, and (seek to) remove any grievances which afflict its 
 ' people, while to allow them to go on to destruction, though 
 ' an increase of revenue may result, will provoke the judg- 
 ' ment of heaven and the condemnation of men. Neither 
 'of the above plans indeed is satisfactory. If it be d. sired 
 
ITS HISTORY. 25 
 
 ' to remove the very root, and to stop the evil at its source, 
 ' nothing will be effective but a prohibition to be enforced 
 ' alike by both parties. Again, the Chinese merchant sup- 
 1 pjies^your country with hjgj^jlvtea and silk, conferring 
 ' thereby a benefit upon her, but the English merchant em- 
 1 poisons China with pestilent opium. Such conduct is un- 
 ^righteous. Who can justify it? What wonder if officials 
 'and people say that England is wilfully working out 
 ' China's ruin, and has no real friendly feeling for her ? 
 ' The wealth and generosity of England is spoken of by all. 
 ' She is anxious to prevent and anticipate all injury to her 
 1 commercial interest. How is it then she can hesitate to 
 ' remove an acknowledged evil ? Indeed, it cannot be that 
 ' England still holds to this evil business because she would 
 1 lose a little revenue were she to forfeit the cultivation of 
 ' the poppy ! The writers hope that his Excellency will 
 ' memorialise his Government to give orders in India, and 
 1 elsewhere, to substitute the cultivation of cereals or cotton. 
 1 Were both nations rigorously to prohibit the growth of the 
 1 P O PP) T both the traffic in, and the consumption of, opium 
 4 might be put an end to. To do away with so great an evil 
 ' would be a great virtue on England's part. She would 
 1 strengthen friendly relations and make herself illustrious. 
 ' How delightful to have so great an act transmitted to after 
 1 ages ! This matter is injurious to commercial interests in 
 ' no ordinary degree. If his Excellency the British Minister 
 
 * cannot, before it is too late, arrange a plan for a joint pro- 
 4 hibition (of the traffic), then, no matter with what earnest- 
 
 * ness the writers may plead, they may be unable to cause 
 < the people to put aside all ill-feeling, and so strengthen 
 1 friendly relations as to place them for ever beyond fear of 
 ' disturbance. Day and night, therefore, the writers give to 
 
 * this matter most earnest thought, and overpowering is the 
 1 distress it occasions them. Having thus presumed to 
 
25 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 ' unbosom themselves, they would feel honoured by his 
 ' Excellency's reply/ 
 
 Though naturally no satisfactory reply could be sent by 
 England to this appeal, yet Sir Rutherford Alcock was so 
 impressed with the sincerity of the views it expressed that he 
 visited Calcutta to consult the Governor-General and his 
 Council on the matter. In answer to their enquiries he 
 stated (Papers relating to the Opium Question, Appendix 4, 
 Addendum) that ' He had no doubt that the abhorrence 
 ' expressed by the Government and people of China for opium 
 'was genuine and deep-seated, and that he was quite con- 
 ( vinced that the Chinese government could, if it pleased, 
 ' carry out its threat of developing cultivation to any extent. 
 1 On the other hand, he believed that so strong was the popular 
 ' feeling on the subject, that if Great Britain would give up 
 1 the opium revenue, and suppress the cultivation in India, 
 ( the Chinese government would have no difficulty in sup- 
 ' pressing it in China except in the province of Yunnan, 
 ' where its authority is in abeyance.' 
 
 In 1869 Sir Rutherford negotiated a Commercial Con- 
 vention dealing, among other subjects, with the ' Likin ' tax 
 and with opium. The Chinese proposed to raise the duty on 
 the latter from thirty to fifty taels per chest. The opium 
 merchants in China however took alarm at the prospect of 
 losing their gains, which was threatened by the increased 
 duty, and accordingly they urgently requested the Liberal 
 government of the day to refuse the ratification. This course 
 Lord Granville, ' though not free from doubt,' unfortunately 
 decided to adopt. The Convention accordingly fell through, 
 and the points it arranged remained unsettled. To these 
 were presently added other difficulties, the long-standing ques- 
 tion of etiquette and the murder of Mr. Margary in Yunnan. 
 To settle these questions Sir Thomas Wade, Sir Rutherford's 
 successor, and our late representative at Pekin, arranged 
 
ITS HISTORY. 27 
 
 what is known as the Chefoo Convention, which was signed 
 on the 1 3th of September, 1876. Its main provisions were ' 
 three in number. First, the settlement of the Yunnan affair ; 
 secondly, concessions by the Chinese in the matter of official 
 intercourse ; thirdly, commercial facilities by the opening of 
 four new ports to British trade and British consuls. In re- 
 turn, a disputed question about the area of exemption from 
 the ' Likin ' tax was to be settled, and in the matter of opium 
 a special arrangement was made by which it was to be de- 
 posited in bonded warehouses, liable both to a tariff duty 
 and to the ' Likin ' of the port to be collected by the customs, 
 while the provincial governments were left free to decide the 
 amount of ' Likin ' to be collected upon its transit through 
 their jurisdictions. Though by the Treaty of Tientsin the 
 Chinese are at liberty to place any amount of duty on the 
 internal transit of opium, their power to levy very high duties 
 was really limited by the danger of smuggling between the 
 place of import and the place of taxation. Inasmuch as the 
 central authority in China is far from strong, while long years 
 of irregular trading has brought smuggling almost to perfec- 
 tion, the limit thus imposed on the government is consider- 
 able. But if the place of import and the place of taxation be 
 the same, the chances of smuggling are largely diminished, 
 and the practical power of taxation much increased. In fact, 
 as Lord Salisbury with cynical frankness put it in the House 
 of Lords, the arrangement enables the Chinese to prevent 
 smuggling, and thus they would have been able to raise their 
 own internal duties on opium. ' That/ to use his own words, 
 ' would be a result which practically would neutralize the 
 * policy which has hitherto been pursued by this country with 
 ' regard to that drug,' for, according to the Shanghai General 
 Chamber of Commerce, 'the Chinese will have it in their 
 c power to extinguish the India trade by the imposition of 
 1 heavy duties.' Happily, however, any further discussion 
 
28 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 of the long delay and inaction of our Government in this 
 matter is now unnecessary. The recent despatch of the 
 Indian Government, on the whole question of the relations 
 of the opium trade to the Government of India, expressly 
 states that no further objection on the part of the Indian 
 Government will be made to the ratification, and we may 
 hope that the matter will at last be set right, and England 
 released from the undignified and compromising position in 
 which she has been placed since the Convention was ne- 
 gotiated. 1 We may now, perhaps, anticipate the time when 
 our nation will walk still further in the path of righteousness, 
 and mete out to the Chinese that full justice for which she 
 has been waiting so long, and which she has not yet re- 
 ceived at our hands. Should this expectation be fulfilled, 
 there will be some reason to hope that the pages of the 
 future, in which our intercourse with this great people shall 
 be written, will be less disfigured by the dark records of 
 wrong, injustice, and oppression, than the history of our past 
 dealings with the Chinese nation. 
 
 1 It should be said that the Chinese i nmediately fulfilled all their 
 obligations under the Convention. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MORALITY OF THE TRAFFIC. 
 
 THE history of the trade in Opium as set forth in the 
 preceding pages shows that previously to the Treaty of 
 Tientsin it was carried on mainly by British subjects with 
 the support and protection of their government, in open 
 defiance of the rulers of China and in direct contravention of 
 the laws of that empire. Further, some reasons have been 
 produced for believing that the legalisation of the traffic in 
 1860 was obtained from the Chinese by the exercise of force> 
 against the conscience of the nation and the moral con- 
 victions of its most educated men, who were then, and still 
 remain, hostile to the traffic, and sincere in their wish, though 
 without the power, to suppress it. If the above facts are 
 correct, it must needs be a matter of extreme difficulty, if not 
 of absolute impossibility, to discover a standard of abstract 
 morality by which the action of the British traders and the British 
 Government can be justified. For the traffic must be con- 
 demned by the believer in Christian morality, the cardinal 
 principles of which teach him to do unto others as he 
 would have others do unto him, and offers him as his highest 
 attainable ideal the promotion of the glory of God, the realisa- 
 tion of God among men. It can find no favour with the 
 adherents of Utilitarian ethics, who hold that the greatest 
 happiness of their fellow-men is the primary object of life, 
 and who can find in its results to India and England no 
 
30 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 counterpoise to the misery it inflicts on the countless popu- 
 lations of China. Those also must denounce it and fear its 
 disastrous consequences who, with Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 recognise the absolute right of each man to full freedom of 
 action, provided always that it does not infringe the similar 
 freedom of other men : and who, believing that nature in- 
 variably exacts a stern retribution for the violation of her 
 eternal laws, see in each great catastrophe of history only the 
 consequence of human wrong-doing. 
 
 If then the traffic in opium be liable to such condemnation, 
 what can be said of the morality of the English Government 
 which has throughout carefully fostered and supported it, 
 and has by its superior force virtually compelled the Chinese 
 Government to give it, however reluctantly, the imprimatur of 
 legalisation ? Politicians of both parties in the state, those 
 who hold as their creed of political action the law of liberty 
 laid down by Mr. Mill, equally with those who accept the 
 law of compulsion propounded by Sir Fitz-James Stephen, 
 can find no warrant in those principles for their action 
 throughout the whole of this melancholy history. For it 
 manifestly conflicts with the * simple principle ' which Mr. 
 Mill enforces with so much eloquence, while it as obviously 
 lacks the essential condition on which alone Sir Fitz-James 
 Stephen rests his advocacy of compulsion. Did we live in 
 an age or in a country where definite principles were ac- 
 knowledged and followed wherever they might lead, this 
 Essay might be content with having pointed out the fatal 
 inconsistency between principles and practice involved in 
 the continued permission of this trade. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, we English pride ourselves on being a practical people, 
 and are content to relegate ' abstract principles ' which in- 
 volve * inconveniences ' to the planet Jupiter and other less 
 heavenly places. We are always ready to extenuate our 
 short -comings by urging that our standard of morality 
 
ITS MORALITY. 31 
 
 should be adapted to the state of our civilisation, and that 
 all considerations of abstract morality, such as have been 
 referred to above, imply a higher condition of society than 
 we have yet attained : and that, although we may perhaps 
 reach it at the millennium, yet it is but fair that those who 
 live in this nineteenth century should be satisfied with a 
 somewhat lower and more immediately attainable degree of 
 perfection. 
 
 But apart from such considerations it is not impossible 
 that, while our failure to comply with the dictates of morality 
 will be admitted, extenuating circumstances may be urged in 
 the hope of qualifying the rigid verdict of guilty by some 
 recommendation to mercy. If this be so, it is necessary to 
 inquire what these alleged circumstances may be, and to 
 ascertain the degree of weight which may be allowed to each 
 of them. It appears then that practically they are the 
 following : That, to use the words (quoted by Moule ' The 
 1 Opium. Question/ p. 43) of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson and 
 Company, the great opium merchants, 4 the use of opium is 
 ' not a curse but a comfort to the hard-working Chinese ; that 
 * to many scores of thousands it has been productive of 
 1 healthful sustentation and enjoyment.' Secondly, that the 
 Chinese people and the Chinese Government are not sincere 
 in their public declarations of the evils of opium : that the 
 continued ' oozing out of sycee silver ' (Lindsay, ' Is the War 
 ' in China a just one?' p. 29) was the real reason of their 
 hostility, and ' that public morality was only used as a mere 
 ' stalking-horse ' for less ingenuous considerations. Thirdly, 
 that the immense revenue annually accruing to the Indian 
 exchequer from the profits of the opium monopoly * has been 
 1 dispensed in keeping the peace of that vast country, in 
 1 developing its resources, improving its intercourse, ad- 
 1 ministering pure and careful justice, introducing reforms, 
 ' and educating the youthful population/ and that it produces 
 
32 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 these ample results without costing the Hindoos even the 
 collection of a tax. To the considerations already adduced 
 may perhaps be added another, that if India did not supply, 
 and Englishmen did not carry, opium to China, either other 
 nations would do so, or she would grow it herself, and that 
 ' if (to quote the last despatch from the Indian Government, 
 pp. 13, 14) 'the cultivation of the poppy in India was alto- 
 ' gether suppressed, the result would indeed be that a con- 
 ' nexion, which is by some regarded as involving a moral 
 1 stigma, would be terminated, but the cessation of opium 
 ' smoking in China would be as far off as ever. India would 
 1 suffer but China would not gain.' Such then are the 
 principal pleas urged in extenuation of the trade. Urged as 
 they are with weight and authority they deserve candid con- 
 sideration, and should they be well founded they will go far 
 to mitigate the condemnation which otherwise awaits our 
 conduct. 
 
 In order then, first, to deal with the arguments urged by 
 Messrs. Jardine, Matheson and ' o., it is necessary to inquire 
 into the real character of opium and its effects upon those 
 who use it. 
 
 Opium is the concrete juice of the poppy and has been 
 known from ancient times as a powerful narcotic. It is 
 obtained by making incisions in the green capsules of the 
 plant when nearly at maturity, from which it exudes as a 
 milky juice that thickens in the heat of the sun into a 
 brownish mass. This is scraped off the capsules and trans- 
 ferred to a little pot or ' chatty* carried under the arm. 
 When this is filled the contents are shifted to a shallow 
 brass dish which is kept for some time in a vertical position 
 that the vegetable moisture may drain away. These dishes 
 must be stirred every day that the opium may be dried 
 equally, which will usually take three or four weeks. The 
 opium is then placed in little earthen jars and taken to the 
 
ITS MORALITY. 33 
 
 government 'go down/ where it is tested, weighed, and 
 credited to the grower. The drug is then put in large 
 quantities into huge vats and mixed together according to 
 variety and value ; and by a delicate process it is manu- 
 factured into the t golis ' or balls known in commerce. This 
 part of the operation is carefully watched by government 
 overseers to ensure its quality being the same as that implied 
 by the government mark. When the drug thus prepared 
 reaches the Chinese consumer it is not fit for smoking, but 
 has to pass through several additional processes before it is 
 ready for the pipe. This usually consists of a tube of heavy ! 
 wood fitted at the head with a cup which serves to collect 
 the residuum or ashes which are left after combustion. The 
 opium smoker always lies down, and reclining on his couch 
 he holds his pipe, aptly termed by the Chinese * yen tsiang/ 
 i. e. the smoking pistol, so near the lamp that the bowl can 
 be brought up to it without his moving himself. A little 
 opium about the size of a pea is put into the hole of the pipe 
 and set on fire at the lamp, and the fume is inhaled at one 
 whiff that none of it may be lost. When the pipe has 
 burned out the smoker repeats the dose until he has used all 
 his purchase or taken his prescribed quantity. At the com- 
 mencement of the smoking the smoker becomes loquacious, 
 breaking out into boisterous and silly merriment, but this 
 gradually yields to a vacant paleness and a shrinking of the 
 features as the quantity increases and the narcotic acts. A 
 deep sleep supervenes of from half an hour to three or four 
 hours' duration, during which the pulse becomes slower, 
 softer, and smaller than before the debauch. This sleep 
 however is not refreshing, but a universal sinking of the 
 mental and bodily powers is experienced, and an active 
 desire for more is speedily created. Temperate smokers 
 endeavour to keep within bounds, and some who have strong 
 constitutions and still stronger resolutions continue the use of 
 
 D 
 
34 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 the drug within these limits for many years without disastrous 
 effects upon their health and spirits. But in the large 
 majority of cases moderation is impossible, as there is perhaps 
 no form of intemperance more seducing, and in most instances 
 the system when habituated to the drug demands a constantly 
 increasing dose. 
 
 Such being the nature of the drug, we have now to en- 
 quire whether it is as Messrs. Jardine, Matheson and Co. 
 allege, l abundantly clear that the use of opium is not a 
 1 curse, but a comfort and a benefit to the hard-working 
 i Chinese, and that to many scores of thousands it has been 
 ' productive of healthful sustentation and enjoyment.' As 
 the decision of this point, the alleged innocuousness of the 
 drug, is perhaps the most important in its practical bearing 
 on the question, it will be desirable to examine it with some 
 minuteness, and to investigate carefully the testimony which 
 can be adduced for and against the view above stated. The 
 only Chinese witness that can be found on this side of the 
 question is Heu Naetze, President of the Sacrificial Court, 
 and formerly Salt Commissioner and Judge at Canton, who, 
 in his Memorial to the Emperor in favour of the legalisation 
 of the opium trade about 1837 (Ch. Papers, 1840, pp. 156 
 seqq.), reminded his master that there are many harmless 
 luxuries which are deadly in the excess, but that because of 
 that excess it would be wrong to deprive the temperate of their 
 enjoyment, and therefore, he argues, legalise the opium 
 trade. Yet even he denounces opium smoking as a bad 
 practice : ' a path leading to the utter waste of time and 
 'destruction of property:' so that Messrs. Jardine and Co. 
 can hardly be said to have very much Chinese opinion in 
 their favour. The next witness however is much more 
 emphatic in their support. Sir Henry Pottinger, the English 
 representative in the negotiations for the treaty of Nankin, 
 after leaving China, wrote thus to the Chamber of Com- 
 
ITS MORALITY. 35 
 
 merce at Bombay : ' I now unhesitatingly declare that after 
 ' the most unbiased and careful observation, I have become 
 
 * convinced during my stay in China that the alleged de- 
 ' moralising and debasing effects of opium have been and are 
 
 * vastly exaggerated. It appears to me to be unattended 
 1 with a hundredth part of the debasement and misery which 
 ' may be seen in our native country from the lamentable use 
 
 * of ardent spirits ;' an opinion which he restates in similar 
 terms in a despatch to the home Government (in Opium 
 Papers, 1842-66, pp. 7, 8). Mr. Consul Gardner, writing 
 from Chefoo in his trade report for the year 1878, also bears 
 similar testimony, stating, ' That many individuals suffer in 
 
 4 health from excess is incontrovertible ... on the other hand, f | 
 1 it is equally incontrovertible that thousands of hard-working I I ^' 
 'people are indebted to opium smoking for the continuance] 
 ' of lives agreeable to themselves and useful to society/ Mr. ; 
 Scott, acting Consul at Kiung Chow, in his trade report for 
 the same year says : ' No one can strictly maintain that a 
 ' mild indulgence results in physical or mental debility. A 
 ' pipe of opium is to the Chinese workman what a glass of 
 ' beer is to the English labourer, a climatic necessity.' Mr. 
 C. A, Winchester, formerly Consul at Shanghai, in his 
 evidence before the East India Finance Committee in 1871, 
 said : ' I may say that being a medical man I was led to 
 ' the conclusion that there was a certain aptitude in the 
 ' stimulant to the circumstances of the Chinese. They 
 1 suffer greatly from febrile diseases, from diarrhoea and dys- 
 
 * entery, and in many cases, I presume that originally the 
 
 * habit of opium smoking was adopted in order to alleviate 
 ' the annoyances and physical pain attaching to that class of 
 ' diseases/ The strength of this testimony, which in any 
 case is not great, is much weakened when he goes on to 
 say, not only ' that there is no doubt that opium as a stimu- 
 1 lant is attended by many evils,' but actually that he ' would 
 
36 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 ' not recommend a man to smoke opium under any circum- 
 ' stances.' Passing now to medical witnesses, we find Dr. W. 
 W. Myers, of Tallow, stating (in the Report of the China 
 Imperial Maritime Customs for 1880-81, pp. 60 seqq.) : 
 ' Here, in Formosa, there is a class of men, including the 
 ' coolies, chairbearers, and couriers, who daily do an amount 
 * of work that is remarkable in its extent. These have for 
 ' years been in the habit of taking a certain quantity of opium 
 ' during the day, seldom or never varying it : and they assert 
 'that by so doing they at least attain a greater degree of 
 ' comfort in carrying on their labours : and, with very few 
 exceptions, I must admit that I have failed to obtain evi- 
 1 dence which would justify me in attributing any marked 
 ' harm to their habit. ... I do most conscientiously state 
 1 that, though I have met with instances in which the effects 
 1 have been most marked and deplorable, still when con- 
 1 sidered in numerical relation to the numbers who smoke 
 ' opium I have been struck with their paucity, and my pre- 
 ' conceived prejudices with reference to the universally bane- 
 1 ful effects of the drug have been severely skaken/ Dr. 
 Ayres, Colonial Surgeon at Hong Kong, the head-quarters of 
 the Opium Trade, states : ' My experience of it [opium 
 ' smoking] is that it may become a habit, but that the habit is 
 ' not necessarily an increasing one : nine out of twelve men 
 1 smoke a certain number of pipes a day, just as a tobacco 
 
 < smoker would, or as a wine or beer drinker might drink his 
 ' two or three glasses a day without desiring more. ... I do 
 
 < not wish to defend the practice of opium smoking, but in 
 ' the face of recent opinions and exaggerated statements in 
 ' respect to this vice, it is only right to record that no China 
 ' resident believes in the terrible frequency of the dull, sodden- 
 ' witted, debilitated opium smoker met with in print.' 
 
 The evidence of Dr. Eatwell, Opium Examiner in the 
 Bengal Service, is to the same effect : * As regards the effects 
 
ITS MORALITY. 37 
 
 1 of the habitual use of the drug on the mass of the people, 
 * I must affirm that no injurious results are visible. The 
 ' people generally are a muscular and well-formed race, the 
 1 labouring population being capable of great exertion under a 
 ' tierce sun, in an unhealthy climate.' 
 
 To these may be added two recent opinions which have 
 attracted some notice. Deputy- Surgeon-General Moore, of 
 the Indian Medical Service, has lately published in a small 
 volume the substance of some papers on the opium question, 
 contributed by him to an Indian Medical Journal. His views 
 were thus summarised by the Lancet of April 8, 1881 : 
 ' He regards the use of opium in China and other countries 
 ' as very comparable to the use of alcohol in this country. 
 ' . . . The Chinese take it, almost need it, he argues, on ac- 
 1 count of their poverty. It reduces waste of tissue, and 
 4 it gives a more pleasant aspect to a life of monotony ari'.l 
 'poverty. In excess it is undoubtedly injurious, but it is 
 'nof more so than alcohol taken in excess, and when not 
 ' taken in excess is not injurious/ The other authority, Sir 
 George Birdwood, M.D., Mate Professor of Materia Medica 
 ' and Curator of the Government Central Economic Museum, 
 ' Bombay,' in a lengthy letter to the Times of Dec. 6, 1881, 
 argues strongly in favour of 'the downright innocency of 
 ' opium- smoking . . . and that we are as free to introduce opium 
 ' into China, and to raise a revenue from it in India, as to 
 *' export our cotton, iron, or woollen manufactures into 
 ' France : ' he also affirms, that the smoking of opium cannot 
 be otherwise than harmless, as the active principles of opium 
 are non-volatisable, i.e. non-smokeable. This latter part of 
 his contention he has been compelled to surrender as un- 
 tenable, and contrary to the scientific facts of the case, and 
 his opinion is therefore deprived of one of its chief claims to 
 respect and attention. 
 
 To these testimonies may be added that of Mr. Fortune, 
 
38 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 the well-known Chinese traveller, who ' has no hesitation in 
 ' saying, that the number of persons w r ho use it has been very 
 'much exaggerated;' and also that of Mr. Colborne Baker 
 (quoted in the Appendix C. of the recently published despatch 
 of the Indian Government), who says that 'in Szechuen he 
 1 has never seen a case of opium intoxication ; and that in 
 ' that province, where opium cultivation has increased far 
 * beyond the proportion met with in other provinces, we find, 
 ' in flat contradiction to what we should have expected, that 
 1 indulgence in the drug has inflicted less injury here than 
 ' elsewhere/ Finally, the evidence here collected, which is 
 nearly all that can be found to corroborate the contention of 
 Messrs. Jardine, Matheson and Co., may be wound up by 
 the opinion of a writer in the Chinese Repository of De- 
 cember 10, 1836, who maintains that 'opium is a useful 
 ' soother, a harmless luxury, and a precious medicine, except 
 ' to those who abuse it. Many millions of the Chinese par- 
 ' ticipate in opium, using it as a rational and sociable article 
 ' of luxury and hospitality.' In a second letter, replying to 
 his opponents, he goes on further, and ' avers that opium 
 ' taken in moderation is a healthful and exhilarating luxury.' 
 
 Such then is the testimony, it is believed nearly the whole 
 testimony, that can be brought to substantiate the statement 
 in question. Though seldom given without qualifications 
 which often weaken its force, and not always by wholly un- 
 biased deponents, still it presents a fairly strong prima facie 
 case for argument which cannot be ignored. Taking it 
 moreover in connection with the fact that China, notwith- 
 standing the alleged injury done to her people through the 
 drug, manifests much recuperative power and shows but few 
 signs of decrepitude, those who maintain the contrary view, 
 that opium is a curse to China, and injurious to her people, 
 will have on their part to produce cogent arguments and 
 weighty evidence if they wish their contention to prevail. 
 
ITS MORALITY. 39 
 
 In the first place, however, they would point out as a 
 significant fact the almost entire absence of Chinese wit- 
 nesses from the case of the opium apologists. For they would 
 urge that in a matter of this kind the opinion of those who 
 consume the drug is of the highest importance. And this 
 argument they would strengthen by producing on their own 
 side an almost unanimous body of Chinese evidence. 
 Shortly before the arrival of Lin at Canton in 1839, the 
 governor of the province, in an address to the foreign traders 
 with reference to the traffic in opium, asks, 'what feud have 
 * the people of this country with you that you should be 
 ' willing to do them a mortal injury ? . . . The Emperor's 
 ' Special Commissioner may hourly be looked for. His 
 ' purpose is to cut off utterly the source of this noxious 
 ' abuse, to strip bare and root up this enormous evil/ In 
 a conversation with Sir Rutherford Alcock at Pekin in 
 May 1869, Wen-Seang, 'by far the most important man in 
 ' the government/ admitting that there might be some of the 
 literati imbued with a hostile feeling towards the foreigners, 
 asked, how could it be otherwise ? ' They had often seen 
 ' foreigners making war upon the country : and then, again, 
 ' how irreparable and continuous was the injury (not the 
 ' benefit) which they saw inflicted upon the whole empire by 
 ' the foreign importation of opium. . . . No doubt there was 
 ' a very strong feeling entertained by all the literati and 
 'gentry as to the frightful evils attending the smoking of 
 ' opium, its thoroughly demoralising effects, and the utter 
 ' ruin brought upon all who once give way to the vice. 
 'They believed the extension of this pernicious habit was 
 ' mainly due to the alacrity with which foreigners supplied 
 ' the poison for their own profit, frequently regardless of the 
 ' irreparable injury inflicted, and naturally they felt hostile to 
 ' all concerned in the traffic/ 
 
 The opinion expressed by the Chinese Foreign Board, in 
 
4O THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 the Memorial to Sir Rutherford Alcock, is to the same effect, 
 but having already been quoted it need not be again tran- 
 scribed. To these official Chinese testimonies may be added 
 that of a Chinese then resident in London (as given in the 
 Times of July 6, 1875), and the interest of the evidence may, 
 it is hoped, excuse the length of the quotation : ' I have not/ 
 he says, ' the least hesitation in at once recording my firm 
 'belief that so far from being harmless, it [opium] is poison- 
 1 ous. This is not my individual belief, for all my country - 
 ' men, whether opium smokers or not, believe it to be so, and 
 1 call it by that name. ... As a Chinese I can testify to the 
 
 * innumerable instances in which my poor countrymen have 
 ' been entirely ruined through the use of the poisonous drug. 
 * ... It has however been urged with some plausibility that 
 1 opium may be, and is, used in moderate quantities without 
 ' any ill effects ensuing. . . . Now, being a Chinese, from my 
 ' experience and personal observation gained by my coming 
 ' in contact daily with a large number of my friends and 
 ' relatives, who, I am sorry to say, are opium smokers, I 
 ' am enabled to say that such a conclusion is wrong .... 
 ' even the opium smokers admit that the use of opium, except 
 ' for medicinal purposes, is invariably more or less injurious, 
 < according to the physical constitution of the smoker. . . . 
 ' Show me one instance where a man had been adhering to 
 1 a fixed allowance of opium with which he had commenced 
 4 four years ago, 'and I will show you a hundred cases where 
 ' men began with a very moderate quantity but within ten years 
 
 * they increased their allowance to such an extent that they 
 ' were ruined. I hope I have said enough to show the evil 
 ' effects of opium, which every sensible man deplores. I 
 ' would not have dwelt so much upon a topic apparently so 
 ' clear had not an attempt been made in some quarters to 
 'prove the contrary/ 
 
 After making every deduction for Chinese insincerity, and 
 
ITS MORALITY. 41 
 
 for the semi-barbarous love of exaggeration which may 
 perhaps be charged against them, it may be submitted that 
 the evidence from them first tendered, both private and 
 official, points rather to the refutation than to the support of 
 the views on opium propounded by the opium merchants ; 
 and even, if this be disputed, that it is at any rate more 
 emphatic and influential than the solitary Chinese testimony 
 that can be produced on the other side. 
 
 But let us turn now from Chinese to English opinion. 
 The Directors of the East India Company early in the his- 
 tory of the traffic wrote to the Governor in Council in 
 Bengal as follows (Rep. 1831, on the affairs of the East 
 Ind. Co., App. p. 1 1) : ' We wish it at the same time to be 
 * clearly understood that our sanction is given to these mea- 
 ' sures [for supplying a quantity of opium for the internal 
 ' consumption of the country] not with a view to the revenue 
 ' which they may yield, but in the hope that they will tend to 
 1 restrain the use of this pernicious drug, and that the regu- 
 1 lations for the internal sale will be so framed as to prevent 
 ' its introduction into districts where it is not used, and to 
 ' limit its consumption in other places as nearly as possible 
 ' to what may be absolutely necessary. Were it possible to 
 ' prevent the use of the drug altogether we would gladly do ' 
 4 so in compassion to mankind.' To much the same effect 
 Mr. St. George Tucker, an eminent Indian merchant and 
 Chairman of the Directors, is quoted by Mr. Medhurst (Parl. 
 Papers, 1856, p. 82) as saying, 'If a revenue cannot be 
 1 drawn from such an article otherwise than by quadrupling 
 'the supply . . . no fiscal considerations can justify our in- 
 ' flicting on the Malays and Chinese so grievous an evil/ 
 
 The testimony of Mr. C. A. Bruce, Superintendent to the 
 British Indian Government of the tea plantations in Assam 
 (quoted in Fry, ' Facts and Evidences/ p. 33), is equally em- 
 phatic. He says : ' I might here observe that the British 
 
42 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 c Government would confer a lasting blessing on the Assamese 
 ' and the new settlers, if immediate and active measures were 
 ' taken to put down the cultivation of opium in Assam, and 
 ' afterwards to stop its importation by levying high duties on 
 
 * opium. If something of this kind is not done, and done 
 
 * quickly too, the thousands that are about to emigrate from 
 ' the plains into Assam will soon be infected with the opium 
 1 mania : that dreadful plague which has depopulated this 
 ' beautiful country, turned it into a land of wild beasts, and 
 ' has degenerated the Assamese from a fine race of people to 
 t the most abject, servile, crafty, and demoralised race in 
 
 * India. . . . Few but those who have resided long in this 
 'unhappy country know the dreadful and immoral effects 
 ' which the use of opium produces on the natives . . . Would 
 'it not be the highest of blessings if our humane and en- 
 ' lightened government would stop these evils with a single 
 ' dash of the pen, and save Assam from the dreadful results 
 'attendant on the habitual use of opium?' 
 
 The despatches of Captain Elliott to Lord Palmerston, 
 though full of passages condemning the trade, may perhaps 
 be objected to as referring rather to the manner in which 
 the traffic was then conducted, and not so much to the 
 inherent evil effects of the drug itself. But no such objection 
 can be urged against the testimony of Sir Thomas Wade or 
 Sir Rutherford Alcock, and we find the former thus replying 
 to the contention of Messrs. Jardine & Co. in his important 
 memorandum relative to the revision of the Treaty of Tient- 
 sin : ' I cannot endorse the opinion of Messrs. Jardine, 
 
 * Matheson and Co., " that the use of opium is not a curse, 
 1 but a comfort and a benefit to the hard-working Chinese/' 
 ' As in all cases of sweeping criticism, those who condemn 
 ' the opium trade may have been guilty of exaggeration. . . . 
 < It is impossible to deny that we bring them [the Chinese] 
 
 * that quality [of the drug] which, in the south at all events, 
 
ITS MORALITY. 43 
 
 1 tempts them the most and for which they pay dearest. It 
 ' is to me vain to think otherwise of the use of the drug in 
 1 China than as of a habit many times more pernicious, 
 ' nationally speaking, than the gin and whisky drinking which 
 ' we deplore at home. It takes possession more insidiously 
 ' and keeps its hold to the full as tenaciously. I know no 
 ' case of radical cure. It has ensured in every case within 
 1 my knowledge the steady descent, moral and physical, of the 
 ' smoker, and it is so far a greater mischief than drink, that it 
 ' does not by external evidence of its effect expose its victim 
 ' to the loss of repute which is the penalty of habitual 
 ' drunkenness.' 
 
 Sir Rutherford before the East India Finance Committee 
 in 1871 stated: 'I have no doubt that where there is a 
 ' great amount of evil there is always a certain danger of 
 ' exaggeration, but looking to the universality of the belief 
 ' among the Chinese that whenever a man takes to smoking 
 ' opium it will probably be the impoverishment and ruin of 
 ' his family, a popular feeling which is universal both among 
 ' those who are addicted to it, and who always consider 
 ' themselves moral criminals, and amongst those who abstain 
 ' from it and are merely endeavouring to prevent its con- 
 ' sumption, it is difficult not to conclude that what we hear of 
 ' it is essentially true, and that it is a source of impoverish- 
 ' ment and ruin to families.' It may perhaps be objected 
 that Sir Rutherford has lately changed his opinion on this 
 matter, and that therefore he is not here an authoritative 
 witness. It certainly is true that ten years' residence not in 
 China but in England has led him to adopt another view, 
 but as he is here mainly beaiing witness to acknowledged 
 facts, his authority is not greaily lessened. 
 
 Two more opinions of recent date may be added as 
 bringing the matter up to the present time. Of these perhaps 
 the incidental testimony of a distinguished opponent claims 
 
44 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 the first place. It is that of the Marquis of Harrington, 
 who in the last Opium Debate on June 4, 1881, argued 
 against the abolition of the Bengal monopoly on the ground 
 that our dominions in India would be flooded with cheap 
 opium ' to the demoralisation of our own subjects/ appa- 
 rently quite oblivious of the fact that the same objection 
 might be urged against the existing system on behalf of the 
 Chinese government. The second witness is Sir John Pope 
 Hennessy, Governor of Hong Kong, who at the late Social 
 Science Congress [in 1882] recognised in the opium trade a 
 case of state-created crime, and, after denouncing in strong- 
 terms the crime arising from the opium smuggling which has 
 its great focus in Hong Kong, went on to say : ' The British 
 ' officials in China and India, and the' opium merchants, are 
 ' constantly asserting that the slnoking of opium does not 
 ' injure the health of the Chinese, . . . but the real objection 
 1 of the governing classes and of the people of China to 
 1 opium has been hardly noticed rnamely, that it injures the 
 ' intellect and impairs the moral character. Such is the 
 ' objection that the Grand Secretary, Li Hung Chang, the 
 ' virtual Prime Minister of China, over and over again re- 
 
 * peated to me. ... I have constantly observed that whilst 
 
 * opium smoking may not injure the physique of some indi- 
 ' viduals, it invariably deteriorates the moral character and 
 1 increases crime. The crime arising from opium smoking 
 k it is not easy to repress. . . . The responsibility of creating 
 
 * and spreading such crime in a nation of 300,000,000, 
 ' against the earnestly expressed wishes of the Empress 
 1 Regent and her ministry, and indeed the wishes of the whole 
 1 literati of China, is a responsibility that I trust England 
 ' may soon be able to shake off/ 
 
 Next to these official testimonies may now be considered 
 the evidence of medical men who have not or have resided 
 in China. Among the first division prominence must be 
 
ITS MORALITY. 45 
 
 given to the opinion of Sir Benjamin Brodie, which was also 
 endorsed by twenty-four of our leading medical men. It 
 runs as follows : ' However valuable opium may be when, 
 1 taken as an article of medicine, it is impossible for any one 
 ' who is acquainted with the subject to doubt that its habitual 
 ' use is productive of the most pernicious consequences, 
 1 destroying the healthy action of the digestive organs, weak- 
 ' ening the powers of the mind as well as those of the body, 
 1 and rendering the individual who indulges in it a worse than 
 
 * useless member of society. I cannot but regard those who 
 ' promote the use of opium, as an article of luxury, as inflicting 
 ' a most serious injury on the human race.' B. C. Brodie. 
 
 Sir James Risdon Bennett declares that ' it is not the 
 ' less true that opium is a dangerous poison, and not the 
 
 * less pernicious because when taken habitually its action is 
 ' very insidious.' The testimony of those medical men who 
 have actually practised in China is, with the exceptions pre- 
 viously quoted on the other side, so almost unanimously against 
 the view of the opium merchants, that one or two only need 
 be placed in the witness-box. 
 
 Dr. Hobson, medical missionary at Canton, in a letter to 
 Sir John Bowring (Parl. Pap. on Opium, 1842-1856, p. 42), 
 says : ' I do not and cannot regard tfre use of opium by the 
 1 Chinese as a matter of little importance. I must pronounce 
 ' it a great and growing evil, the alleviation of which every 
 
 * true philanthropist must desire and rejoice to see/ 
 
 Dr. D. W. Osgood, an American medical missionary, says : 
 * After a residence of more than ten years in China, and 
 1 after treating about 50,000 Chinese patients, of whom 1758 
 ' were treated for opium smoking, I wish to record my 
 ' conviction that the use of opium is an unparalleled curse ; 
 ' that its effect in every instance is to diminish vitality and 
 i to shorten life. . . In time the smoker becomes emaciated, 
 ' and incapable of performing either continued mental or 
 
46 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 1 physical exertion. The Chinese themselves, after more 
 i than a century's experience and observation, universally 
 
 * condemn its use. Every rule has its exceptions, and 
 
 * occasionally we meet with those who have used opium for 
 
 * twenty or thirty years with but little apparent injury, but 
 ' they are the exceptions and not the rule.' 
 
 Dr. Dudgeon, of Pekin, says (Ch. Recorder, Jan. 1869, 
 p. 181, Feb. 1867, p. 204, quoted in Moule, ' Opium Ques- 
 ' tion,' p. 56) : l Opium is the most mischievous of all sub- 
 1 stances ever resorted to as a stimulant. It is externally 
 ' more decent than ardent spirits in its results. A casual 
 6 observer might walk through China, like Sir H. Pottinger, 
 
 * and see little or nothing of opium smoking. One requires 
 1 to come into contact with the people, either officially, 
 ' medically, or otherwise, to know the extent, strength, and 
 ' evil of the system/ 
 
 Dr. L. Porter Smith, late of Hankow, author of the Chinese 
 ' Materia Medica,' to conclude with his testimony, says : 
 ' I wish to place on record that after an intimate acquaint- 
 
 * ance with the people, the literature, the language, and the 
 ' commerce of the large provinces of Central China, I am 
 ' compelled to describe the infatuation, the miserable satu- 
 1 ration of the country, the " change of type " of the character 
 ' of the nation, and the miseries wrought upon individual 
 ; habit, constitution, temper, and future, all exhibited in the 
 ' course and consequences of the vice of opium smoking in 
 ' China, as forming a unique instance of national lunacy and 
 1 suicide. No epidemic possession of any people or sects 
 1 reads in such terrible details as are afforded by the simple 
 ' story of this horror. At the same time I protest against 
 ' gratuitous exaggeration being imported into the question, 
 ' now able to take care of itself.' 
 
 Between these medical testimonies and the few which 
 have been quoted in favour of the opium trade, there cer- 
 
ITS MORALITY. 47 
 
 tainly is some conflict. But if weight of authority and a 
 numerical majority be allowed in such a case to turn the 
 scale, there can be no doubt as to which side it will incline. 
 Those who refuse to admit this course can only explain the 
 inconsistency by admitting that the evil effects of opium, as 
 of most other things, appear in different lights to different 
 observers, and they must at least admit that the opinions of 
 those who would minimise the evils are not expressed with 
 the same confidence, and do not wear the same air of candour 
 and truth, as the forcible statements of their opponents. 
 
 But if the position of Messrs, Jardine and Co. is almost want- 
 ing in Chinese and weak in medical support, is it not a sugges- 
 tive fact that they have not strengthened it by the testimony of 
 the many missionaries now working in China, whose evidence 
 should, prima facie , carry much more than ordinary weight? 
 And this for several reasons. The pursuit of their sacred call- 
 ing necessarily gives them an intimate knowledge of, and brings 
 them into unusually close connection with, the people among 
 whom they sojourn. It cannot but afford them special oppor- 
 tunities of observing the daily life of the Chinese in their homes 
 and families, and in many ways enable them to form a more 
 accurate judgment, as to the inner life of the nation and the 
 habits of the people, than persons in a more official position. 
 Their profession, moreover, vouches for the truth of their 
 statements, and while it enjoins them to promote everything 
 that may tend to increase the morality, welfare, and godliness 
 of the people, it equally orders them to denounce without 
 fear or favour any proceedings likely to have the contrary 
 effect. And further, as they are of the same nationality as 
 the opium merchants, they cannot help wishing to place the 
 conduct of their fellow-countrymen in the most favourable 
 light possible. Consequently when we find the evidence of 
 this important body of witnesses absolutely unanimous in 
 condemning the practice of opium smoking as an unmitigated 
 
48 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 evil, positively and very extensively injurious to the Chinese, 
 we are bound, even if we had hitherto been convinced of its 
 truth, to pause before we assert, with Messrs. Jardine and Co., 
 the benefits of the drug. Where testimony is so unanimous, 
 to quote from one is to quote the opinions of all. Dr. 
 Williamson, a well-known missionary and traveller in China 
 for the past ten years, states (North China Daily News, 
 Nov. 28, 1873, quoted by Moule, p. 59), that in his opinion 
 ' opium without controversy does undermine the health, sap- 
 ' ping the physical strength and blighting the moral sense of 
 ' several tens of millions, to speak within the mark, in this 
 ' country.' 
 
 With this we bring the case to an end, and await the 
 verdict of our readers on the question at issue. Those, it is 
 believed, who have carefully followed the testimonies on both 
 sides will have little hesitation in concluding that, while there 
 are undoubtedly instances in which the effects are not im- 
 mediately or perceptibly injurious, still in the majority of 
 cases the evil results cannot be gainsaid. Nor can they con- 
 tend that, when the acknowledged evils of the drug are great 
 and widespread, the few instances in which it is compara- 
 tively innocuous are sufficient to excuse the English govern- 
 ment in its continued protection of the trade, or that the hostile 
 attitude of the Chinese government is not amply justified. 
 
 This may introduce the second plea, which some would 
 urge in extenuation, namely, that the Chinese have not been 
 sincere in their prohibitory policy, and that in 1839 they 
 wished to stay the ' oozing out of sycee silver ' rather than to 
 preserve the morality of their people. 
 
 And here it must be conceded at the outset that the prima 
 
 facie evidence for this contention is strong, nor can it be 
 
 maintained that the Chinese government are free from blame 
 
 in this matter. At the same time careful examination will 
 
 perhaps show that their shortcomings have been much more 
 
ITS MORALITY. 49 
 
 their misfortune than their fault, and calm consideration will 
 make it pretty clear that so far from being a palliation it is 
 rather an aggravation of our misdoings in the matter. The 
 contention of Chinese insincerity is chiefly founded on two 
 distinct features in their action towards the opium trade. 
 First, the lax and utterly futile manner in which the stringent 
 edicts of the Chinese government were not enforced pre- 
 viously to the Treaty of Tientsin ; second, the extent to which 
 of late years the growth and cultivation of opium in China 
 has been connived at, if not actually encouraged. It certainly 
 was an open and notorious fact that, previously to the years 
 1836 and 1837, while Imperial edicts were continually issued 
 prohibiting the trade, the Chinese ' extortionate underlings ' 
 undisguisedly and shamelessly connived at their infraction, 
 and readily accepted the bribes which were offered to them 
 by the opium smugglers. To some extent indeed they quite 
 justified the statements openly made, ' that opium, though 
 ' contraband, paid its fixed fees with the same regularity 
 'as other articles paid their duties' (Lindsay, 'Is the 
 War with China Just?'); that all, even the highest func- 
 tionaries, not only connived at, but participated in the 
 profits of, the trade ; that ' it was a notorious fact that the 
 1 appointments at Canton were considered to be the most 
 ' lucrative in the whole empire, mainly on account of the 
 1 of)ium trade, and that the Hoppo at Canton was usually a 
 ' member of the Imperial house sent to Canton to reap his 
 ' share of the golden harvest/ In addition to these disgrace- 
 ful proceedings of the Chinese officials, it was also remarked 
 as a curious coincidence that the commencement of vigorous 
 proceedings against the importation and sale of the drug, 
 coincided with the time when the balance of trade went 
 against the Chinese, and thus necessitated a continued drain 
 of sycee silver. Prima facie the Chinese authorities here ap- 
 pear to be on the horns of a dilemma. If the trade was as 
 
 
 
50 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 they maintained harmful and injurious, they must be con- 
 victed of encouraging it for the sake of the dishonest gains to 
 be made from it ; if the trade was innocuous in its effects, they 
 must be equally found guilty of using morality as a mere pre- 
 text to call off attention from their other evil practices. In 
 either case they must forfeit all claim on our sympathy. 
 
 When however the matter is scrutinised it appears in rather 
 a different light. We then find that a strong line of distinc- 
 tion must be drawn between the action of the Imperial 
 government and that of the provincial authorities and the 
 minor officials who in China habitually ignore the orders of 
 the supreme government as far as possible. But the extreme 
 venality and readiness for corruption was no doubt largely 
 due to that inherent defect of Chinese administration the 
 practice which universally prevails of paying officials insuf- 
 ficient salary. Such a system of executive arrangement 
 would seriously hamper the efforts of any government. But 
 in China, where the bonds of morality are often relaxed, and 
 the decentralisation of the administrative system extreme, 
 such a state of things was fraught with the most dangerous 
 and fatal consequences. And to make matters worse, the 
 years which witnessed this development of the opium trade 
 were unfortunately years in which the Imperial authority was 
 much weakened by other causes. For the successors of the 
 able Emperor Kien-Lung were weak and feeble, and allowed 
 the glory of the house to pass away and grow dim. Kea- 
 King, his son and successor, was a worthless prince, wholly 
 incapable of grappling with the evils of the situation. Tau 
 Kwang, who succeeded Kea-King, though better than his 
 father, was a man of but moderate ability, lacking that force 
 of character and energy which alone could carry out the 
 reform of the administration, and the other vital changes 
 necessary for the extinction of the traffic. Still his earnest 
 attempt to extinguish it in 1839 must at least be set down to 
 
ITS MORALITY. 5 1 
 
 his credit, while his continued refusal to legalise the trade in 
 spite of the pressure of England, together with the destruc- 
 tion of the 3,000,000 sterling by Commissioner Lin, at least 
 make doubtful his alleged insincerity. These considerations 
 will probably supply many minds with some reasons for a 
 less harsh verdict on the Chinese inaction before the opium 
 war of 1839. Nor can the fact that we incited the Chinese 
 officials to a dishonest neglect of their own laws, and cor- 
 rupted them by the lavish bribes that we found it profitable 
 to give, any more palliate our moral guilt than, to use Sir 
 Wilfrid Lawson's simile, the co-operation of a dishonest foot- 
 man can exonerate a housebreaker from the crime of bur- 
 glary. For the impotence and inactivity of the Chinese after 
 the war we are surely chiefly responsible. When we saw the 
 Chinese had at length determined to crush the baneful traffic, 
 our ignoble and unmanly protection of the trade, and the 
 violence with which we chastised the honest action of the 
 Chinese, evidently cowed them. Our shot and shell made it 
 pretty clear that England was determined to take the traffic 
 under the segis of her protection, and the Chinese drew the 
 natural inference that any new attempt to put it d(5wn would 
 only result in new complications and a renewed collision with 
 the foreigners a contingency which, like the burnt child, 
 they feared to experience a second time. But that the ruling 
 spirits of the Empire had not faltered in their opinion with 
 regard to the evils of the trade is apparent from their obsti- 
 nate refusal to legalise it, ' to place a value on riches, and to 
 slight men's lives,' in spite of the repeated and pressing 
 ' representations ' of the British residents. 
 
 Into the exact attitude of the Chinese towards the trade at 
 the negotiations which resulted in its legalistion at Shanghai 
 in November, 1858, or into the precise degree of direct or 
 indirect compulsion exerted by the British guns or the British 
 negotiators, it is unnecessary to enter. For, in spite of the 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 strange contention emphasised by the Indian Government 
 in their latest despatch, ' that Indian opium was neither forced 
 ' upon the Chinese at the time the Treaty of Tientsin was 
 ' concluded, nor was it forced upon them now/ it is impossible 
 to ignore the testimony to the contrary of Sir Thomas Wade, 
 whose knowledge of the matter must necessarily be more 
 accurate than that at the disposal of the Indian Council. Sir 
 Thomas Wade asserts (in his Memorandum on the revision 
 of the Treaty of Tientsin) that ' the concessions made to us 
 ' have from first to last been extorted against the conscience of 
 ' the nation ; in defiance, that is to say, of the moral convictions 
 ' of its educated men ... of the millions who are saturated 
 'with a knowledge of the history and philosophy of their 
 ' country ; ' a testimony which is most amply confirmed by 
 Sir Rutherford Alcock in his evidence before the East India 
 Finance Committee of 1871. The fact that the Chinese 
 Commissioners, almost in the presence of our guns, at any 
 rate with the echoes still ringing in their ears, made no 
 objection to the admission of the drug into the legal tariff, if 
 indeed they did not actually propose its insertion, can carry but 
 little weight against such evidence. As however it is the only 
 argument that can be produced in support of their contention, 
 it is perhaps hardly surprising that the Government of India 
 consider it l a conclusive answer to the charge that the clause 
 ' of the Tientsin Treaty under which opium was admitted into 
 ' China was extorted from the Chinese/ Since that time, 
 though the trade has been on a legal footing, we do not find 
 that its new status commends it much more to the favourable 
 notice of Chinese statesmen. The national conscience of 
 England, if indeed in this matter she can be said to have any 
 conscience at all, may perhaps have been quieted by the cloak 
 of law and order that 'has been thrown over the conspicuous 
 mischiefs of the trade, but the Chinese rulers are as anxious as 
 ever to check its importation. At the revision of the Treaty 
 
ITS MORALITY. 53 
 
 of Tientsin in 1869 they so earnestly requested an increase 
 in the prescribed duty that Sir Rutherford Alcock adopted 
 their view and arranged for a higher duty. The English 
 Government, however, ' though not free from doubt/ declined 
 to ratify the proposal, and it consequently fell through. Again, 
 in the Convention of Chefoo, which, though concluded six 
 years ago, is still (October, 1882) unratified, arrangements 
 calculated to hinder the importation and to check the 
 smuggling of the drug were the main compensation they 
 required for increased commercial' privileges and other con- 
 cessions yielded in that agreement. Nor is the clause in the 
 treaty between America and China, which prohibits the 
 import of opium under the American flag, a ' mere piece of 
 hypocrisy/ but it plainly shows the direction in which Chinese 
 official opinion concerning the trade is still tending. Finally, 
 attention may be directed to a letter from Li Hung Chang, 
 the Grand Secretary and Viceroy of China, which appeared 
 in the Times of July 29th, 1881, and is quoted on p. n 
 (note) of the recent Indian despatch. He there states : ' I 
 ' may assert here, once for all, that the single aim of my 
 1 government in taxing opium will be in the future, as in the 
 ' past, to repress the traffic . . . never the desire to gain 
 ' revenue from such a source. If it be thought that China 
 ' countenances the import from the revenue it brings, it should 
 ' be known that my government will gladly cut off all such 
 ' revenue in order to stop the import of opium/ To some 
 people, however, this avowed hostility to the opium traffic is 
 hardly consistent with the extended growth and cultivation of 
 opium in China, a practice which, if not encouraged, at least 
 is not hindered by the authorities. The extent of the incon- 
 sistency, however, is more apparent than real. In the first 
 place, by far the largest cultivation is carried on in the three 
 provinces, Yunnan, Szechuen, and Manchuria, which are most 
 distant from the centre of government, and where the 
 
54 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 executive has the least authority and influence. In the same 
 direction the observations of the Indian Government in the 
 recent despatch (p. n), stating that there is a constant 
 struggle going on between the imperial and provincial govern- 
 ments, would seem to point and to strengthen the inference 
 that the admitted extension of the opium cultivation is due 
 less to the imperial than to the subordinate authorities. Nor 
 is it wholly improbable that the action complained of is to 
 some extent due to a desire to benefit the people of China. 
 For there is no small testimony that' the native article is less 
 mischievous in its effects than the Indian drug, and therefore 
 if the Chinese, as is so persistently asserted, ' must have opium/ 
 it is at least probable that the authorities prefer the consump- 
 tion of the native drug instead of the Indian varieties. It is 
 also quite open to Chinese statesmen to devise, if possible, a 
 control over the trade ; an object which can only be obtained 
 by driving the Indian drug out of the market by an increased 
 supply of the home production; while the most obvious 
 worldly wisdom may perhaps by this time have taught the 
 Chinese to prefer being poisoned for their own benefit to 
 being poisoned for the benefit of any one else. If then either 
 of these considerations are at all operative on the Chinese, we 
 can only admit to our sorrow that in the same degree we are 
 responsible for the impetus which has lately been given to the 
 cultivation of the poppy in China. 
 
 On these two points then, by far the most important of 
 those which may be urged as some excuse for our own con- 
 duct, the defence attempted would seem not only to have 
 wholly failed, but to have proved actually an aggravation of 
 our injustice and wrongdoing. 
 
 The two other points raised hardly require so complete or 
 so lengthy a discussion, for their inherent insufficiency is ap- 
 parent upon the least examination. The argument that we 
 have made a good use of the revenues thus unjustly obtained, 
 
ITS MORALITY. 55 
 
 or the contention that the millions we have raised by pan- 
 dering to the ' vicious luxury ' of a distant people have been 
 nobly dispensed in keeping the peace of India, in developing 
 its resources, in introducing reforms, and educating the youth- 
 ful population, is wholly beside the question at issue. In 
 ordinary life it is no valid answer to a charge of forgery or 
 embezzlement to plead that the funds so obtained have been 
 applied to useful or benevolent purposes. Nor can we admit 
 that the transactions of nations, and their dealings one to- 
 wards another, may be judged by a lower standard than we 
 recognise in our every-day life among each other, nor can 
 the improvement of India at the expense of the moral and 
 material welfare of China in any degree deserve our appro- 
 bation, or reflect any credit on those who are responsible for 
 such a policy. 
 
 The remaining plea of those who would place the most 
 favourable construction on our conduct may be dismissed 
 with equally scant consideration; for it is the old argument 
 of all who have traded on the vices and weaknesses of their 
 fellow-men. There is no use, they say, in India giving up 
 the traffic : the appetite exists, and if India did not supply its 
 gratification, either other nations, Persia or the Portuguese, 
 or the Chinese empire itself, would continue the supply, and 
 China thus would not be bene fitted, whilst we should lose our 
 millions of the opium revenue. But, in the first place, the 
 allegation may be disputed, at least if England retired from 
 the evil business as she ought, and not only ceased herself, 
 but helped China in her attempts to prevent other nations 
 occupying the vacant place. At any rate the experiment 
 might at least be tried, and under proper conditions, the 
 chances of a successful issue are at least equal to the pro- 
 babilities of the contrary result. But however this may be, 
 such a defence in all questions of morality can carry no 
 weight ; and whatever its value from a mere financial point of 
 
56 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 view, when urged from a moral standpoint, its validity cannot 
 for an instant be admitted, ' in any forum whatsoever of law or 
 of conscience/ 
 
 But if the case for the defence has thus broken down on 
 all points, and no sufficient cause has been shown why the 
 condemnation incurred by a violation of the abstract prin- 
 ciples of morality should not be fully pronounced against us, 
 what shall we have to say in answer to those who, after 
 examining the moral characteristics of the Chinese people, 
 find in them an additional and special reason for arraigning 
 our conduct in this matter? The Chinese people are, it is 
 alleged, ' the very people to coerce, or to seduce whom should 
 ' seem a wrong of the deepest dye/ And for this reason. 
 They are, it is said, among all the nations of the earth 
 a people in whom, speaking generally, the sentiments of 
 morality and the powers of self-control are the weakest and 
 most uncertain. In them the animal and sensuous elements 
 of their nature are most fully developed, while their relish of 
 momentary and immediate pleasures is particularly keen and 
 regardless of after consequences, a combination of character- 
 istics which renders them specially liable to, and unable to 
 resist, any temptation that may be presented to them. More- 
 over, it is urged, they lack in a marked degree strength of 
 character and vigour of purpose, while at the same time 
 the dictates and obligations of religion exert but a loose and 
 inadequate control over their thoughts and actions. If this is 
 true of their national characteristics, and at least the history 
 of the trade and the testimonies of those acquainted with 
 China and her people present nothing to the contrary, surely 
 our wrong-doing must appear, if possible, still less defensible. 
 For if it be admittedly a crime more heinous in degree to im- 
 pose upon the weakness of a child and to entice him astray 
 into the paths of wickedness, than it is to persuade a full- 
 grown man possessing all his faculties to join in some wrong- 
 
ITS MORALITY. 57 
 
 ful act surely it must on the same reasoning be wicked in 
 an. increased degree for a nation great and powerful as our 
 own thus to take advantage of the weakness or the vice of 
 a people whose feebleness and ignorance ought rather to have 
 received our care and protection, than to have furnished us 
 with an occasion for oppression and wrong. And if this 
 contention is valid as regards the Chinese people, it possesses 
 an added force when used in reference to our conduct to- 
 wards the Chinese government. The special weaknesses of 
 the Chinese character might have escaped our knowledge; 
 the peculiar impotence of the Chinese executive, owing to the 
 extreme venality of its subordinates, could not possibly have 
 been unnoticed. On the contrary, the ready corruptibility of 
 the minor Chinese officials was from the first a patent and un- 
 disputed fact, and it is equally indisputable that from the first 
 we encouraged it, and determined to make use of it to the 
 utmost for the express purpose of pushing the sale of our wares. 
 Instead of co-operating with the Chinese authorities in their 
 attempts to cope with the evil, as the dictates of a generous 
 policy, to say nothing of morality, would have enjoined, we 
 ostentatiously ranged ourselves on the side of the evil-doers, 
 supported them with our ships, and threw over them the 
 aegis of the British flag. Nay more, after thus making the 
 suppression of smuggling, which at first was only difficult, 
 practically impossible, we have had the assurance to reproach 
 the government with the failure of their preventive service. 
 Even to-day the Indian Government requires from the 
 Chinese authorities ' satisfactory evidence of their ability to 
 ' execute any fiscal laws they may promulgate' i.e. to put 
 down smuggling before it is even prepared to consider any 
 proposal that the Chinese may make for the increase of 
 their import duties. When such has been, and practically 
 still is, our conduct to China in this important part of our 
 dealings with her ; when we cannot disclaim complicity with 
 
58 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 desperadoes engaged in violating the decrees of their own 
 government, or deny a forcible interference to protect them 
 from the consequences of their illegal actions, it must be 
 completely futile to argue in defence of our conduct from any 
 moral considerations. For to sum up, the case against us 
 stands as follows : We have admittedly transgressed the 
 cardinal principles of morality as they are commonly under- 
 stood between man and man, between nation and nation. 
 The several pleas we have urged as affording if not some 
 justification at least some excuse and palliation of our con- 
 duct, though possessing a prima facie plausibility and some 
 apparent force, have yet proved on further examination to be 
 unsupported by facts and deficient in cogency. Finally, 
 in one important particular, aggravating circumstances have 
 been brought forward against us, the relevance of which we 
 are unable to dispute, and the truth of which we are, unfor- 
 tunately for our fair fame and national reputation, unable to 
 disprove or to rebut. 
 
 Such in brief is the conclusion which an examination of 
 the question in its moral bearings compels us to accept. 
 For the honour of England, for the good name of our 
 countrymen, it were greatly to be wished that a different 
 decision were possible. But the facts are too clear and the 
 deductions from them too unassailable indeed they have 
 virtually proved too strong for the able apologist of our 
 policy who has recently stated the case on behalf of the 
 government of India in the important despatch which has 
 already been referred to. Even he is compelled to admit 
 that nothing can be urged against the abstract principles laid 
 down by Mr. Pease in his speech in Parliament on June 4th, 
 1880, when 'he declined to judge our transactions with the 
 ' Chinese in reference to this matter by the low standard 
 ' of the financial wants of the East Indian Government/ and 
 asserted that ' as a Christian nation we must deal with this 
 
ITS MORALITY. 59 
 
 ' question on certain laws laid down by that Gospel in which 
 * almost every one in the country believed, by the high moral 
 1 law, and by the international law which was observed among 
 'civilised nations/ But, while admitting the unassailable 
 strength of this position, the despatch goes on to say : ' The 
 'difficulties of the problem have to be fairly faced. The 
 ' hard facts of the case, whether from the Chinese or the 
 ' Indian point of view, have to be borne in mind. These 
 ' facts can neither be altered, nor can their significance be 
 'attenuated by any enunciation of abstract principles/ Is 
 not this a convenient periphrasis for asserting that in the 
 present case the defence on moral grounds cannot be main- 
 tained, that the great principles of right and wrong must 
 yield to the considerations of practical expediency ? In ' other 
 ' words, that in this matter the claims of Christian morality 
 ' and international equity must be set aside in the interests of 
 ' the Indian revenue/ 
 
 Merely to protest against such a contention would in this 
 age be a hardly sufficient answer. For though public opinion 
 has of late years made considerable advance in its conceptions 
 of moral questions, still it has not yet been educated suffi- 
 ciently to act on the abstract belief that 
 
 4 To do the right because it is the right 
 'Is noble in the scorn of consequence,' 
 
 or to refuse an immoral advantage simply and solely on 
 account of its immorality. It is therefore necessary to show, 
 if possible, that a course of policy which is admittedly incon- 
 sistent with the principles of morality and the rules of right 
 conduct has been and still is contrary to practical expediency ; 
 that it is unjustifiable on the very grounds on which alone its 
 defence can be attempted. The difficulties in the way of 
 entering on a new course of policy are naturally consider- 
 able and complicated the more so by reason of our long 
 
60 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 persistence in wrong-doing. Still it is hoped that they can 
 be shown to be not insurmountable, and that the satisfactory 
 settlement of this vexed question is not so far out of the 
 region of practical politics as the Government of India 
 apparently would have us believe. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EXPEDIENCY OF THE TRAFFIC. 
 
 ANY discussion of the comparative expediency or inex- 
 pediency of our connection with the Opium Traffic obviously 
 divides itself into two distinct parts (i) as regards our Indian 
 Empire, (2) as it affects or has affected our commercial 
 intercourse and our political relations with China and the 
 Chinese. Further, each of these divisions will naturally 
 include an enquiry into its results in the past, and, perhaps 
 more particularly for our purpose, an estimate of the effects 
 which may be expected to result from its working in the 
 future. 
 
 First, then, with regard to its past influence on our Indian 
 empire. Viewing it retrospectively, it must be confessed that 
 hitherto our connection with this traffic, a traffic apparently 
 so unholy and immoral, so far from bringing down curses on 
 our Indian empire, would rather appear to have altogether 
 blessed it. Its results have been financially magnificent. The 
 revenue it provides for India has grown from one and a half 
 millions in 1840 to an average of " seven millions at the 
 present time, a sum which has been drawn from the pockets 
 of a far-off people, and has been one principal element in 
 that policy of developing the resources of India which has 
 been so largely and so successfully carried out. Indeed it 
 may almost be said that from the standpoint of mere expe- 
 diency there are but two arguments which can be urged in 
 
6 2 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 qualification of its wholly beneficial influence on our Indian 
 possessions. These are (i) the extent to which the cultiva- 
 tion of the drug may have been one of the causes of the 
 recent famines, by occupying with the poppy some of the 
 rich territories that would otherwise have been free for the 
 cultivation of breadstuffs, and (2) the degree in which the 
 substantial assistance of the opium revenue may have en- 
 couraged among Indian statesmen an unsafe system of 
 financial management, by inducing too much reliance on its 
 aid in making good any deficiencies in the budget estimate, 
 and thus discouraging the practice of that rigid economy, 
 which the poor and undeveloped condition of the country 
 must for many years to come imperatively demand. The 
 force however of the first of these two arguments is not 
 great. * Forty-nine years out of fifty Bengal grows rice and 
 ' food enough to feed herself and to export an enormous 
 ' balance ; while the profits from the opium trade can pur- 
 ' chase from Burmah three times the amount of corn that 
 1 can be grown on the space now occupied in opium cultiva- 
 ' tion.' The cogency of the other consideration is too 
 speculative and uncertain to carry much weight in a practical 
 discussion of the question. At the same time it may be said 
 that the hint it contains should not be wholly disregarded by 
 the rulers of India : more especially as there is an impression 
 (vide Times, Feb. 15, 1879) that the improvement of public 
 works, i. e. the development of the country, would have been 
 more earnestly attended to but for the easy way of getting 
 revenue which the opium monopoly has provided. 
 
 But however this may be, the advantages of the opium 
 trade to India, from a mere expediency standpoint, cannot be 
 denied. Nor can it be maintained that its beneficial results 
 as regards India have been illusory. But for the future the 
 prospect is not so reassuring. Already some think they can 
 discern upon the horizon of our opium gains the little cloud 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 63 
 
 like unto a man's hand, which may in the perhaps not far 
 distant future involve the prosperity of the country in storms 
 and thick darkness. For, to abandon metaphor, there can hardly 
 be a doubt that China, as already noticed, has herself taken 
 up the cultivation of the poppy, and that consequently the 
 exclusion of the Indian drug from the Chinese market may 
 only be a question of time. It is no doubt true that the action 
 of the Chinese is not everywhere uniform, but the broad fact 
 that the native cultivation is widely extending can hardly be 
 disputed. Indeed, the Indian Government in the despatch 
 already referred to (p. 23), clearly states that the consumption 
 of opium and the area of cultivation of the poppy in China 
 are rapidly increasing. This contingency has indeed been 
 more and more prominent in the trade reports annually issued 
 .by our consuls at the treaty ports, while the evidence in its 
 support on p. 29 of the despatch is so valuable that some 
 quotations may here be offered to the reader. The consul at 
 Canton, writing on June 22, 1881. says : ' The consumption 
 
 * of native opium is undoubtedly extending, especially among 
 1 the lower classes . . . Nothing is more likely to affect the 
 1 price of Indian opium than the improvement and increase 
 1 in the quality and quantity of the native article/ The report 
 of the consul at New Chang, dated February 17, 1881, is still 
 more serious. After stating that the quantity of Indian opium 
 imported, all but a very small portion being Malwa, fell from 
 2302 chests in 1879 to 1156 chests in 1880, it goes on to 
 say : ' This great decrease is chiefly due to the increased 
 ' cultivation of the poppy in these provinces. The harvest 
 ' last year was unusually good, and native opium was conse- 
 ' quently so cheap that a further diminution of the Indian 
 ' drug may confidently be expected in 1881. In fact it is 
 ' expected that New Chang may ere long 'form a port of ex- 
 
 * port for opium to other parts of China/ To the same effect 
 the consul at Tientsin, writing on November 10, 1880, 
 
64 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 reports that i there is a decrease of 1000 chests in Malwa, or 
 ' about 30 per cent. There is also a marked decrease in 
 ' Bengal, but Persian shows an increase of 150 chests. The 
 ' sudden cessation of the demand for Malwa is partly due to 
 1 the enhanced cost of the drug, but mainly to the native drug 
 ' being so abundant this season in all opium-growing districts. 
 ' Shansi is usually a great consumer of Bengal opium, but 
 ' this year hardly any was sent there. The drug grown in 
 ' Shansi is, as stated in my report on Persian opium, of ex- 
 1 cellent quality, and the out-turn of -the crop this year is 
 ' expected to be large.' To these official reports the despatch 
 adds the important testimony of the Hong Kong Daily News 
 (as quoted in the Times of India of April 9, 1881): 'It 
 'is quite- impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that the 
 ' foreign drug is losing ground in the north of China. The 
 ' area under poppy cultivation has extended immensely. The 
 1 consumption of Indian opium has in consequence been 
 ' almost reduced to nil in Chinkiang, and the New Chang 
 ' correspondent of a contemporary says that that market is so 
 ' glutted with native opium that the stock of Malwa has be- 
 ' come a drug in more senses than one, and the day is 
 ' approaching when native opium will become an article of 
 1 export from the port/ 
 
 Ten years ago the same fact was beginning to make itself 
 apparent, and in 1872-73, Mr. Medhurst, our consul at 
 Shanghai, expressed his ' opinion* an opinion borne out by 
 the principal opium merchants in Shanghai ' that we may 
 ' look forward to a gradual falling off in the demand for the 
 ' foreign drug, and if the cultivation of the poppy continues 
 ' to spread as it is now doing, to the virtual extinction of 
 ' the trade in Indian opium/ 
 
 According to Mr. Hughes, consul at Hankow, the mildness 
 of the native article is the principal cause of the growing pre- 
 ference for its use. ' The Chinese say that it is much easier 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 65 
 
 ' to give up temporarily or abandon altogether the habit of 
 ' smoking native, than that of smoking foreign, opium . . . 
 4 Foreign opium affects the system to such a degree that the 
 ' sudden abandonment of the use of so powerful a drug would 
 ' to a certainty impair the health ; whereas the smoker of 
 ' native opium is by no means so seriously affected by the 
 ' want of his favourite narcotic/ 
 
 To sum up the facts of the matter as regards China, it 
 will be best to quote the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Arthur 
 Nicholson, Secretary of Legation at Pekin, who in February, 
 1878, drew up a careful report on the whole question, and 
 concluded by directing attention to the following 'facts' 
 
 1 i. That within the last few years the production of native 
 'opium has increased and is increasing. 2. That the poppy 
 
 * is cultivated in spite of prohibitory governmental edicts, and 
 ' in most cases with the connivance of the authorities. 3. 
 ' That the cultivation is likely to be further extended owing 
 ' to the large profits which can be made from it. 4. That 
 ' the native can easily undersell the foreign drug in the 
 'market. 5. That the chief and apparently the sole ad- 
 ' vantage possessed by the Indian drug over the native article 
 
 * lies in its superior quality/ The possibility therefore, that 
 China may some day no longer require the Indian opium is 
 by no means to be disregarded, and the gravity of such a 
 contingency on our Indian revenue cannot be mistaken. 
 Indeed before the East India Finance Committee of 1871, 
 high Indian authorities, Sir Frederick Halliday, Sir Cecil 
 Beadon, and Mr. Maitland, a well-known Indian merchant, 
 fully recognised the fact, and admitted its importance as 
 affecting the Indian revenue. At the same time it must not 
 be hidden that there are names of authority on the other side. 
 Vice-Consul Baber, writing from Kew Kiang, after admitting 
 the extended cultivation of the native drug, says, 'it is im- 
 ' probable that the native growth will ever seriously affect the 
 
66 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 'consumption of the Indian import. Once accustomed to 
 'the superior flavour and potency of the latter, no opium 
 ' smoker would dream of preferring the native variety, which 
 ' in fact is employed almost exclusively for purposes of adul- 
 
 * teration, or consumed by the poorer classes, and relinquished 
 ' even by them the moment they can afford the higher price 
 'of the Indian drug/ Again, in his report on opium in the 
 western provinces of China, written in 1880, and quoted in 
 the recent despatch of the Indian Government, he says: 
 ' Indian opium has probably more to hope than to fear from 
 ' the contest of prices. Its position is moreover rendered 
 ' almost unassailable by its hitherto unrivalled mellowness, a 
 ' quality which the best Yunnan variety can only acquire by 
 ' several years keeping .... Hitherto no kind of native opium 
 ' combining strength with superior mellowness has appeared 
 
 * in the market. But ' and does not this admission greatly 
 weaken the foregoing argument ' within the last few years 
 ' Kan-suh has produced a new competitor which is universally 
 ' pronounced by competent smokers to be in both respects 
 ' superior even to Malwa opium/ Before the East India 
 Finance Committee of 1871, Mr. Winchester, formerly Consul 
 at Shanghai, thought that the Indian drug would still main- 
 tain its position in the Chinese market, and that the demand 
 for it would increase as it always had done. Mr. Laing also, 
 who has been finance minister in India, held that the opium 
 revenue was perfectly safe, and that India had nothing to 
 fear from Chinese opium. 
 
 While therefore the evidence is too conflicting to allow an 
 absolutely definite, answer, yet it would appear that there is 
 more ground for a desponding than for an optimistic view of 
 the position. At any rate, all must agree with Sir Richard 
 Temple, when, in his Budget Estimate for 187273, he told 
 us that 'year by year experience brings home to convic- 
 ' tion that there are few points of greater consequence to 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 67 
 
 4 the prosperity of Indian finance than a safe and moderate 
 1 estimate of the opium revenue/ And yet the latest Indian 
 Budget can show a brilliant balance sheet, and make con- 
 siderable remissions through a successful year of opium 
 profit. In the face of experience such as this it almost 
 seems like courting the fate of Cassandra to hint that this 
 good-fortune may not always continue, and to prophesy that 
 one day perhaps, not so far distant, the balance will be 
 placed by the opium revenue on the other side of the Indian 
 financial statement. In face of such surpluses it may seem 
 impertinent if not absurd to urge the inexpediency of such a 
 source of revenue : nevertheless we are constrained to insist 
 upon it. Whether our imperfect vision can see it or not, the 
 fact remains, that the fundamental laws of right or wrong 
 cannot for ever be violated with impunity ; and though the 
 day of reckoning may be long postponed, yet it will as- 
 suredly not be postponed for ever. We have only to read 
 history aright to learn that this has always been true, and 
 1 that each great catastrophe in the history of nations is in 
 * some way or other the consequence of injustice/ And 
 merely to urge that, because we cannot see the evil day ap- 
 proaching, it will never overtake us, is to assert an omniscience 
 and an infallibility for which we can have neither warrant nor 
 excuse. It is rather our duty to believe l that this great God's 
 ' world has verily, though deep beyond our soundings, a just 
 1 law : that our part is to conform to that law, and in devout 
 ' silence to follow it, not questioning, but obeying it as un- 
 4 questionable ; ' and we may be well assured that if we thus 
 act we shall not be disappointed in the consequent result. 
 
 Still vague prognostications of distant disasters can hardly 
 be expected to weigh overmuch with statesmen who have 
 found the actual results so advantageous. Nor is it sufficient 
 to urge mere abstract considerations when 'the opinion of 
 1 those who for the time being are responsible for the conduct 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 1 of Indian finances/ is, to quote the words of their recent 
 communication, ' that the Government of India is quite un- 
 1 able to devise any means by which the loss of the revenue, 
 ' consequent on the suppression of the poppy cultivation in 
 1 Bengal, could be recouped, and that until such means be 
 ' devised, the loss of the Bengal opium revenue would result 
 c in the normal annual expenditure of the Government being 
 i greater than its receipts ; that is to say, that India would be 
 * insolvent ; ' when, moreover, they solemnly warn us ' that any 
 1 present attempt to abandon the opium revenue, whilst con- 
 ' ferring a very doubtful benefit on the population of China, 
 ' would do incalculable harm to the 250 millions of people 
 1 over whom we rule in India/ it certainly seems necessary to 
 pause for a while and consider. If indeed this deliberate 
 conclusion be well founded, if the opium revenue is financially 
 necessary to secure the well-being of the peoples for whom 
 we are now responsible in India, we are certainly in a serious 
 dilemma. On the one side we are bound by every moral 
 consideration not to sacrifice the natives of India by surrender- 
 ing the yearly profit from the opium trade, and consequently 
 to continue a manifest injustice on the Chinese peoples : on 
 the other hand we are equally bound by moral considerations 
 to abandon the revenue and thus to inflict serious injury on 
 our Indian subjects. Or to put the matter in other words, 
 we are forced to conclude, 'that the Indian Government is 
 ' bound by considerations of justice, morality, and humanity, 
 ' as far as India is concerned, but is not bound by them be- 
 'yond the ocean, or on the other side of the Himalayas/ 
 This, however, is a palpable reductio ad absurdum, forcibly 
 suggesting that the fundamental premiss is erroneous, and 
 that the financial position which the Indian Government have 
 so carefully taken up is not wholly impregnable. Nor is such 
 an inference improbable upon other grounds. The notorious 
 conflict between the opposing schools of Indian financial 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 69 
 
 economists, those who with the Stracheys believe liberally in 
 the ' elasticity ' of the Indian revenue, or those who agree with 
 Mr. Fawcett and take a much gloomier view of the financial 
 situation, shows that the conditions of Indian finance are not 
 yet known with sufficient certainty. But apart from such 
 general considerations, the budget of the present year affords 
 at least some reason for doubting the alleged absolute neces- 
 sity of the opium revenue. For when we find that it shows a 
 surplus of nearly three millions sterling, it is an obvious in- 
 ference that, for the present year at all events, a diminution of 
 the opium revenue to that amount would not have imperilled 
 the financial solvency of India. Nor does the disposition of 
 the surplus at all weaken this conclusion. For it appears that 
 the two items of revenue which are to receive the benefit are 
 items in which the need of reduction was, to say the least, not 
 absolutely imperative. Indeed, as the Times correspondent 
 remarked, they were surprises, wholly unexpected in India. 
 The salt duty no doubt is one distasteful to our English ideas, 
 but the natives of India have not clamoured loudly for its re- 
 duction, while it can hardly be denied, that the remission of 
 the import duties on cotton goods was made much more to 
 retain the support of the Lancashire manufacturers, than in 
 the interests of the Hindoos, if indeed the rights of the latter 
 were not rather postponed to the interests of the former. But 
 cogent as this reasoning may be as regards the present year, 
 it may be urged that it affords no argument against the con- 
 clusions of the Government in years of less financial success. 
 It is therefore necessary to examine into the matter more 
 closely, and to discover, if possible, the exact relation in which 
 the opium revenue stands to the financial stability of India. 
 According to paragraph 55 of the Indian Government's 
 Despatch : ' The average net revenue derived from the sale 
 'of Bengal opium during the last ten years is 4,357,000, 
 ' During the last three years the average revenue has been 
 
70 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 In dealing with a fluctuating revenue of this 
 sort it is difficult to speak with accuracy, but we shall perhaps 
 be not very far from the mark if we assume that the abandon- 
 ment of the revenue derived from opium in Bengal would cost 
 about 5,000,000. Accepting then this estimate of the loss 
 which would be incurred ; in what way may we hope to make 
 it good? In the conflict and uncertainty both of opinions 
 and of knowledge on this matter, it is certainly not easy to 
 give a definite answer. It has been urged by some authori- 
 ties, that, excluding the opium revenue and the expenditure 
 on public works, the Indian financial statement has always 
 had a balance on the right side. Consequently, say these 
 critics, the one thing needful to promote a financial equili- 
 brium, is to check expenditure on public works. To those 
 who object that this would be sacrificing the welfare of India 
 to China, it may perhaps be pointed out that, as no person 
 can claim a benefit at the expense of another, so the popu- 
 lations of India cannot demand that their advantage should be 
 sought if it involves the injury of the Chinese people. 
 
 As to the possibility of imposing increased or new taxes, the 
 present Finance Minister and his predecessor appear to have 
 held diametrically opposite opinions to those stated in the 
 recent despatch. Sir John Strachey and his brother, in their 
 book on the 'Finances and Public Works of India,' assert 
 that it would be quite feasible, and they say 'it could un- 
 ' doubtedly be possible, to increase largely the income of the 
 ' State without serious injury to the industry of the country, 
 'and without political danger, in the event of any great 
 ' financial emergency, such for instance as might conceivably 
 ' arise if we were suddenly to lose the greater part of our 
 1 opium revenue, or if the difficulties caused by the fall in 
 1 the value of silver- in relation to gold should attain to any 
 'very alarming dimensions/ And again, 'There would be 
 'little difficulty in case of necessity, in almost immediately 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. Jl 
 
 'increasing the revenue by existing and other taxes of a 
 * little objectionable nature to the extent of at least 2,000,000 
 1 per annum, and if a much larger sum than any which could 
 ' be provided by such means, or by the growth of already 
 ' existing revenues, should be required in consequence of some 
 ' great financial catastrophe, the income of the State could 
 1 certainly be increased by several millions a-year without 
 ' injury to the country/ Such an opinion must be taken for 
 what it is worth, and of that a mere outsider can, of course, 
 form no valid estimate. It may however at least deserve 
 respectful consideration as the belief of administrators who 
 in their official capacities have had long and extensive know- 
 ledge of the subject, and no small share in shaping the 
 financial policy of India. 
 
 But, in addition to the possibilities of new taxation, they 
 have formed a high opinion of the elasticity and probable 
 expansion of all the great items of revenue. They state that 
 the net receipts from all sources have risen from 42,375,176 
 in 1869, to 49,43 1,000 in 1 880- 1, an increase of 7,055,824 
 during the eleven years, which shows the average increase is 
 more than 600,000 a-year. Sir Arthur Cotton, no mean 
 authority on Indian subjects, likewise insists most earnestly 
 on the favourable prospects of Indian finance, and he vehe- 
 mently maintains ' that there is not a shadow of excuse for 
 ' our continuing this trade of opium from its being necessary 
 ' in point of finance/ He affirms ' the astonishing fact that 
 ' we are perfectly independent of the opium revenue, having a 
 ' clear surplus of three and a half millions without it, and that 
 ' revenue increasing at the rate of half a million a-year.' He 
 therefore concludes that ' such is the state of the Indian 
 ' finances that there is nothing whatever in the way of our at 
 'once prohibiting the cultivation of the plant. It is already 
 ' forbidden in 95 per cent, of India, and it is only necessary 
 1 to extend that prohibition to the remaining 5 per cent/ 
 
72 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 On the other side must be placed the emphatic statement of 
 the Indian Government as laid down in their recent despatch, 
 thus : ' It cannot be too clearly understood, that, neither 
 'by any measure tending to develope the resources of the 
 ' country, nor by an increase of taxation, which is practically 
 ' within the range of possibility, nor by any reduction of 
 ' expenditure, could the Government of India in any adequate 
 1 way at present hope to recoup the loss which would accrue 
 'from the suppression of the poppy cultivation in Bengal/ 
 Reviewing each branch of expenditure and source of revenue, 
 they merely reiterate in changed phrases the non possumus 
 they have formulated above. Coming from so high an 
 authority such a conclusion must receive careful considera- 
 tion. Moreover, on some points it is supported by the 
 opinion of Mr. Fawcett; who at the same time differs as 
 to the possibility of retrenchment and economy in expendi- 
 ture and administration. In the disagreement of such high 
 authorities an outsider must hold his peace ; he would, how- 
 ever, just hint to the Indian Government that, even if it is 
 impossible * in any adequate degree to impose taxation or to 
 1 retrench, it need not be impossible to make a commence- 
 * ment in both directions.' And he would urge that even if 
 the 'total suppression' of the opium manufacture would involve 
 the insolvency of India, it does not necessarily follow that the 
 partial suppression, or the trial of restriction, need have such 
 disastrous effects. Indeed, it would seem that to argue with 
 the Government of India that, because we cannot bring in 
 the millennium to-day, we are to do nothing to hasten its 
 coming, but merely to stand still and let matters go on as 
 hitherto, is to adopt a contention unworthy of men placed in 
 such a high and responsible position. 
 
 But after all, even granting to the full the non possumus of 
 the Indian Council, and admitting without qualification their 
 view of the position, the burden is merely shifted from India 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 73 
 
 to Great Britain. And if this be necessary, it is at least not 
 wholly unjustifiable. For the question is quite as much one 
 of Imperial as of Indian policy. Not only did the British 
 Government or rather the British people through Parlia- 
 ment become responsible for the trade by the resolution of 
 1832, 'that it does not deem it advisable to abandon so 
 4 important a source of revenue ; ' but, to say nothing of the 
 systematic protection of the trade, the instructions to its 
 officials 'not to interfere with the undertakings of British 
 ' subjects/ the fact that the British nation has twice sanctioned 
 an appeal to arms, cannot but give increased force to the 
 contention. And further, if we bear in mind the supreme 
 authority which the English Parliament always assumes in 
 the affairs of India, the argument that England should bear 
 the loss arising from the suppression of the Bengal monopoly, 
 if India cannot, becomes almost irresistible. Nor can the 
 amount of compensation necessary in any degree weaken the 
 obligation; for even if it did require much more than the 
 20,000,000 paid to the slave-owners of the West Indies, it 
 may certainly be replied that the rapid expanse of our wealth 
 makes the increased amount of but minor importance. And 
 if England and India together can find the fifteen or sixteen 
 millions required for the doubtful benefits of the Afghan war, 
 without imperilling or seriously weakening the financial sta- 
 bility of India, it may well be contended that to find the 
 money required to make good the loss of the opium revenue 
 need not be more difficult or dangerous. Last of all, we 
 would urge that the fair fame and reputation of any nation 
 is not usually appraised in numerical figures, and is generally 
 considered well worthy of considerable self-sacrifice. How 
 much more then should this be the case with England 
 England, whose children claim to be the leaders of civilisa- 
 tion, nay, more the very schoolmasters of the rest of the 
 world in honour, integrity, and uprightness ! 
 
74 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 Should not such considerations as these in some way 
 counterbalance the sordid and miserable pleas of financial 
 expediency, and overcome the non possumus argument on 
 which the Indian Government now takes its stand? Shall 
 we as Englishmen be any longer willing to stand, as regards 
 this matter, ' in a somewhat false and invidious position ' ? 
 Shall we any longer connect ourselves with a traffic which 
 brings upon us shame and reproach amongst the nations of 
 the earth, and which cannot fail to provoke against us the 
 righteous indignation of heaven ? Shall we not rather ' shake 
 ( off the responsibility of creating and spreading crime in a 
 ' nation of three hundred millions, and by a speedy act of 
 ' reparation, ere it is too late, atone for the past and determine 
 ' to act more honourably in the future.' And though re- 
 pentance may at first be difficult, yet we shall surely find that, 
 even in political prosperity and in worldly welfare, l the fear 
 ' of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil is under- 
 ' standing/ 
 
 But apart from the Indian side of the question, the material 
 interests of England require some consideration at our hands. 
 The predominance of our mercantile and manufacturing in- 
 terests make the unhindered development of our commerce 
 a matter of the first importance to our well-being as a nation ; 
 consequently, any influence which tends to narrow the limits 
 or to increase the difficulties of our intercourse with foreign 
 peoples in the same degree must incur our suspicion if not 
 our condemnation. And that the opium trade comes under 
 this category will hardly be questioned by any one who has 
 attentively followed the history of the traffic as already set 
 forth. But, even if the case were otherwise, it would not be 
 a difficult task to show from general considerations that it 
 is contrary to the true principles of a sound commercial 
 economy. It is generally accepted as an economical maxim 
 that every transaction is really advantageous only so far as it 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 75 
 
 benefits equally both parties to the compact. Bargains such 
 as those between Glaucus and Diomede, 
 
 however much they may be sought after under the present 
 low standard of commercial morality, can find no justifica- 
 tion on the principles of a sound economy. And that such is 
 the characteristic feature of our opium transactions with 
 China is only too certain and undeniable. Few of its apolo- 
 gists seriously believe that opium confers any benefit upon 
 its purchasers, the utmost they can maintain being that it 
 does them no harm. Consequently, the inference is inevitable 
 that the essential requisite of a beneficial commerce is absent 
 in the case under discussion, and therefore an adverse verdict 
 on mere economic principles cannot be resisted. But in 
 addition to this fundamental unsoundness, in itself the opium 
 trade must necessarily be adverse to all other commerce 
 between foreign nations and China. It is obviously impos- 
 sible for wealth to be expended on commodities which, even 
 if not harmful, are at any rate unproductive, without curtailing ,) 
 the power of purchasing other and more beneficial wares. 
 It is therefore absurd to suppose that the Chinese can spend 
 annually, as estimated by Mr. Hart (of the Chinese Imperial 
 Customs), 16,800,000 in opium, without very seriously 
 limiting their power to purchase our cottons, woollens, and i* 
 other manufactures. Therefore, if it be granted that the 
 traffic is beneficial and profitable to India, jt can only be so J^J 
 at the expense of our manufacturing and mercantile classes A 
 at home. In other words, the 8,000,000 of revenue which 
 the opium trade pours into the coffers of our Indian Empire, ^ 
 is not drawn so much from the pockets of the Chinese as htf 
 really deducted from the earnings of the British working man*. V t 
 But this is not the whole of the case against the trade: there 
 is another consideration which must not be overlooked. The 
 
7 6 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 exclusive and suspicious character of the Chinese, and their 
 extreme unwillingness to admit foreigners into the 'inner land' 
 on anything like a footing of friendly reciprocity, are too well 
 known to require either statement or proof in detail. At the 
 same time it is at least a noteworthy fact that before the rise 
 of the opium trade we possessed fuller facilities for commerce 
 than at the time of Lord Napier's mission, when the trade 
 had largely developed, and when, to use his own remarkable 
 words, ' all the privileges formerly enjoyed by the British 
 1 have been curtailed from time to time, till we are at this 
 ' moment tied down under dreadful restrictions to the mere 
 
 * port of Canton/ That this policy of the Chinese was 
 wholly justifiable need not be affirmed, but it may at least 
 be asserted with confidence that our evil reputation as opium 
 smugglers and open law-breakers has certainly furnished the 
 Chinese with some reason for their restrictive and unfriendly 
 policy. Its disadvantages to our commerce in any case 
 would be manifest, but they are made still more obvious by 
 a consideration of the general conditions of Chinese com- 
 merce. For there is a general consensus of opinion among 
 those qualified to form a judgment on the matter, that freer 
 intercourse and less restrained communication with the in- 
 habitants of the country, together with additional facilities of 
 access to new markets, are among the most indispensable 
 requisites for a satisfactory increase of our trade with China. 
 It has indeed been remarked of the Chinese by our Consul 
 at Hankow (in his admirable Paper on the * Conditions of 
 Commercial Progress in China/ annexed to his trade report 
 for the year 1870-71), that 'they will not advance towards 
 ' foreigners to seek their trade till the foreigners have pressed 
 
 * it upon them. They will never themselves improve their 
 
 * means of transport, nor develope new wants like progressive 
 ' nations. Foreigners must provide the means of bringing 
 ' different parts of the Empire into close communication, and 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 77 
 
 ' they must also to a certain extent create the wants which 
 1 they wish to supply by " introducing " their goods to their 
 ' customers. Commerce/ he adds, ' everywhere requires to 
 ' be energetically pushed, and this is peculiarly true of the 
 1 trade in foreign manufactures in China. 7 While all this is. 
 noteworthy for its own sake, it seems to afford a strong 
 argument against the expediency of maintaining the close 
 connection now existing between the opium trade and 
 English commerce. For if foreigners desire to obtain from 
 the Chinese greater facilities of communication, they on their 
 side must be prepared to satisfy the advisers of the Emperor 
 that the wares in which they propose to deal will not prove 
 injurious to those of his subjects who may purchase them. 
 For it can hardly be expected that any government, and 
 least of all a government conducted as the Chinese on 
 paternal principles, should readily grant facilities to foreign 
 commerce which may result in the extension of a practice 
 which it has long regarded as injurious, and for the suppres- 
 sion of which it has not yet lost the desire. 
 
 If then the broad principles just discussed supply good 
 grounds for believing that the traffic is hurtful to our general 
 commerce, it may be worth while to enquire whether practical 
 experience and actual facts endorse or contradict the con- 
 clusions arrived at. On this point, it is believed, there will 
 be little disagreement. Sir John Bowring may indeed inform 
 Lord Clarendon, in reply to Lord Shaftesbury's memorial, 
 that ' no evidence exists to show that, but for the opium trade, 
 'British manufactures would have been more purchased;' 
 Messrs. Jardine, Matheson and Co. may at the same time 
 declare that ' the decline in cottons imported is due to other 
 1 sources ; ' Messrs. Lindsay and Co. may profess their belief 
 that the lessened import is due to rebellion and anarchy; 
 nevertheless, the general consensus both of facts and opinions 
 is so greatly against them that such views must be disre- 
 
78 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 garded, or at least only accepted with large qualifications. 
 As Mr. Donald Matheson in his pamphlet says, the following 
 figures plainly show that ' the effects of the opium trade on 
 'legal commerce have been most disastrous.' And this he 
 proves by the following : 
 
 'In the decade between 1845 an ^ I S55, while our exports 
 ' to all countries rose from 60,000,000 to 95,000,000, to 
 ' India they rose from 6,700,000 to 10,900,000; to China 
 'they/// from 2,394,000 to 1,277,000, and our imports 
 'from that country rose from 5,500,000 to 8,500,000; 
 1 and the opium import to China rose from 5,000,000 to 
 ' 8,000,000 ;' figures which, as Mr. Matheson contends, ob- 
 viously point to only one conclusion, and clearly show 
 that, '.in supplying the Chinese with an intoxicating drug, 
 'we are drying up their natural capacity to consume our 
 1 manufactures.' 
 
 But the fact may be confirmed by other commercial 
 statistics. We find that, according to Parliamentary Papers, 
 during the years from 1803 to 1808 inclusive years be it 
 remembered which were virtually anterior to the rise of the 
 opium trade the average export of the East Indian Com- 
 pany to China in woollens alone amounted to 1,128,557 
 per annum. From 1811 to 1816 the total value of the exports 
 of China averaged 895,954 per annum; from 1817 to J ^ 22 
 750,289; from 1823 to 1838 709,759, thus showing for 
 these years years during which the opium trade was rapidly 
 growing a gradual diminution. Yet once more. The ex- 
 ports of British goods to China from 1834 to 1838 inclusive 
 averaged rather more than 1,000,000 per annum, showing 
 that during those years years in which the China trade was 
 open, and the illicit traffic in opium greatly developed the 
 whole annual shipments of British goods to China since the 
 opening of the trade is not equal to the annual value of woollens 
 alone sent to China during the first years of the century 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 79 
 
 (Fry, c Facts and Evidences/ pp. 52 seqq.). As, moreover, the 
 exports from China increased from 2,242,300 in 1827 to 
 5,102,347, it cannot be said that the unfavourable con- 
 dition of English commerce is due to a diminution of trade 
 in that direction. Consequently, the only inference left to 
 us is that the undoubted development of the opium traffic 
 during those years was mainly the cause of this reduced 
 demand for British manufactures. And this was also the 
 belief of persons at the^ time well qualified to form an 
 opinion on the matter. yThe manufacturers of LeedsXpre- \ 
 sented a petition on the subject, which states : c That }tour 
 4 petitioners have the strongest grounds for believing that 
 ' the daring and systematic violation by the opium smugglers 
 
 * of the laws of China (laws enacted to preserve the health, 
 ' happiness, and morals of the people) has exerted a most 
 ' injurious influence on British interests ; that it has been the 
 4 occasion of frequent stoppages of trade, of restrictions and 
 
 * impediments to commerce, continually increasing in number 
 'and severity; and finally, that it has been the cause of the 
 ' existing suspension of our friendly and commercial relations 
 ' with that Empire, under circumstances which threaten to in- 
 ' volve the nation' in an unjust, dishonourable, and expensive 
 ' war. That your petitioners believe that the dishonourable 
 ' and immoral trade in opium is the means of preventing, to 
 1 a great extent, an honourable and highly profitable trade 
 ' in the woollens, cottons, and other manufactures of Great 
 
 * Britain, which would otherwise be introduced into that 
 ' country in payment for the Chinese produce consumed here ; 
 ' and that the opium trade is thus injurious in a high degree 
 
 * to the manufacturing and mercantile classes, and to the 
 ' general prosperity of theJUjniLfidJ^ng'dom ' (Fry, * Facts 
 4 and Evidences/ p. 54). 
 
 Such testimony, however, though well-nigh conclusive on 
 the matter, may perhaps be objected to as giving merely the 
 
8o THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 home-view of the question, and consequently based on an 
 inadequate knowledge of the facts. To obviate such an 
 objection the following evidence from persons in China at 
 the time, and peculiarly qualified to form a judgment, are 
 added in its confirmation. 
 
 Captain Elliott, the British superintendent, writing in 1839 
 to Lord Palmerston, said, * After the most deliberate re- 
 ' consideration of this course of traffic, I declare my own 
 c conviction that in its general effects it is intensely mis- 
 1 chievous to every branch of the trade/ And again, in 
 February, 1837 (China Papers, 1840, p. 190), he says: 'It 
 ' cannot be good that the conduct of a great trade should be 
 1 so dependent upon the steady continuance of a vast pro- 
 ' hibited traffic, in an article of vicious luxury, high in price, 
 ' and liable to frequent and prodigious fluctuation. In a 
 1 mere commercial point of view, therefore, I believe it is 
 ' susceptible of proof that the gradual diversion of British 
 ' capital into other channels of employment than this would 
 ' be attended with advantageous circumstances/ And if this 
 was the opinions of the government officials, it was certainly 
 that of those China merchants who were not themselves con- 
 nected with the trade, as may be seen from the following 
 letter (Fry, ' Facts and Evidences,' p. 44), written at Canton 
 by a correspondent of an eminent Liverpool house, in which 
 he says,' The mischievous effects of this (opium) traffic in 
 ' interfering with the importation of British manufactures, as 
 ' well as of all descriptions of Indian produce other than the 
 ' forbidden drug, in absorbing the capital- and the attention 
 'of both native and foreign merchants, and in subjecting the 
 ' whole foreign commerce to a system of jealous and vexa- 
 1 tious restrictions, can hardly be overestimated, and are most 
 ' palpable to any one on the spot whose powers of observation 
 ; are not impaired by prejudice or interest/ 
 
 Such testimonies as these, when joined to that afforded by 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 8 1 
 
 the cogent figures already given, may surely be accepted as 
 an ample refutation of the vague inferences and negative 
 assertions put forward by Sir John Bowring and the opium 
 merchants already quoted. It may therefore be taken as an 
 established fact, that the influence of the opium trade has 
 been wholly injurious to our commercial interests in China ; 
 and from this point of view no sufficient defence can be set 
 up on its behalf. 
 
 But while admitting these facts in the past, those who would 
 defend the continuance of the traffic to-day may perhaps 
 urge that the mischief done is beyond remedy, and that the 
 increased commercial intercourse which might ensue on the 
 adoption of a changed policy on the part of the British 
 Government would not sufficiently compensate for the loss of 
 the Indian revenue which would of course result. On this 
 point it is obvious that an absolutely correct answer is im- 
 possible, but it may nevertheless be useful to indicate what 
 may fairly be expected under such changed circumstances. 
 It may first be observed, that the ability of the Chinese to pay 
 < 1 6, 8 00,0 oo for opium at least implies their power of taking 
 British manufactures to a vastly increased amount if only 
 their expenditure for opium had ceased. Even Commissioner 
 Lin in 1839 used much the same argument. We find him 
 urging in his edict to the foreigners of March 4 in that year, 
 that ' supposing you cut off and cast away your traffic in the 
 ( single article of opium, then the other business which you do 
 c will be much increased : you will thereon reap your three- 
 ' fold profit comfortably, and you may, as previously, go on ac- 
 ' quiring wealth in abundance/ To similar effect the Governor 
 of Canton, writing to Captain Elliott, Sept. 28, 1837 (China 
 Papers, 1840, p. 239), holds out to him as an inducement to 
 send away the opium receiving-ships that * thus the source of 
 ' the evil may be closed . . . and the path of commercial inter- 
 ' course may for ever be kept open to all good foreigners. 
 
 G 
 
82 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 But that this not only was but still is the feeling of the Chinese 
 Government is evident from the statements made by Sir 
 Rutherford Alcock before the Committee on East India 
 Finance of 1871, when he said (Q. 5728), ' If I had been able 
 ' during the recent revision of the treaty to hold out any 
 1 distinct promise or assurance that as regarded missionaries 
 ' and opium, which are their two great grievances, something 
 ' should be done more or less restrictive that would meet 
 ' their wishes, I believe that I might have got any facilities 
 ' for our trade that I had chosen to demand. My great 
 1 difficulty was that I could offer them nothing in either 
 ' direction/ In the memorial on the Opium Trade presented 
 by Prince Kung to Sir Rutherford Alcock, already quoted, 
 the Chinese ministers remind him that they had on several 
 occasions referred to the opium trade as being prejudicial to 
 the general interest of commerce, an observation which they 
 repeat in the course of the memorial, and they urge the 
 arrangement of a plan for the joint prohibition of the traffic as 
 the one way of causing ' the people to put aside all ill-feeling, 
 ' and so to strengthen their friendly relations as to place them 
 ' for ever beyond fear of disturbance/ This testimony as to 
 the goodwill of the Chinese Government towards a change of 
 policy may be supported by evidence as to the ability to fulfil 
 the expectations which it may have raised. On this point the 
 evidence is not wholly conclusive. On the one side it has 
 been urged that the Chinese are essentially a self-sufficing 
 people, and that they really have very few wants which need the 
 help of Western civilization to supply. At the same time there 
 is some strong evidence on the other side. Dr. Williamson, 
 a well-known traveller and missionary in China, is of opinion 
 (Moule, 'Opium Question/ p. 34) that ' there is a tremendous 
 'market yet in China for all kinds of foreign wares/ Dr. 
 Dudgeon, the well-known medical missionary at Pekin, declares 
 that, ' were the whole country thrown open to our commerce ; 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. 83 
 
 'our manufactures introduced; railways, etc., allowed, and 
 ' the importation of opium forbidden, and it rendered piracy to 
 ' introduce it by all governments, then there would dawn as it 
 ' were a new era on the world and on China. Our merchants, 
 ' and India too, might well afford to give up its [opium's] 
 ' production and transit. The exchange between the different 
 4 countries would soon rearrange itself. The Chinese would 
 ' be saved from beggary, starvation, and death, and they would 
 
 * become our best customers. The rich soil of India would 
 ' easily produce the more generous fruits of the earth. A little 
 
 * economy wisely exercised among themselves, and a helping 
 ' hand for a few years if necessary from the then enriched 
 ' British and Chinese merchants, and the difficulties would 
 1 soon and easily be overcome . . . China cannot take both 
 ' goods and opium, and the question for our merchants 
 'therefore is, which branch of the industry should be en- 
 couraged* (' Friend of China' p. 279). Elsewhere he says, 
 ' Were this traffic abolished there is almost nothing in 
 ' the way of progress, in opening up the country, and in faci- 
 ' litating the trade that they (the Chinese) are not, I believe, 
 'prepared to do/ Sir Rutherford Alcock has already been 
 quoted, but he may once more be called upon to conclude 
 this part of the discussion. Long ago he told his govern- 
 ment ' that though China then ranked very low as a market 
 
 ' for the produce of our looms and manufacturing industry. , 
 1 and though its people are poor consumers, yet under other ^i 
 ' auspices and more favourable conditions the Chinese empire 
 ' might within the next twenty years offer a vast field of com- 
 ' mercial activity, and would soon lead to a consumption of 
 1 manufactured goods ten times as large as any at present 
 'existing/ If the prophecy has not yet been fulfilled, it is 
 chiefly because the chief conditions have not as yet been 
 complied with. But it is not too much to hope that when 
 the 'more favourable conditions' are found in the restric- 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 tion and abolition of the opium traffic, the long unfulfilled 
 prediction will speedily find a more than ample accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 It only remains, before closing this chapter of the subject, 
 to add a few words as to its general bearing on our political 
 and international relations with the Chinese people, and the 
 probable advantages of an altered policy. The evil influences 
 of the drug in at least justifying the exclusive and unfriendly 
 attitude of the Chinese government has already been suffi- 
 ciently dwelt on. At the same time it should not be for- 
 gotten that it heavily handicaps England in comparison with 
 the other European nations with whom the Chinese may at 
 any time have dealings, and that in consequence she will not 
 be able to secure easily the good offices or the good- will of 
 the Chinese government should she ever require them. And 
 though such a contingency may be improbable, yet it is by no 
 means impossible, especially when we remember the magni- 
 tude and the dispersion of British interests in the Eastern 
 hemisphere. The dangers of Russian aggression on the 
 stability of our Indian empire may no doubt be remote, but, 
 at the same time, it can hardly be advantageous for us that 
 China should ally herself with the Czar, a policy of which 
 there have been some indications. Nor should we forget that 
 the political atmosphere of the East is, equally with the 
 natural, doubtful and uncertain. Storms and disturbances, 
 involving disastrous consequences, may arise in a sky ap- 
 parently serene, and with but little warning. The magnitude 
 or the complications of such an event cannot of course 
 be predicted, but it would certainly be rash to exclude them 
 from calculation. Hitherto the Chinese have only known us 
 as a conquering people, and as energetic and perhaps not 
 too scrupulous traders, and we can consequently hardly 
 expect them to cherish towards us any feelings of friendship. 
 Would it not be worth while to try the effect of kindness and 
 
ITS EXPEDIENCY. JT 85 
 
 generosity on that great nation. Though an ancient, almost 
 prehistoric people, they are by no means effete or without 
 influence in their own and other quarters of the globe. ^/Vr^d 
 in this connection the Chinese immigrations, which of late 
 
 years ha T 7 nltf "~<^ rH^H r^t frfi f7 Ty erlooKed. Is it 
 
 not wgrth jromejacrifigs . JkUStattdjRCft^^ 
 
 send forth into the world such an ever-spreading flood of 
 humanity; and to prevent them from spreading hostile feel- 
 ings towards us in the different nations of the earth ? 
 "~ But apart from all such considerations, there is one, per- 
 haps less obvious, but mightier, more momentous, and more 
 inevitable, which demands our most serious attention it is 
 the certain, though oft-forgotten, fact that wickedness and 
 wrong-doing are sure sooner or later to bring about their 
 own penalties. For the laws of morality whether they be 
 called the laws of God or the laws of nature is immaterial 
 are never to be violated with impunity, and the great truth 
 they inculcate, that what is morally wrong can never be po- 
 litically right, will certainly find its fulfilment in our case as in 
 every other. And as sure as there is a God that judgeth the 
 world, so surely will our long course of injustice, if not atoned 
 for and repented of, and that speedily, be avenged by some 
 gigantic disaster. If not, we ourselves, at any rate our children, 
 will find by dire experience that the old Roman expressed 
 historic truth as well as poetic feeling in the lines : 
 
 ' Raro antecedentem scelestum 
 Deseruit pede Poena claudo.' 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE TRAFFIC ON CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 HITHERTO this question has been discussed solely in its 
 relation to the moral and material interests of the English 
 people. It possesses however another, and with some per- 
 haps a more important, side which claims a little attention. 
 While the pre-eminence of England among the nations of the 
 world in political and material advancement is admitted, her 
 high position in Christendom as the representative of the 
 Christian faith can hardly be denied. But if this may be a 
 cause for rejoicing, it is much more a reason for special care 
 and circumspection in all our doings, since the greater our 
 position for good, the greater our responsibility if we fail to 
 act up to it, and the greater our certain condemnation if our 
 conduct brings aught of reproach upon the holy religion we 
 profess. It needs however but a cursory view to discern that 
 our practice of the great principles of our Christian faith is 
 often far short of our professions, and that our conduct both 
 public and private is in too many instances at variance with 
 that teaching by which we profess to be guided. Nor is 
 it too much to say that our national shortcomings in this 
 matter have largely aided the spread of scepticism and 
 infidelity which has been so marked of late years. If, then, 
 we find the shortcomings of professed Christians urged here 
 as an argument against the truth of their religion, must we 
 not expect the same experience abroad ? Must not the religion 
 
ITS INFLUENCE ON MISSIONS. 87 
 
 we proclaim be judged among the heathen rather by the deeds 
 of its professors than by the exhortations of its preachers ? 
 Must we not expect to find that the nations to whom we 
 offer our faith will estimate its value by the results which they 
 may observe it to produce among ourselves ? ' By their 
 ' fruits ye shall know them/ is a maxim as obvious to the 
 heathen as to the Christian. 
 
 How, then, do these considerations bear upon our relations 
 with China and the efforts of our missionaries to spread the 
 truth of the Gospel in that vast empire ? It has already been 
 shown that one principal feature of our relations with China 
 is our connection with the traffic in opium, a traffic which at 
 least is not beneficial to the Chinese, and not carried on with 
 their full consent or approbation. Moreover, we have our- 
 selves officially informed them that our ' religion induces to 
 ' the practice of virtue, and teaches men to do as they would 
 ' be done by/ Consequently the inconsistency of our national 
 conduct and our national profession is too obvious to be 
 overlooked by the most careless observer. The Chinese 
 however are both too shrewd and too acute not to draw the 
 natural conclusion as to the value of the religion which we 
 would fain teach them. When they see that the Christian 
 religion produces such effects among Englishmen, can we 
 expect them to believe that in their own case its results will 
 be different? And that this is no imaginary argument is 
 shown by the most ample testimony. Missionaries on all 
 sides give the same witness. Dr. Medhurst tells us : * Almost 
 ' the first word uttered by a Chinese when anything is said 
 ' concerning the excellence of Christianity is, Why do Chris- 
 1 tians bring us opium, and bring it directly in defiance of 
 1 our laws ? The vile drug has destroyed my son, has ruined 
 'my brother, and well-nigh led me to beggar my wife and 
 ' children. Surely those who import such a deleterious sub- 
 ' stance, and injure me for the sake of gain, cannot be in 
 
88 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 1 possession of a better religion than my own/ The Bishop 
 of Hong Kong says : ' If those who profess to doubt the 
 ' magnitude of this obstacle to the progress of Christianity 
 ' could hear the more patriotic of the Chinese, frequently 
 
 * with a sarcastic smile, ask the missionaries if they were con- 
 
 * nected with those who brought them poison, which so many 
 1 of their countrymen ate and perished, they would perceive 
 ' that it is vain I will not say vain but it is certainly in- 
 ' consistent in us as a nation to send the Bible to China.' 
 Sixteen missionaries working in China and belonging to 
 different nations and denominations, in the spring of 1875 
 stated : ' The fact that people of Christian nations engage in 
 ' the traffic, and especially that Great Britain supplies the 
 1 China market with opium, is constantly urged- as a plausible 
 ' and patent objection to Christianity.' (Sir E. Fry, ' England, 
 ' China, and Opium,' p. 23.) 
 
 But further, as a matter of mere experience, it may be 
 urged that the influence of the opium trade in increasing the 
 exclusiveness and objection to foreign intercourse so charac- 
 teristic of the Chinese which has been already noticed, must 
 in so far have been a hindrance to the spread of missionary 
 efforts. For it is obvious that free intercourse with the people 
 and facilities for ready communication are especially necessary 
 for the propagation of a new faith. It is clearly impossible 
 for a preacher, however earnest and eloquent he may be, to 
 convince his hearers if he is regarded by them as the repre- 
 sentative of unjust dealings or an unfriendly purpose. If 
 however it be urged that the exclusive and hostile attitude of 
 the Chinese is natural to them, and independent of the influ- 
 ence of the opium traffic, it may again be remarked, that our 
 conduct in this matter justified the treatment received, while a 
 different course of action could hardly have failed in time to 
 produce better effects. If, moreover, against all this be set the 
 ' opening up ' of China to Christian missions, which has been 
 
ITS INFLUENCE ON MISSIONS. 89 
 
 one result of our wars with China and our conflicts with her 
 people, it is much to be feared that the set-off must be wholly 
 disallowed. The manifest injustice of these wars in their 
 conception and their execution has already been pointed out, 
 and can hardly be controverted ; and any attempt to maintain 
 that the Gospel of peace can in any way be advanced by 
 conduct in direct contradiction to its most sacred truths, must 
 inevitably fail. Even if the results had been less unfavourable, 
 it would always have remained true that the surest and 
 quickest way of introducing our faith to the hearts of a 
 foreign people is to base our dealings on the grand principles 
 it teaches, and to show in our actions and deeds the superiority 
 of the new doctrines that we desire to propagate. 
 
 But there are other considerations of special force with 
 reference to the spread of Christianity in China. It is, as we 
 all know, 4 no mere system of abstract philosophy, no mere 
 * code of ethical precepts ; ' it claims to be the working ener- 
 gising principle that should actuate and inform all the deeds 
 of its adherents, and cause them to shape their lives and 
 conduct after the example and pattern it presents. If then 
 the heathen or the unbeliever finds in the professors of this 
 exalted and ideal faith marked shortcomings and conspicuous 
 deficiencies in the fulfilment of its precepts, they cannot but 
 infer the weakness and impotence of such an ineffectual 
 creed. What wonder if they should bid its apostles first to 
 enforce its principles on its professed disciples before they 
 attempt to gain proselytes elsewhere. May they not well 
 argue that a religion which makes such claims and permits 
 such deficiencies must be based upon some fallacy, and that 
 at any rate it is not one for which they are prepared to sur- 
 render their traditional beliefs ? 
 
 But this matter has a special importance for English 
 Christians. The connection of their country with the opium 
 trade places its missionaries in an exceptionally invidious and 
 
96 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 disadvantageous position. The missionaries of other nations 
 can, when pressed with the opium trade, say they are free 
 from the stain, that their hands are clean, that they cannot be 
 brought under the same condemnation. Thus it results that 
 English missionaries become more and more identified in the 
 minds of the Chinese people with the opium traffic, so dis- 
 honouring to Christianity and so injurious to man, a connection 
 which must inevitably hinder their efforts in the cause, and 
 make the results of their work much less satisfactory than it 
 might be under more favourable circumstances. But can the 
 English people expect a blessing on their efforts in this 
 direction as long as they allow this great evil to go on un- 
 checked ? May it not well be the case * that our national sin 
 
 * in this matter has separated us from our God and turned 
 ' aside the reward that he would otherwise have bestowed 
 ' upon our labours. Have we not rather deserved to hear the 
 ' terrible rebuke, ' When ye spread forth your hands I will hide 
 ' mine eyes from you : yea, when ye make many prayers I 
 
 * will not hear : your hands are full of blood : wash you, make 
 ' you clean : put away the evil of your doings before mine 
 1 eyes; cease to do evil ; learn to do weir ? 
 
 If then in all these ways there is good reason to think that 
 the opium traffic increases the difficulties which must always 
 be great of missionary enterprise in China, does it not 
 furnish a powerful argument for all who profess and call 
 themselves Christians, to use every effort for the removal of 
 this moral stigma on our nation, for the termination of our 
 national connection with this enormous wickedness ? The 
 moral effects of such a policy on the Chinese would certainly 
 be most favourable to the cause of Christian Missions. Then 
 indeed the Gospel of Christ would appear more worthy of its 
 name, more consistent with its fundamental principles, and 
 therefore more deserving the respectful attention and the 
 acceptance of the Chinese people. The spread of the truth 
 
ITS INFLUENCE ON MISSIONS. 91 
 
 among the inhabitants of that vast empire would be freer and 
 less hampered; the strong prejudices which have hitherto 
 made it suspected and have brought it into hatred and con- 
 tempt would cease to be felt ; and Christianity would be able 
 to win its way into the hearts of the Chinese people. Then, 
 all its inherent forces, its active energies for doing good, its 
 power to suffer all things if only it may win souls, instead of 
 being stifled in their birth, would have free scope and would 
 certainly prevail. Thus indeed will the religion of Jesus at last 
 ' open China to Europe and interpret Europe to China/ and 
 will usher in a new era in the history of Christian missions. 
 Then a mighty impulse shall be given to the work of evan- 
 gelisation in all the distant provinces, and the word of the 
 Lord shall increase and multiply among the kingdoms of the 
 east : 
 
 * Then shall our land send forth her sons and daughters, 
 'Baal shall bow down before the Spirit's sword, 
 'And as the sea sounds with her sounding waters, 
 'So shall Cathay with the Knowledge of the Lord.' 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 THE general conclusions to which our investigations have 
 brought us may now be briefly stated thus. On moral 
 grounds we are compelled to admit that it obviously and 
 undeniably conflicts with the first principles of morality; and 
 also that, though extenuations were urged in mitigation of this 
 verdict, it has appeared that while these palliatory pleas could 
 claim in some cases a certain plausibility, they yet failed to 
 satisfy the test of a rigorous and careful scrutiny. Thus the 
 contention that the effects of opium-smoking were not harmful 
 was shown to be the case in exceptions rather than the rule : 
 the alleged insincerity of the Chinese proved on investigation 
 to be due, partly to administrative impotence, partly and chiefly 
 to violent action on our part and our practical encouragement 
 of the unlawful trade. When tested by the touchstone of 
 political expediency the arguments on each side were some- 
 what more equalised, virtually resolving themselves into the 
 question whether India was to continue to receive larger 
 additions to her revenue, practically by the restriction on 
 British commerce and manufactures, a conflict in which the 
 balance of probabilities at least was against the further con- 
 tinuance of the traffic. Further, the question of its influence 
 on Christian missions was shortly considered, and proved to 
 be in the highest degree injurious and harmful to the spread 
 of Christianity. 
 
 If then the verdict on all points of the indictment be adverse, 
 
CONCLUSION. 93 
 
 there is no need for hesitation in pointing out the course 
 which alone England can adopt. She must determine to 
 shake off without unnecessary delay the grievous responsibility 
 under which she now labours, she must withdraw from her 
 connection with a traffic that merits such unqualified con- 
 demnation. But if this be admitted, the question still remains 
 as to the best and most effectual method by which the policy 
 of abandonment can be carried out. And in this connection 
 it should be remarked that the restriction and ultimate pro- 
 hibition of the opium cultivation in Bengal must be a main 
 feature in the new departure. For merely to withdraw the 
 government monopoly, and thus to leave the field free for 
 the advent of countless individual manufacturers, would only, 
 in Lord Hartington's words, effect ' the demoralisation of our 
 ' own subjects,' in addition to inflicting added injury to the 
 Chinese people. As under the present regime the cultivation 
 of the poppy is prohibited in 95 per cent, of the country, 
 there would seem to be no insuperable obstacle to preventing 
 its cultivation in the remaining 5 per cent.: more especially 
 as the poppy is a plant very easily detected, and the manu- 
 facture of the drug not a process that can be carried on in 
 secret. 
 
 Another point of capital importance would be to obtain the 
 concurrence of the Chinese government in a similar restrictive 
 policy in the provinces of the Celestial Empire. It has indeed 
 been asserted by the Indian government that the power of 
 the Chinese to carry out such regulations is absent, and cer- 
 tainly it has been very rarely if ever exercised hitherto : at 
 the same time the experiment is worth trying whether or not 
 the co-operation instead of the antagonism of England would 
 enable China successfully to enforce such ordinances. For 
 the first few years it might perhaps be unadvisable to pro- 
 hibit the entire importation, but restrictive regulations, enforced 
 by the English and Chinese authorities in concert, could 
 
94 THE INDO-CHINESE OPIUM TRADE. 
 
 hardly fail to produce considerable constraint. Thus the way 
 would be paved for the speedy withdrawal of the entire trade 
 better than if it were precipitately terminated, a course of 
 action which would undoubtedly cause numerous difficulties 
 and no small amount of irritation both in India and China. 
 
 But, subject to this one qualification, the need for action in 
 the matter is immediate and urgent, for in a few years the 
 evil may, we are told, be beyond the power of man to eradicate 
 or to cure, and thus England, if she delays, will have lost 
 a grand opportunity for rectifying her relations between China 
 and its people, and of putting herself before them in a more 
 favourable light. 
 
 The financial question, as to how the deficiency in the 
 Indian budget which would probably result can be replaced, 
 it is not necessary to discuss further than it has been discussed 
 already. For if the gradual withdrawal which has just been 
 suggested be carried out judiciously it is more than possible 
 that time would be allowed for discovering the requisite means, 
 and that expedients might present themselves in proportion 
 as the necessity for them became apparent. Moreover it has 
 been admitted, that if Indian resources were inadequate to 
 the emergency the assistance of England must be forthcoming 
 to supply the deficiency, and must provide for the necessary 
 expenses which the recognition of international morality 
 might demand from her. Nor can there be much doubt 
 that when the facts and character of the opium traffic become 
 more widely known, the moral sense of the people will 
 willingly respond to the demand, and authorise its repre- 
 sentatives in Parliament not to refuse assent, even though 
 the sum might involve some millions of extra taxation. 
 
 And when that eventful, but it is hoped not too far distant, 
 day shall dawn, and when a British Minister rising in his 
 place in Parliament shall announce to the assembled Commons 
 the adoption by the Government of a new and more righteous 
 
CONCLUSION. 95 
 
 policy in this matter, and shall propose the necessary vote of 
 credit not for the expenses of some projected warfare, but 
 for the establishment of love, peace, and international good- 
 will ' when a British Minister shall speak so, and a British 
 ' public shall applaud him speaking, then shall the nation be 
 ' so glorious that her praise, instead of exploding from within, 
 ' from loud civic mouths, shall come to her from without, as 
 1 all worthy praise must, from the alliances she has fostered, 
 4 and from the populations she has saved/ 
 
 FEINTED BY E. PICXAED HALL, M.A., AND HOEACE HAET 
 PEINTEES TO THE UMVEBSITY 
 
II-l- 6 
 
RETURN TO: CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 
 198 Main Stacks 
 
 LOAN PERIOD 1 
 Home Use 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS. 
 
 Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due 
 date. Books may be renewed by calling 642-3405. 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 MAY 1 3 2 
 
 307 
 
 
 ^Mbl 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FORM NO. DD6 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY 
 50 M 1-06 Berkeley, California 94720-6000