I closed my first lecture with a list of fallacies, upon which the
objections to the Indo-China opium trade, and the charges brought against
England in relation to that trade, are founded, stating that I should
return to them and dispose of each separately. I also said in the earlier
part of my lecture, that the extraordinary hallucinations which had taken
hold of the public mind, with respect to opium smoking in China, arose,
amongst other causes, from the fact that the public had formed their
opinions from hearsay evidence, and that of the very worst and most
untrustworthy kind. I say untrustworthy because hearsay evidence, although
in general inadmissible in our law courts, may be in some cases very good
and reliable evidence. As this point goes to the root of all these
fallacies and false assertions, and the delusions based upon them, I wish
to show you why hearsay evidence is, in this case, of the worst and most
unreliable kind. In the first instance, I would refer you to the general
character of the Chinese for mendacity and deceit, admitted by all writers
upon the subject of China and the Chinese, and supported by the general
opinion of Europeans who have dwelt amongst them. Now, I am far from
saying that every Chinaman is necessarily a liar, or habitually tells
untruths for corrupt purposes. The point is, rather, that the Chinese do
not understand truth in the sense that we do. The evidence of Chinese
witnesses in courts of justice is notorious for its untrustworthy
character. The judges are not generally contented with the direct and
cross-examination to which witnesses are ordinarily subjected by counsel,
but frequently themselves put them under a searching examination, and
generally require more evidence in the case of Chinese than they would
if Europeans were alone concerned.
From my acquaintance of the Chinese I can say that they are a very
good-natured people, especially when good-nature does not cost them much;
but they are also a very vindictive people, as, I suppose, most heathen
nations are. I have known cases where, to gratify private malice, or to
obtain some object, the reason for which would be hard for us to
appreciate, a Chinaman has got up a charge without foundation in fact, but
supported by false witnesses, who were so well drilled and had so
thoroughly rehearsed their parts that it was hard to doubt, and almost
impossible to disprove, the accusation. By such means innocent men have
been condemned and sentenced to severe punishments, or been unjustly
compelled to pay large sums of money. I have, on the other hand, known
cases which, according to the evidence brought before me, appeared
perfectly clear and good in law; but on taking each witness quietly into
my own office, and going through his evidence, the whole fabric would
tumble down like a pack of cards; so that, although my client's case might
still be intrinsically good, the witnesses he brought in support of it
knew nothing about it beyond what they had heard from others. It would
turn out that they had been told this by one person, that by another, and
so on, throughout the series of witnesses, not one of them would have any
actual knowledge of the alleged facts. In cases like these there would
probably be no corrupt motive whatever.
While upon this point I may allude to another peculiar phase in the
Chinese character. They are so addicted to falsehood that they will
embellish truth, even in cases where they have the facts on their own
side. On such occasions they like to add to their story a fringe of
falsehood, thinking, perhaps, that by doing so, they will make the truth
stand out in brighter colours and appear more favourable in the eyes of
the Court and the Jury. Another Chinese peculiarity is the following:--If
you put leading questions to a Chinaman upon any particular subject, that
is to say, if you interrogate him upon a point, and by your mode of doing
so induce him to think that you are desirous of getting one particular
kind of answer, he gives you that answer accordingly, out of mere
good-nature. In these instances his imagination is wonderfully fertile.
The moment he finds his replies afford pleasure, and that there is an
object in view, he will give his questioner as much information of this
kind as he likes. Not only is this the case with the common people,
corresponding to the working or the labouring classes here, but the habit
really pervades the highest ranks of Chinese society. It is mentioned in
Dr. Williams's work, how the Chinese as a people think it no shame in
being detected in a falsehood. It is very hard to understand, especially
for an Englishman, such moral obtuseness. We are so accustomed to consider
truth in the first place, and to look upon perjury and falsehood with
abhorrence, that it may seem almost like romancing to gravely assure you
of these facts.
If I relate a few short anecdotes which are absolutely true, and in which
I was personally concerned, I may put the matter more clearly before you.
A Chinese merchant, now in Hong Kong, once instructed me to prosecute a
claim against a ship-master for short delivery of cargo, and from the
documents he gave me, and the witnesses he produced, I had no hesitation
in pronouncing his case a good one, although I knew the man was
untruthful. When we came into court, knowing my client's proclivities, my
only fear was that he would not be content with simply telling the truth,
but would so embellish it with falsehood that the judge would not believe
his story. I therefore not only cautioned him myself in "pidgin English,"
but instructed my Chinese clerk and interpreter to do so also. My last
words to him on going into court were, "Now mind you talkee true. Suppose
you talkee true you win your case. Suppose you talkee lie you losee." The
man went into the witness-box, and I am bound to say that on that occasion
he did tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, but I could plainly see
by his manner and bearing that the task was a most irksome one. When he
left the box, after cross-examination, I felt greatly relieved. The
defendant, who, I am glad to say, was not an Englishman, although he
commanded a British ship, told falsehood after falsehood. There could be
no doubt about this, and the judge, Mr. Snowden, the present Puisne Judge
of Hong Kong, at last ordered him to leave the box, and gave judgment for
my client. Notwithstanding this satisfactory result, I saw that the
plaintiff was still dissatisfied. I left the court and he followed me
out. He still seemed discontented, and had the air of an injured man. When
we got clear of the court he actually assailed me for having closed his
mouth and deprived him of the luxury of telling untruths. "What for," said
he, "you say my no talkee lie? that man have talkee plenty lie." I
replied, "Oh, that man have losee; you have won." But with anger in his
countenance, he walked sullenly away.
Now I will tell you another--and a totally different case. The judge on
this occasion was the late Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of Hong Kong. It
was an action brought by a Chinese merchant, carrying on business in
Cochin China, against his agent in Hong Kong, a countryman of his, who had
not accounted for goods consigned to him for sale. The plaintiff put his
case in my hands. When it came into court the defendant was supported by
witnesses who seemed to have no connection whatever with the
subject-matter of the suit. They, however, swore most recklessly. In
cross-examination one of the witnesses completely broke down. The Chief
Justice then stopped the case, and characterized the defendant's conduct
"as the grossest attempt at fraud he had ever met with since he had come
to China," and, under the special powers he possessed, sent the false
witness to gaol for six weeks. The person so punished for perjury proved
to be what we would call a Master of Arts. He was, in fact, an expectant
mandarin, ranking very high in China. I should tell you that in that
country there is no regular hereditary nobility, nor any aristocracy save
the mandarin or official class. The fact is, and in view of Mr. Storrs
Turner's comparison of the Chinese with the savages of Central Africa, I
may here mention it, that in China--where these simple, innocent
"aborigines," as it suits the anti-opium advocates to treat them,
flourish--education is the sole criterion of rank and precedence. They
have a competitive system there, which is undoubtedly the oldest in the
world. This man, as I said, was a Master of Arts, and would, in regular
course, have been appointed to an important official post and taken rank
as a mandarin. He was, I believe, at the time of his sentence, one of the
regular examiners at the competitive examinations of young men seeking for
employment in the Civil Service of the Empire. When the case ended, I
dismissed it from my mind. But, to my great surprise, six or seven of the
leading Chinamen of Hong Kong waited upon me on the following day, and
implored of me to get this man out of gaol. They declared that the whole
Chinese community of Hong Kong felt degraded at having one of their
superior order, a learned Master of Arts, consigned to a foreign prison.
They assured me that this was the greatest indignity that could have been
offered to the Chinese people. I replied that the fact of the prisoner
being a man of education only aggravated his offence, that he had
deliberately perjured himself in order to cheat my client, and that the
foreign community considered his punishment far too lenient, for had he
been a foreigner he would have got a far more severe punishment. But they
could not see the matter in that light, and went away dissatisfied. They
afterwards presented a petition to the Governor, praying for the man's
release, but without success. My object in narrating this to you is to
show the utter contempt which the Chinese, not only of the lower orders,
but of the better class, have for the truth. I could supplement these
cases by many others, all showing that the Chinese do not regard the
difference between truth and falsehood in the sense that we do.
To illustrate more clearly what I have told you, I will read to you a
short passage from a leading article in the "China Mail," a daily
newspaper published in Hong Kong. The date of the paper is the 3rd of
October 1881. The editor is a gentleman who has been out there for twenty
years; he is a man of considerable ability and knows the Chinese character
perfectly, and I may also mention that he is a near relative of Mr. Storrs
Turner. This is what he says:--
The question of the reliability of Chinese witnesses is one which is
continually presenting itself to all who have anything to do with
judicial proceedings in this colony, and as jurors are usually saddled
with the responsibility of deciding how far such evidence is to be
credited in most serious cases, the subject is one which appeals to a
large body of residents. An eminent local authority, some time since,
gave it as his opinion that he did not think a Chinese witness could
give accurate evidence, even if the precise truth would best suit his
purpose. This is doubtless true to some extent, and it bears directly
on one phase of the discussion, viz. that of reliableness, so far as
strict accuracy of detail is concerned. But a witness may be regarded
as the witness of truth although he fails in that extremely precise or
accurate narration of facts and details which goes so far to
strengthen truthful testimony. What is meant here by reliability of
witnesses, however, is their desire to tell what they _believe_ to be
the truth. It has been somewhere said, by one of authority on Chinese
matters, that it is not particularly surprising that the Chinese, as a
people, are so widely known as economisers of the truth, when their
system of government is carefully considered. For a Chinaman, life
assumes so many phases, in which a good round lie becomes a valuable
commodity, that the only surprise remaining is, that he is ever known
to tell the truth.
That is exactly what I have already said. It would occupy too much time to
read the rest of the article, which is ably written, but the portion I
have quoted tends to show the unreliability of Chinese witnesses, even in
a solemn Court of Justice.
Now, I think, I have shown you that our Celestial friends present rather
an unpromising raw material from which to extract the truth. Yet these are
the men from whom the missionaries derive their information as to those
wonderful consequences from opium smoking which, the more greedily
swallowed, are the more liberally supplied, thus affording an illustration
of Mr. Storrs Turner's extraordinary theory of supply and demand, of which
I shall have to speak more by and by. Having exhibited to you the well of
truth from which credible evidence is sought to be obtained, I have now to
turn to the other side of the question and describe the character and
competence of those who draw their facts from that source, and from whom
the general public have mainly derived their knowledge of opium and opium
smoking.
As regards the missionaries, I have stated already that I hold them in the
very highest respect, and they are well deserving of it, and, indeed, of
the consideration of the whole community. Were I to state anything to
their prejudice or disadvantage, further than what I assert as to their
fallacious views and unjustifiable conduct on the opium question, I should
certainly be speaking without warrant; for a more respectable,
hard-working, or conscientious body of gentlemen it would be difficult to
find. Perhaps they are the hardest worked and worst paid class of any
foreigners in China. They have a work to perform, the difficulty of which
is but partially understood in this country; that is, the task of
converting to Christianity these heathen people, who think Confucianism
and the other religions engrafted upon it which they follow, and which
seem to suit their temperament, immeasurably superior to ours; who point
to our prophets and sages as men of yesterday, and look with comparative
contempt upon our literature, laws, and customs. The real difficulty of
the situation lies in these facts; believe me, that it is as absurd as it
is untrue to say that opium has had anything to do with the slow progress
of Christianity in China. Missionary clergymen in China are really not the
best men to get at the facts of the opium question. If a foreigner, here
in England, were to ask me in which quarter he would be likely to obtain
the best information regarding the manners and customs of the English
people, I should certainly advise him to get introductions to some of our
working clergy of all denominations, because they are the people's trusted
friends and advisers, sharing in their joys and sympathizing in their
sorrows, their wants and necessities. They are educated and matter-of-fact
men, just the class of persons to afford sound and accurate information as
to the country and people. This, I believe, will be generally admitted.
The same rule would not apply to our missionary clergymen in China; for
they, unlike our clergy at home, are not the trusted friends and advisers
of the Chinese people, and, knowing really very little of the inner life
of the people, cannot be said to sympathize in their wants and
necessities. No doubt there have been some admirable books written on
China by missionary clergymen, such as the "Middle Kingdom," from which I
have already quoted, and Dr. Doolittle's work; but everyone who has lived
long in China takes all their statements on every point affecting their
missionary labours, and upon many other matters also, _cum grano_. So far
as the manners and customs of the Chinese can be understood from their
outdoor life, literature, and laws, they are competent judges enough; but
as they are not admitted into Chinese society, and do not possess the
confidence of the people, they cannot be accepted as authorities on the
inner social life of the natives, so far as regards opium-smoking. They
have not at all the same status as regards the Chinese that English
clergymen have in respect to their own countrymen here in England; and if
a friend were to put such a question to me respecting China and the
Chinese, the last people I would refer him to for information would be the
missionary clergymen. These missionary gentlemen, if they were at home in
England, would, no doubt, have their livings and vicarages, and would take
their place with the regular clergy of the country. But in China things
are totally different. There the people not only despise them, but laugh
at the creed they are trying to teach. The simplicity of the Gospel is too
cold for them. Teeming with the marvellous as their own religions do, no
other creed seems acceptable to them that does not deal in startling
miracles and offer a continuous supply of supernatural feats. Anyone who
reads Dr. Legge's book, on the religions of China, will see this at once.
The Chinese have an accepted belief three or four thousand years older
than Christianity, and they are well aware of the fact. Despising
Europeans, as they do, and looking upon themselves as a superior race, it
is not likely that the Chinese will take missionary clergymen into their
confidence, or afford them any trustworthy information about private or
personal matters. In short, there is no cordiality between the Chinese and
the missionaries.
Still our Chinese friends are a very polite people, and no doubt they are
and will continue to be outwardly very civil to missionaries, and,
although they may consider them impudent intruders, will give courteous
answers to their questions; but it does not follow that they will give
_true_ answers. A respectable Chinaman, such as a merchant, a shopkeeper,
or an artizan, would consider himself disgraced among his own community if
it were known that he had embraced Christianity, or even entertained the
thought of doing so. I do not think that, long as I was in China, I had a
single regular Chinese client who was a Christian. All my native
clients--merchants, shopkeepers, clerks, artizans, and coolies, and I have
had professional dealings with thousands of them--were heathens. In very
rare instances Chinese professing Christianity will be found holding
respectable positions; but, I regret to say, I do not believe that any of
such people are sincere. I had myself a clerk in my office for about
twelve years; he was a young man educated at St. Paul's College, in Hong
Kong. The College is now closed, but when in existence the pupils there
got an excellent education, and were also well clothed and fed. They were
not only taught Chinese, as is the case in Chinese schools, but also to
read and speak English well. When he went to the school he was not more
than seven or eight years old, and left it probably when he was fourteen
or fifteen. He was an excellent clerk, a highly intelligent young fellow,
and wrote and spoke English well. Now, if ever there were a case where a
lad might be expected to be a sincere convert this was the one. He had
been strictly brought up as a Christian, went to church, and read the
Bible regularly, and, indeed, was far more kindly treated in the College
than English lads are in many schools in this country. Even that boy was
not a sincere convert.
When about eighteen years of age he got married, as is the custom with the
youth of China. On informing me of his intention, he asked me to procure
from the Superintendent of Police the privilege of having "fire crackers"
at his wedding, a heathen custom, supposed to drive away evil spirits. I
reminded him that I had always believed him a Christian; when he said,
"Oh! it's a Chinese custom." However, I got him the privilege. But instead
of being solemnized in the church, which he had been in the habit of
attending when a pupil in St. Paul's College, according to the rites of
the Church of England, his marriage ceremony was celebrated in Chinese
fashion, a primitive proceeding, and certainly heathen in its form. He
never went near the church at all. A few days afterwards I remarked to him
that he had not been married in the church. He laughed, and said, "that as
he and his wife were Chinese they could only be married according to
Chinese custom."
Let me give another story in point. I knew a man in Hong Kong who, owing
to the difficulty of finding suitable natives who understood English, was
for a long time the only Chinese on the jury list. He spoke English fairly
well. He was educated at a school presided over by the late Rev. Dr.
Morrison, the learned sinologue, who had lived in Hong Kong before my
time. His school was an excellent one, and had turned out some very good
scholars. I have seen this man go into the jury-box, and often too, into
the witness-box, and take the Bible in his hand and kiss it
ostentatiously. I used to think he was a sincere Christian, and was glad
to see so respectable a Chinaman (for he held a responsible position in a
bank) acknowledge in public that he was a Christian. But that man, I
afterwards discovered from the best possible authority, was at heart a
heathen; he always had idols, or, as we call them, "Josses," in his house.
He also was a Christian in name, and nothing more.
There was another man educated in Dr. Morrison's school. Dr. Legge knew
him very well, and was a sort of patron of his. I suppose it is pretty
well known that polygamy is a custom in China, and that it is quite an
exception for a Chinese in any decent position there not to have three,
four, or more wives; the more he has the greater his consequence among his
countrymen. This man, as a matter of fact, had three wives, and when his
so-called first wife died, he was in a great fright lest Dr. Legge should
discover that he had two more wives, for it is customary that the other
wives should attend the funeral of the first as mourners. Now these are
the sort of converts, for the most part, to be met with in China. As a
rule, they are far less honest and more untruthful than their heathen
countrymen, and many Europeans in consequence will not take converts into
their service. In proof of this statement I will here give you an extract
from a very able article which appeared in the "Hong Kong Daily Press," an
old and well conducted newspaper, of the 31st October 1882. This is it:--
They [the missionaries] secure some adherence to the Christian
religion, no doubt, but what is the value of the Christianity? It
possesses, so far as we have been able to judge, neither stamina nor
backbone. Foreigners at Hong Kong, and at the Treaty Ports, fight shy
of Christian servants, a very general impression existing that they
are less reliable than their heathen fellows; and with regard to the
Christians in their own villages and towns, there is always a
suspicion of interested motives.
Are these Chinese converts the class of the Chinese from which truth is to
be gleaned? Is the testimony of such people of the slightest value? Yet
these are the persons from whom the missionaries derive their knowledge of
opium smoking and its alleged baneful effects. I venture to say that among
all the so-called Christian converts in China you will not find five per
cent. who are really sincere--all the rest profess Christianity to obtain
some personal advantage. These so-called converts are generally people
from the humblest classes, because, as I have mentioned, people of the
better class, such as merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen, not only
consider their own religion superior to the Christian's creed, but they
would be ashamed to adopt Christianity, as they would thus be disgraced
and make themselves appear ridiculous in the eyes of their neighbours;
and they are a people peculiarly sensitive to ridicule. I will not say
that there are not some true converts to be found among Chinese
congregations; if there are none, the missionary clergymen are certainly
not to blame, for they are indefatigable in their exertions to make
converts, proving also by their blameless lives the sincerity of their
professions. As I have said, the difficulty attending their efforts is
enormous. It must be remembered that in China we are not teaching
Christianity to the poor African, or the semi-civilised native of
Madagascar or the Fiji Islands; but that we are dealing with civilized
men, who consider their own country and literature, customs and religion,
far superior to those of England or of any other country in the world. The
Chinese are so convinced of this, that the very coolies in the streets
consider themselves the superiors of the foreign ladies and gentlemen that
pass, or whom, perhaps, they are carrying in their sedan chairs.
I hold the missionaries altogether responsible for the hallucination that
has taken possession of the public mind on the opium question. With the
Bible they revere in their hands, they think the Chinese should eagerly
embrace the doctrine it inculcates, and, unable to account for their
failure, they readily accept the subterfuge offered by certain Chinese for
not accepting Christianity or attending to their teaching. They feel that
it is, or may be, expected of them in this country, that they should have
large congregations of native proselytes, such as, I believe, the
missionaries have in Madagascar, and in like places, forgetting that no
parallel can be drawn between such races and the Chinese. The Protestant
missionary clergymen in China are, not unnaturally, anxious to account for
their supposed failure in that large and heathen country. They would not
be human if they were not. The better class of Chinese, as I have said,
will not listen to a missionary, or argue with him. They do not want to
hear lectures on Christianity, and grow impatient at any disparaging
remark about their own religion. They simply say, "We have a religion that
is better than yours, and we mean to stick to it." The missionaries,
however, think they ought to have better success. They are, no doubt,
indefatigable in their labours, and as they do not meet with the results
that ought, they consider, to follow from their labours, and as their
sanguine minds cling to any semblance of excuse for their shortcomings,
they accept the stale and miserable subterfuge, to the use of which their
converts are prompted by the Mandarins, that the Indo-China opium trade is
vicious, and that before Christianity is accepted by the country, the
trade in question must be abolished. This transparent evasion of the
Chinese appears to me to bear too strong a family likeness to the famous
"confidence trick," with which the police reports now and then make us
acquainted, to be entertained for a moment.
The Chinese, knowing the weakness of the missionaries, play upon it; and
one of the best instances I can give you that they are successful is
this:--They tell them that the Chinese Government objects to the opium
trade upon moral grounds; but it never occurs to the missionaries to
retort and say, "If so, why does your Government not prevent the
cultivation of opium throughout China? In the provinces of Yunnan and
Szechuen, and all over the Empire, indeed, enormous crops of opium are
raised every year; why does not your Government, knowing, as you say, that
the effects of opium are so fatal, put a stop to the growth of the
deleterious drug?" This question would prove rather a difficult one to
answer, though the Mandarins, skilful casuists as they are, would no doubt
invent some specious one which might impose upon their interrogators. The
mental vision of our missionary friends is so limited to one side only of
the question, that even here they might be taken in by the astute natives.
It is only of late that the Chinese Government has taken up the moral
objection, and the reason, I believe, it has done so is because it has
found out the weak side of the missionaries, probably through _The Friend
of China_, published at Shanghai.
When it is taken into account that of late years the average quantity of
Indian opium imported into China is about one hundred thousand chests,
each of which, for all practical purposes, may be called a hundredweight,
and that the price of each of these chests landed in China is about seven
hundred dollars, and that the whole works up to something like sixteen
millions sterling, the strong objection of the Mandarin classes to allow
such a large amount of specie to leave the country becomes intelligible.
Rapacious plunderers as they are, they see their prey escaping them before
their very eyes, and are powerless to snatch it back. These sixteen
millions, they think, would be all fair game for "squeezing" if we could
only keep them at home. For although China is an immense empire, with
great natural resources, it is still a poor country as regards the
precious metals. No doubt an economist would tell these Mandarins: "It is
true we sell you all this opium, but then we give you back again all the
money you pay for it, with a great deal more besides, for the purchase of
your tea and silk." But a Mandarin would only laugh at such an argument.
"Ah," he would say, "you must have tea and silk in any case; you can't do
without them. We want to get hold of your silver and give you none of ours
in return." That is the true cause, or one of the true causes, of the
objection of the Government of China to the importation into that country
of Indian opium.
The missionaries, or at all events the greater number of them, have
adopted the view, that if they could only put a stop to the importation of
Indian opium into China the evangelization of the country would be a
question of time only; and in one sense, indeed, this would be true; but
the time would not be near, but very distant. The Chinese have a keen
sense of humour, and if the British would allow themselves to be cajoled
by the specious arguments with which the religious world here is
constantly regaled about the opium question, so far as to put a stop to
the traffic, such a feeling of contempt for English common sense, and in
consequence for the religion of Englishmen, would ensue, that the spread
of the Gospel in China would be greatly retarded indeed. The truth about
opium is so clear to those who trust to the evidence of their senses, and
who look at facts from a plain common sense point of view, that they
cannot for a moment see that there is any connection whatever between
opium and Christianity. It seems to me that those gentlemen who adopt the
anti-opium doctrine, and scatter it abroad, are only comparable to the
monomaniac, who, sane upon every subject but one, is thoroughly daft upon
that. No better example of this can I give you than by referring to a
speech made by a gentleman deservedly respected by the community, whom I
have always considered as one of the hardest-headed men sitting in the
House of Commons, possessing sound common sense upon all subjects save
that of opium. I refer to Sir J. W. Pease, the Member for South Durham.
In the year 1881 the usual anti-opium debate came on in the House of
Commons. Sir J. W. Pease delivered a speech on the occasion denunciatory
of the Indo-China trade, in the course of which he referred to the treaty
recently made between China and America, one of the clauses of which
provides that American ships shall not import opium into China, and that
no Chinaman shall be allowed to import opium into America, where there is
a large Chinese population, especially in San Francisco. The treaty
relates to other matters, and this clause is, so to speak, interpolated
into it, for a purpose I shall now explain. It was intended to appear as a
sort of _quid pro quo_, for whilst America, in fact, gave up nothing,
though she affected to do so, she obtained some commercial advantages by
the treaty. This is the clause:--
The Governments of China and of the United States mutually agree and
undertake that Chinese subjects shall not be permitted to import opium
into any of the ports of the United States; and citizens of the United
States shall not be permitted to import opium into any of the open
ports of China. This absolute prohibition, which extends to vessels
owned by the citizens or subjects of either Power, to foreign vessels
employed by them or to vessels owned by the citizens or subjects of
either Power, and employed by other persons for transportation of
opium, shall be enforced by appropriate legislation on the part of
China and the United States, and the benefits of the favoured claims
in existing treaties shall not be claimed by the citizens or subjects
of either Power as against the provisions of this article.
I happened to be weather-bound in Rome when I first read, in a Hong Kong
paper, that amusing and deceptive treaty, which was made in 1880. Knowing
thoroughly the situation, and all the facts connected with the Indo-China
opium trade, I undertake to assure you that so far, at least, as regards
this opium clause, that treaty was simply a farce. With the single
exception of a line of mail packet steamers between Hong Kong and San
Francisco, America has few or no steamers trading in the China seas. She
has protected her mercantile marine so well that she has now very little
occasion for exercising her protection. She has no vessels trading between
India and China, and never has had any, and, as a matter of fact, no
American ships carry one ounce of opium between India or China, or to the
port of Hong Kong, or have carried it for many years, if, indeed, any
American vessel has ever done so. Nor is there, indeed, at present the
slightest probability that her ships will ever convey opium between India
and China. America, in fact, might, with as much self-denial, have
undertaken not to carry coals to Newcastle as Indian opium to China. There
are regular lines of British steamers plying between the ports of Bombay,
Calcutta, and Hong Kong, by which all Indian opium for the China trade is
carried direct to its destination.
I declare that anything more absurd, deceptive, and dishonest never formed
the subject of an international treaty. The whole affair was so utterly
false and misleading that the first thing I did after reading the treaty
was to cut it out from the newspaper and forward it, with an explanatory
letter, to the "Times," the usual refuge of the aggrieved Briton. This
deceptive clause was intended simply to mislead the simple, benevolent,
good-natured John Bull, already, as the framers of the treaty no doubt
supposed, half-crazed on the anti-opium movement. A better specimen of
American smartness and Chinese astuteness could hardly be conceived than
this crafty and fallacious clause. America has no opium to sell or import,
and can, therefore, afford to be extremely generous on the point. It is
just possible, however, that at a future day opium may be produced in the
South-Western States, in which case the American Government--I will not
say the American people, for I hold _them_ in great respect--will
endeavour to wriggle out of this precious treaty, just as they are now
trying to do as regards the Panama convention with this country, when the
possibility that gave rise to it is likely to become a reality. The
stipulation that Chinese subjects should not be permitted to import opium
into any of the ports of the United States is of course absolute nonsense.
If the American Government had really intended to prohibit opium from
being imported from China, or elsewhere, into their country they should
not have confined the prohibition to Chinese subjects, but have extended
it to all nationalities; in fact, to have made opium, save for medical
purposes, contraband. To explain this point more clearly, you will
remember what I have mentioned before, that the exclusive right to
manufacture crude opium into the form used for smoking, called in China
"prepared opium," is farmed out. The present farmer pays the Government of
Hong Kong two hundred and five thousand dollars, or forty thousand pounds
a year for the monopoly. The reason why he pays so large a sum for this
privilege is because of the facilities it affords him for exporting it to
other places, and not merely to get the exclusive right of preparing and
selling the drug in Hong Kong, for if that were all the benefit to be
derived from the monopoly he would not give so large a rent for it. The
greater source of profit arises from the circumstance that the Chinese
must have the beloved stimulant wherever they roam. If you go to
Australia, the Philippine Islands, the Straits, Borneo, or the town of
Saigon in French Cochin China, or wherever else dollars are to be made,
you will find Chinese in abundance. Go to the South Seas, go to the
Sandwich or the Fiji Islands, you will discover the Chinese happy and
prosperous, and you will always see in their houses the opium pipe. The
advantage of having the exclusive privilege in Hong Kong of preparing and
selling opium consists in this, that it is the terminus of an American
line of steamers which ply between that port and San Francisco. It is also
the port from which British lines of steamers run to Australia, Tasmania,
and New Zealand. These packets always take with them consignments of
prepared opium ready for smoking, because at these places there are large
and well-to-do Chinese communities who can afford to indulge in the
national luxury of opium smoking. I have already told you that I was for
about ten years solicitor for that opium firm, and I happen to know a
great deal about the prepared opium trade through that medium. The Chinese
in California, where there is an immense number of those people, do not
consume less, I should say, in the course of a year than one hundred
thousand pounds worth of prepared opium. As is the case in Hong Kong, the
Chinese have better means to buy the drug there than they would have at
home. They get high wages, keep shops, are excellent tradesmen, and can
live and make money where a European would starve. They are all, in fact,
well-to-do, and wherever a Chinaman has the money he must have his opium
pipe. Therefore the privilege of supplying the Chinese in California,
Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, and in the South Sea Islands, where
are large China colonies, is enjoyed by the opium farmer of Hong Kong,
because he has the means of shipping the drug by steamers direct to those
places, thus out-distancing all other competitors. This trade,
notwithstanding that wonderful treaty, is still going on, and not one
ounce of opium less than was shipped before its ratification is now being
carried to San Francisco, and in American bottoms too, for the treaty only
says that no _Chinaman_ shall import opium into America; there is no
prohibition against Americans or Europeans doing so. What the opium farmer
now does, if indeed he has not always done so, is to get an American or
other merchant in Hong Kong to ship the drug for him in his own name,
handing him, the opium farmer, the bill of lading. The opium is
accordingly shipped in the name of Brown, Jones, or Robinson, and on its
arrival at San Francisco the opium farmer's consignee takes possession of
it, and it is distributed by him among his countrymen in that flourishing
city.
If Sir J. W. Pease were not an enthusiast, ready to swallow without
hesitation everything which seems to tell against the opium traffic, and
to disbelieve everything said or written on the other side of the
question, he would have seen through all this as a matter of course. This
is what he said about the treaty in the speech I have referred to, having
first delivered a philippic on the enormities and terrible wickedness of
the traffic:--
Only last year a treaty was entered into between the United States and
China, and one of the articles of that treaty distinctly stated that
the opium trade was forbidden, and that no American ship should become
an opium trader--a fact which showed that the Chinese authorities were
honest in their expressed desire to put an end to the trade.
Sir J. W. Pease is the most confiding of men; to my mind the treaty should
be construed in a very different sense. Sometimes, when we want to convey
our sentiments to another, we do so indirectly. There is a very well
understood method of attaining that object. Instead of opening your mind
to Mr. Jones, who is the object of your intended edification, you will in
Mr. Jones's presence address your remarks to Mr. Brown; but in reality,
although you are speaking to the latter, you are speaking at the former.
Now the whole object of this precious article of the treaty was to play a
similar piece of finesse. Both nations well understood what they were
about; they were simply trying to hoodwink and make fools of John Bull by
putting into the treaty this false and hypocritical clause, which, as
between themselves, each party well knew meant nothing to the other. Here
is Sir J. W. Pease, a sensible and astute man of business, with his eyes
open, yet, blinded by his good nature and anti-opium prejudice, falling
into the trap set for him, and allowing himself to be deceived by this
transparent piece of humbug, and quoting in the House of Commons this
"bogus" treaty as evidence that the Indo-China opium trade is so infamous
that the American Government intended, so far as they were concerned, to
put a stop to it, and that the Chinese Government wish to abolish it on
moral grounds. I give you this as an example of the lengths to which
otherwise sensible gentlemen will go when smitten with opium-phobia, and
how oblivious they become under such circumstances to actual facts.
Imagine how his Excellency Li Hung Chang, that very able Chinese
statesman, and those smart American diplomatists who have thus posed as
anti-opium philanthropists, must have enjoyed the fun of being able to so
completely bamboozle an English member of Sir J. W. Pease's reputation!
Now, although I have exposed this Americo-Chinese juggle, I am far from
meaning to cast the slightest imputation upon Sir J. W. Pease, whose
personal character I in common with the whole country hold in the very
highest respect. I am well assured that in bringing forward his motion in
the House of Commons he was actuated by a sense of duty, and the very
purest motives, and that in referring to the treaty in question he fully
believed in its _bona fides_; upon this point I am at one with his warmest
admirers. No one deservedly stands higher as a philanthropist and
Christian gentleman, and, save as regards this opium delusion, no man has
ever made a nobler use of an ample fortune than he.
I may speak in the same terms of the venerable and universally-respected
nobleman who is the president of the Anti-Opium Society, whose whole life
has been devoted to the welfare of his fellow men, especially those who
stood most in need of his help. I referred in the first edition of this
lecture to a Most Reverend Prelate, honoured and beloved both by his own
countrymen, and, I believe, the whole Christian world, who is also, I
deeply deplore, a believer in the anti-opium delusion, but in doing so
nothing was farther from my intentions than to lay aside for a moment the
respect that was due to him as a man and a high dignitary of the church. I
revere and honour him and admire his great and noble qualities as much as
any man living. Born and brought up as I have been in the Church of
England, and sincerely attached to its doctrine and teaching, having near
and dear relatives, too, ministers of that church, the last thing I would
be capable of doing is to harbour an unkind thought, or utter a
disrespectful word, against any of her clergy, much less one of her most
honoured prelates. These three good and upright men are, I am sorry to
say, but types of a great many other most estimable people, many of them
ornaments to their country, who through the purity and overflowing
goodness of their hearts, have been dragged into the vortex of delusion
set afloat by the Anti-Opium Society--who allow themselves to be cajoled
and victimised--led by the nose, in fact, by anti-opium fanatics, who,
cunning as the madman and perfectly regardless of the means they resort to
in the prosecution of what they consider right, bring to their aid the
zeal of the missionary and the power for mischief which superior education
and mis-directed talents confer. This is what rouses one's indignation and
compels me to pursue the unpleasant task of discrediting and otherwise
painfully referring to men whom, apart from this wretched opium delusion,
I honour and respect.
Upon this point I cannot refrain from referring to a gentleman of high
standing, who had formerly been in China, and really ought to have known
better. That gentleman went so far as to write a letter to the "Times," in
which he said that out of one hundred missionaries in China there was not
one who would receive a convert into his church until he had made a vow
against opium smoking. Bearing in mind that all these so-called converts
made by these one hundred missionaries belong for the most part to the
very poor, if not to the dregs of the people, I should think no missionary
clergyman would find much difficulty in obtaining such a pledge. He has
only to ask and to have. If a clergyman in a very poor neighbourhood in
the East End of London proposed to his congregation that they should
promise never to drink champagne, he would receive such a pledge without
difficulty from one and all; but if any kind person were afterwards to
give them a banquet of roast beef and plum-pudding, with plenty of
champagne to wash those good things down, I am afraid their vow would be
found to be very elastic.
So it is with the congregations of these missionary clergymen; there is
not an individual amongst them who would refuse to enjoy the opium pipe if
he got the chance, however much they might declaim against the practice to
please the missionary. Opium, as the missionaries must well know, is a
luxury that can only be indulged in by those who have the means of paying
for it. Now, while twopence or threepence may appear to us a very
insignificant sum, such will not be the opinion of a very poor person.
Threepence will purchase a loaf of bread. So it is with the Chinese,
especially those residing in their own territory. There is only one class
of coin current in China. It is known by Europeans as "cash." Ten should
equal a cent, or a halfpenny, but owing to the inferiority of the metal
they are made of, twelve or thirteen usually go to make one cent of
English money, so that ten cents, or fivepence of our money, would be
about one hundred and thirty cash. A poor Chinaman possessing that sum
would think that he had got hold of quite a pocketful of money, and so it
would prove, so far as regards a little rice or salt fish, which forms
part of most Chinamen's daily food; but were he so foolish as to indulge
in opium, a few whiffs of the pipe would soon swallow up the whole. And
then there arises the difficulty of getting the cash, so that it is really
only people having command of a fair amount of money who can afford to
indulge, habitually at all events, in the luxury of the pipe.
Now with respect to the alleged evil effects of opium smoking, you will
constantly hear stories from missionary sources of wretched people, the
slaves of the opium pipe, crawling to the medical officers of missionary
hospitals, who are to a certain extent missionaries themselves, and asking
to be cured of the terrible consequences of their indulgence in opium
smoking. The medical officer at each of these missionary institutions, a
victim himself, in most cases, to the delusions set afloat, accepts their
story, pities the men, and takes them into the hospital; and, believing
that if they do not get a moderate indulgence in opium smoking they will
pine away and die, the good, easy man, full of kindness and simplicity,
gives them a liberal allowance, which his patients are delighted to get.
Knowing the bent of mind of the confiding doctor, they fill him with all
kinds of falsehoods as to the evils attendant upon opium smoking in
general, which he swallows without a particle of doubt. The truth,
however, is that those men who go with such tales to the medical
missionary are in most, if not all, cases simply impostors, generally
broken-down thieves, sneaks, and scoundrels--the very scum of the people.
No longer having energy even to steal, they are driven off by their old
associates, to starve or die in a gaol. These men are the craftiest, the
meanest, and the most unscrupulous on the face of the globe. They well
know all that the missionaries think about opium smoking, and, like the
accommodating Mr. Jingle, they have a hundred stories of the same kind
ready to pour into the ears of their kind-hearted benefactors, who become
in turn their victims. Much merriment, I have no doubt, these scamps
indulge in amongst themselves at the good doctor's expense; for the
Chinese are not deficient in humour, and have a keen sense of the
ludicrous. These people crawl to one of the hospitals; the doctor is
delighted with their stories, for they confirm all he has written home or
published, perhaps in _The Friend of China_. He communicates with the
missionary; their stories are sent home, and the patients get for three or
four weeks excellent food and comforts, including plenty of opium, before
they are turned out as cured. The lepers have been cleansed and made
whole, but only to enable them to prey once more upon the industrious
community. I may here observe that there are no missionary hospitals in
Hong Kong, and so we never hear of those wonderful stories happening in
that place, yet, if such stories were true, it is there that the strongest
corroboration of them should be found, for, although there is no
missionary hospital in the colony, there is the large and well-managed
civil hospital, as also the Chinese Tung-Wah Hospital, both of which are
subject to the inspection of Dr. Ayres.
Such are the tales, and such the authors who have caused much of this
clamour about opium smoking. There is scarcely a particle of truth in any
one of those stories. No man can indulge in opium to such an extent as to
harm himself unless he possesses a fair income, and if such a person
became ill from over-indulgence, he would not go to a foreign hospital,
but would send for a doctor to treat him at his own house. It is only the
broken-down pauper, thief, or beggar, who, in his last extremity, seeks
admission to the hospital.
Dr. Ayres was the first to expose this imposture. On arriving at Hong Kong
he found it had been the custom there to allow such of the prisoners in
the gaol as were heavy smokers a modicum of prepared opium daily,--it
having been supposed by his predecessors that without it such prisoners
would pine away and die. Dr. Ayres, however, knew better; and he at once
put an end to the custom. He would not allow one grain of opium or other
stimulant to be given to any prisoner, however advanced a smoker he might
be. The result was that the hitherto pampered prisoners moaned and
groaned, pretending, no doubt, to be very ill; but after a little time
they got quite well. The Doctor has published his experiences on this
subject in the _Friend of China_.
These persons know what pleases the missionaries, and so they detail to
them all kinds of horrible stories respecting opium smoking, which, as I
have before stated, are pure inventions. Trust a Chinaman to invent a
plausible tale when it suits his purpose to do so. The missionaries do not
smoke opium themselves, and have, therefore, no means of refuting the
falsehoods thus related to them, or of testing their accuracy. They simply
believe all these stories, and send them on to head-quarters in London, to
be retailed by eloquent tongues at Exeter Hall and elsewhere. I have no
doubt that every mail brings home numbers of apparently highly
authenticated tales of this kind, every one of which is baseless. Thanks
to the modern excursion agents, and to the present facilities for
travelling, gentlemen can easily take a trip to China, and if any of them
happen to have opium on the brain, they will take letters of introduction
to missionary clergymen. On their arrival at Hong Kong they will perhaps
be shown over the Tung-Wah hospital, where they see a number of wretched
objects labouring under all kinds of diseases; they will go away fully
impressed with the belief that all the patients shown to them are victims
of opium smoking. They are then taken to an opium shop, or as the
missionaries like to call it, an "opium den"--though why an opium-smoking
shop should be so termed, and a dram shop in London called a "gin palace,"
I cannot understand--and are there shown half a dozen dirty-looking men,
mostly thieves and blackguards, all smoking opium, and as they are quiet
and motionless, they come to the conclusion that they are all in a dying
state, having but a few days more to live. If they knew the facts, they
would find perhaps that the very men they were commiserating were just
then quietly planning a burglary or some piratical expedition for that
very night. These kind of travellers go out to China with preconceived
notions, and are quite prepared to believe anything and everything,
however absurd or monstrous, about opium smoking. They will spend two days
at Hong Kong, three at Canton, two or three at Shanghai. They will take
copious notes at these places, omitting nothing, however incredible or
absurd, that is told them, and return home with a full conviction that
they have "done China," when in reality they have only done themselves,
and that, too, most completely. If they have the _cacoethes scribendi_
strong upon them, they will probably write a book upon the subject; and so
the miserable delusion is kept up.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.
Mr. Turner, in his volume, gives what he calls "a little apologue," with
the object of showing how the Indian Government injures China by supplying
it with opium. If you will allow me, I will give you a short one, too. Let
us suppose a young gentleman, well brought up, and a member of that
excellent institution, the "Young Men's Christian Association," where he
has heard the most eloquent speeches on the wickedness of this country in
permitting the Indo-Chinese opium trade, and thus encouraging opium
smoking--for your anti-opium agitator thinks it the height of virtue and
propriety to drag his country through the mire on every occasion that
presents itself. Let us call him Mr. Howard; it is a good name, and was
once owned by a most benevolent man. He makes up his mind to go out to
China and to see for himself the whole iniquity; for, despite his strong
faith in his clerical mentors at Exeter Hall, he can hardly believe that
his own countrymen could really be the perpetrators of such dreadful
wickedness as he has been told. He takes a letter of introduction to a
missionary gentleman at Hong Kong, and another to a mercantile firm there.
He expects, on his arrival, to see the streets crowded with the
wretched-looking victims of the opium-pipe, crawling onwards towards their
graves, whilst the merchant who is making his princely fortune by this
terrible opium trade drives by in his curricle, looking complacently at
his victims, just as a slave-owner of old might be expected to have gazed
at his gangs of serfs wending their way to their scene of toil. Not seeing
any but active, healthy-looking people, he concludes that the miserable
creatures he is looking out for are in hospital, or lying up in their own
houses. He calls upon Messrs. Thompson and Co., the mercantile firm to
which he is accredited, and is well received by one of the partners, who
invites him to stop at his house during his stay in Hong Kong--for our
fellow-countrymen in China are the most hospitable people in the world.
Mr. Howard declines, as he intends putting up at Mr. Jenkins's, his
missionary friend. The great subject on his mind is opium, so he comes to
the point at once, and asks, "Is there much opium smoked in the colony?"
"Oh, plenty," answers Mr. Thompson; "two or three thousand chests arrive
here every week." "Do you sell much?" Mr. Howard asks. "No; we haven't
done anything in it these many years," is the response. "Do many people
smoke?" continues Howard, following up his subject. "Oh, yes: every
Chinaman smokes." "But where are all the people who are suffering from
opium smoking?" again asks the inquirer, determined to get at the facts.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughs Mr. Thompson, but that gentleman is writing letters
for the mail, and has not much time at his disposal. "Here, Compradore,"
he says, addressing a Chinese who has been settling an account with one of
the assistants, "this gentleman wants to know all about opium smoking."
The Compradore is the agent who conducts mercantile transactions between
the foreign firms and the Chinese; he resides on his master's premises,
and is usually an intelligent and keen man of business, and, I may also
add, an inveterate opium smoker. The two try to make themselves
understood. Mr. Howard repeats the same questions to the Compradore that
he had just put to Mr. Thompson, and receives similar replies.
Disappointed and surprised, Howard calls with his letter of introduction
upon the missionary, to whom he tells what he has heard from Messrs.
Thompson & Co. "Ah," says the missionary, "they wouldn't give you any
information there; they are in the opium trade themselves." But Mr. Howard
tells him that Thompson had assured him that they had not been in the
trade for years. "Ah," returns the missionary, "you must not believe what
_he_ says. His firm is making a princely fortune by opium." "But where are
the smokers?" asks Howard. "Oh, I will show them to you." He then calls
Achun his "boy." "This gentleman," he says to the latter, "wants to know
about opium smoking. Take him to the Tung-Wah and to an opium shop, you
savee?" "Yes, my savee" (meaning "I understand"), returns Achun, who is,
of course, a devout convert, but who, notwithstanding, often in private
indulges in the iniquity of the pipe. On they go to the Tung-Wah, which is
the Chinese hospital before referred to, where he is shown some
ghastly-looking men, all either smoking the "vile drug" or having opium
pipes beside them. Two or three are shivering with ague; another is in the
last stage of dropsy; another is in consumption, and so on. They are all
pitiable-looking objects, wasted, dirty, and ragged. Poor Mr. Howard
shrinks away in horror. "Are all these men dying from opium smoking?" he
asks of his guide. "Yes, ebely one; two, tlee more day dey all die. Oh!
velly bad! olla men dat smokee dat ting die," says the person questioned,
well knowing that what he has said is false, and that the poor creatures
before him are only honest, decent coolies in the last stages of disease,
who until they entered the hospital may never have had an opium pipe in
their mouths. "Their poverty and not their will consented." They had been
admitted but a few days before to the Tung-Wah, where the Chinese doctor
in charge had prescribed for them opium smoking as a remedy for their
sickness and a relief for their pains. Poor Mr. Howard leaves the hospital
bitterly reflecting upon the wickedness of the world and of his own
countrymen in particular. As for Mr. Thompson, he is set down for a false
deceitful man, a disgrace to his country, who should be made an example
of. He and his guide then proceed to the opium shop. I shall, however,
proceed there before them, and describe the place and its occupants.
Opposite to the entrance door are two well-dressed men, their clothes
quite new, their heads well shaven, and having attached to them long and
splendid queues. These men are lying on their sides, vis-à-vis, with their
heads slightly raised, smoking away. If it were not for their villainous
countenances they might pass for respectable shopkeepers. They are two
thieves, who have just committed a burglary in a European house, from
which they carried off three or four hundred pounds' worth of jewellery,
and they are now indulging in their favourite luxury on the proceeds. They
have also exchanged their rags for new clothes, got shaved and trimmed, as
Mr. Howard sees them. Now, wherever an extreme opium smoker is met, he
will in general be found to be one of the criminal classes. In this shop
there are three other men smoking. They are stalwart fellows, but
dirty-looking, as they have just finished coaling a steamer, and are
begrimed with coal dust. As the daily expenses of a steamer are
considerable, it is a great object with sea captains to get their vessels
coaled as quickly as possible, so that they may not be delayed in port.
The men employed upon this work are usually paid by the job, and probably
each will receive half-a-dollar for his share. They work with
extraordinary vigour, and by the time they have finished they are often
much distressed, and are inclined to lie down; their hearts, perhaps, are
beating irregularly, and their whole frame unhinged. Being flush of money,
for half-a-dollar, or two shillings, is quite a round sum for them, they
have decided to go to the opium shop, and, by having a quiet whiff or two,
bring the action of their hearts into rhythm, and restore themselves to
their ordinary state. These poor coolies are honest fellows enough. They
work hard, and are peaceful, unoffending creatures. Hundreds of them are
to be seen hard at work every day in Hong Kong.