1. That the Chinese are a civilized people, very abstemious in their
habits, especially as regards the use of opium, spirits, and stimulants of
all kinds.
2. That there is and can be no analogy or comparison whatever between
opium eating and opium smoking, as each stands separate and apart from the
other, differing totally in the mode of use and their effects, and that
opium eating is not a Chinese custom.
3. That an overdose of opium, like an excessive draught of spirits, is
poisonous and produces immediate death.
4. That opium smoking is a harmless and perfectly innocuous practice,
unless immoderately indulged in, which rarely happens, as seldom, indeed,
as over-indulgence in tea or tobacco in England.
5. That even when immoderately indulged, any depressing effects resulting
from opium smoking are removed simply by discontinuing the use of the drug
for a short period.
6. That no death from opium smoking, whether indulged in moderately or
excessively, has ever occurred, and that death from such cause is a
physical impossibility.
7. That opium smoking is a custom far less enslaving and more easily
discontinued than dram drinking or even tobacco smoking.
8. That opium smoking is a luxury which can only be indulged in by those
who are well-to-do and is wholly out of the reach of the poor, and, save
in Western China and certain other districts, where the poppy is very
extensively cultivated and opium comparatively cheap, beyond the means of
the working classes.
9. That opium smoking is a universal custom throughout the whole of the
immense empire of China, just as tea, wine, or beer drinking is with the
people of the United Kingdom, its use being limited only by the ability of
the people to procure the drug.
10. That it is admitted by Sir Robert Hart, a high official of the Chinese
Government, that the greatest quantity of Indian opium of late years
imported into China is only sufficient to supply about one million of
people with a modicum of the drug, and that, in his own words, "neither
the finances of the State, nor the wealth of the people, nor the growth of
its population," can be specially damaged by a luxury which only draws
from five-pence to eleven-pence a-piece from the pockets of those who
enjoy it, and which is indulged in by a comparatively small number of the
Chinese people.
11. That the poppy is extensively cultivated in all the provinces of China
proper as well as in Manchuria, and that there is probably three or four
times as much native drug produced annually in China as is imported from
abroad.
12. That in the western parts of China, where the poppy is more
extensively cultivated and opium more generally smoked than in other parts
of the empire, no decadence whatever is produced in the mental or bodily
health, or the wealth, industry, and prosperity of the people, but on the
contrary, that these very people are peculiarly strong and vigorous.
13. That the Chinese Government is not, and never was, sincere in its
professed desire to put down the practice of opium smoking in the empire,
which is evidenced by the fact that the poppy is largely cultivated
throughout the country, and that a revenue is derived by the Government
from the native drug.
14. That Hong Kong being the great depôt of Indian opium and the place
where the drug is most largely prepared for smoking purposes, and where
also the native population (about three-fourths of whom are adult males)
are in good circumstances, and therefore better able to indulge in opium
smoking than their countrymen in the mainland of China, is the place where
the alleged evils of opium smoking, if they existed, would be found in
their worst form, yet that _those evils are unknown there_.
15. That the outcry, got up and disseminated for so many years past in
England against the Indo-China opium trade has not, and never had, any
substantial foundation; that such outcry has arisen from the complaints,
of the Protestant missionaries in China, which also are equally baseless,
those missionaries having been simply made dupes of by certain designing
and mendacious natives for purposes of their own, or of the Government of
China.
16. That opium was inserted into the Schedule to the Treaty of Tientsin at
the express desire and request of the Chinese authorities; that Lord Elgin
wished and proposed to those authorities by his Secretary, Mr. Laurence
Oliphant, to place a higher duty than thirty taels on the drug, but that
the Chinese officials declined to do so, fearing that, if the duty were
raised, an impetus would be given to smuggling.
17. That the career of the Anti-Opium Society has been signalized by a
continuous series of mistakes and blunders--commencing with the monstrous
figment (the invention of an American missionary) that there were twenty
millions of opium smokers in China supplied by the Indian drug, and that
_two millions of these smokers died annually from the practice_,--and that
the Anti-Opium confederacy is only kept alive by the continued reiteration
of exploded fallacies, sophistries, and mis-statements of the same nature.
18. That the British merchants connected with China in the past and the
present were and are wholly free from the stigmas cast upon them by the
Anti-Opium Society, anent smuggling and the opium trade;[12] that, so far
from having acted wrongfully towards China and the Chinese, their conduct
towards both has been, and still is, emphatically characterized by honour
and rectitude, and by uniform courtesy and kindness; and that those
merchants, have deserved well of their country.
19. That the Anti-Opium Society, from its formation to the present time,
has wrought nothing but mischief, crippling by its pragmatical efforts the
action of Her Majesty's Government, both here and in India and China,
abstracting by its mis-statements enormous sums of money from the
charitable and benevolent, and squandering that money in the propagation
of unfounded theories and injurious reflections against our
fellow-countrymen in China; and that the public should withdraw their
confidence from the Society, and cease to supply it with one farthing
more.
20. That, save in respect of the blockade of Hong Kong by the armed
cruisers of the Hoppo or Revenue Farmer of the provinces of the two
Kwangs, which inflict great and bitter hardship upon the Chinese merchants
of Hong Kong and the junk owners who trade to that place, the British
nation, by its Government and people, has amply redeemed the promises made
to the people of China by Her Majesty's representative, Sir Henry Elliott,
on taking over Hong Kong, which is amply verified by the flourishing state
of that Colony, and its large, thriving, and contented Chinese population.
21. That, whilst it is desirable to maintain the most amicable and cordial
relations with the Government of China and its various viceroyalties, that
most unjustifiable blockade by the Hoppo or Revenue Farmer of Canton
should be promptly suppressed; a matter which has only to be taken in hand
by Her Majesty's Consul at Canton, supported, if necessary, by the British
Minister at Peking, and firmly but courteously pressed upon the Viceroy
of the two Kwangs, who cannot but acknowledge the gross injustice and
cruel wrong inflicted on Hong Kong and its native merchants by those
cruisers, and who has the power and only wants the will to let right be
done.
In the course of these lectures I have spoken of some of the vices of the
Chinese, and of our own also. The people of England have, however, many
virtues, the growth of centuries; one of these is a broad and liberal
charity, that pours forth a continuous stream of benevolence over the
whole world. It is a virtue that pervades all classes, from our honoured
Queen to the humblest of her subjects. It is not without a swelling heart
that one can walk through the streets of London and see the noble
charitable institutions surrounding him upon all sides, such as hospitals,
convalescent institutions, homes for aged and infirm people, educational
institutes, and such like, _supported by voluntary contributions_--living
evidences of the charity and benevolence of our people in the past and
present. Yet these splendid monuments but faintly testify to the flow of
munificence perpetually running its course around us. Observe how
liberally the public respond to the appeals made to it almost daily. Look
at the case of the persecution of the Jews in Russia, the famine in the
North of China, the distress and troubles in Ireland. Then, again, there
is the charity "that lets not the left hand know what the right hand
doeth," of which the world sees nothing, but which is known to go on
unceasingly, and which probably is the most liberal of all. The history of
the world, so far as I am aware, does not record a parallel to this in any
other nation or people. With such an active and unceasing charity going on
amongst us, we should take care that this beneficent stream is not
diverted into worthless channels, for that would be a matter concerning
the whole public.
Now, though I hold in respect all the officers and supporters of the
Anti-Opium Society, who are actuated, I admit, by the best motives, and
whose characters for benevolence and good faith I do not question, I
cannot forbear from repeating that their crusade against the Indo-China
opium trade is as unjustifiable as it is mischievous, and is well
calculated to produce the results I have deprecated. It encourages the
Chinese Government to make untenable demands upon us, under false
pretences, and it is an unwarranted interference with an industry, wholly
unobjectionable on any but sentimental grounds, affording subsistence to
millions of our fellow-subjects in India. It aims, also, at cutting off
some eight or ten millions sterling from the revenue of that vast
dependency, now expended in ameliorating the condition of its dense
population. Furthermore, it offers to useful and legitimate legislation an
opposition and obstruction of the worst kind, seeing that it obtrudes upon
the Legislature its unfounded and exploded theories, to the displacement
or delay of really useful measures.
I say that the Anti-Opium Society, in the course of its agitation for the
abolition of this Indo-China opium trade, is vilifying its countrymen and
blackening this country in the eyes of the whole world, so that the
foreigner can convict us out of our own mouths, and jibe at us for
hypocrisy and turpitude we are wholly innocent of, and for crimes we have
never committed.[13] I say that the history of this Society presents
nothing but a dreary record of energies wasted, talents misapplied, wealth
uselessly squandered, charity perverted, and philanthropy run mad. The
members of this Society never think, perhaps, of the mischief they have
done and are doing. Here has our Government been trying for the past seven
or eight years to agree upon a revised commercial treaty with the
Government of China, and here also, side by side, is an irresponsible
political body doing its utmost to cripple, paralyse, and defeat our
Government in its efforts, taking up, in fact, a downright hostile
attitude to the action of the Imperial and Indian Governments, by carrying
on an unauthorized unofficial correspondence with Li Hung Chang, the Prime
Minister, and the most influential public man in China, who is a master of
the arts of diplomacy, and who is doing his utmost to get the better of us
if he can in the matter of the Chefoo Convention. Here, I say, is this
society putting forward Li's audacious and misleading letter to its
secretary, Mr. Storrs Turner, as an embodiment of truth and justice. Is
this patriotic or proper on the part of this Anti-Opium Society? Should
that body, instead of setting itself up as a junto, with a quasi-official
standing, having a monopoly of all the virtues, be allowed by the
Government to carry on its mischievous organization any longer? I think
not. I believe there is no other country in the world--not even America,
where liberty has run to seed--where such an intermeddling, anti-national
and mischievous confederacy would be permitted to exist. Instead of trying
to thwart Her Majesty's Government, as it is doing, it should be the duty
of its members, of every Englishman interested in China, and, indeed, of
the whole country, to strengthen as far as possible the hands of the
Government in its endeavour to bring the pending negotiations for a
commercial treaty with China to a successful close. Yet what are the
present plans of this pragmatical body? In its latest publication, a
compilation of the most fallacious and misleading matter, bearing a title
meanly plagiarized from this book, it is announced that the following
motion stands upon the Order Book of the House of Commons, and is intended
to be moved in the Session for 1883, viz:--
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that in
the event of negotiations taking place between the Governments of Her
Majesty and China, having reference to the duties levied on opium
under the Treaty of Tientsin, the Government of Her Majesty will be
pleased to intimate to the Government of China that in any such
revision of that treaty _the Government of China will be met as that
of an independent State, having the full right to arrange its own
import duties as may be deemed expedient_.
What a modest proposition! The Queen's Ministers, it appears, cannot be
trusted in their negotiations with the Government of China, and Her
Majesty in consequence is to be asked to ignore her constitutional
advisers, and personally inform the Chinese Minister that his Government
shall be treated as an independent state, and so forth. In fact, this
proposal is tantamount to a vote, _pro tanto_ at least, of want of
confidence in the Government, which, I have little doubt, would be
rejected by an overwhelming majority of both sides of the House. I only
hope it will be pressed to a division, as the result, I believe, will show
to the country in an unmistakable manner, once and for all, the utter
insignificance of the Anti-Opium confederacy as a political body, the
falsity and mischief of its teaching, and prove the knell of its
existence. If motions like this were to be passed, it would be impossible
to carry on Her Majesty's Government. The matter is really too absurd to
be seriously dealt with by Parliament, and I bring it before my readers
more for the purpose of showing the downright folly, infatuation and
fanaticism which characterize this Anti-Opium confederation than for any
other purpose. To these political philanthropists and amateur statesmen I
would recommend these lines, which seem to me to meet their case
exactly:--
"No narrow bigot he, his reasoned view
Thy interest, England, ranks with thine, Peru;
War at our doors, he sees no danger nigh,
But heaves for all alike the impartial sigh;
A steady patron of the world alone,
The friend of every country--save his own."
Of the missionaries themselves, beyond this opium craze that has
unfortunately possessed them, I have nothing to say except to their
credit. A more conscientious and deserving body of men this world has
never produced; under hardships, troubles, and unspeakable difficulties,
they have sped their way with courage and cheerfulness, undeterred by
dangers, great privations and hardships which nothing but their strong
faith and unflagging zeal in their sacred mission could have enabled them
to surmount. Of their ultimate success I entertain, perhaps, as little
doubt as they do themselves; but on this opium question the "zeal of their
house hath eaten them up," and they have unconsciously been playing the
game of the crafty heathen. Let them pursue their good cause, and not
allow themselves to be cajoled by their bitterest enemies; above all, let
them keep clear of politics. No clergyman ever improves by intermeddling
in such matters, but, on the contrary, by doing so he invariably becomes a
bad politician and a worse priest. Let these vast sums, subscribed for the
promotion of a chimera, be transferred to the missionaries' fund, so as to
improve the lot of these missionaries and give them a little more comfort
in the hostile climate and the bitter fight that is before them. "The
labourer is worthy of his hire," and it is starving the missionary work
not to pay its servants liberally, I should say most liberally. With
respect to the Rev. Mr. Storrs Turner, whose name I have so often
mentioned, and whose writings I have so frequently animadverted upon, I
had the pleasure of knowing him in China. No worthier or better gentleman,
and no more able and zealous missionary clergyman ever set foot there. In
referring to him and his writings as I have done, nothing was further from
my thoughts than to impute to him for a moment an unworthy motive. He is
in the first rank of the missionary clergymen who stood the brunt of the
battle, and is deserving of praise and honour. As yet the missionaries
have been like husbandmen tilling an unkindly soil, trying to produce
wholesome fruit where only gross weeds grew before; and although small
apparently has been the fruit as yet, the unfriendly soil has shown signs
of yielding, and I feel assured that the day will come when their labours
shall be rewarded with a plenteous harvest.
I have now told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on
the opium question; certainly such has been my intention. In doing so I am
afraid I may have given pain to many good and excellent people; I know
that I have given pain to myself. I can only repeat that I have never
intended to impute a wrongful or unworthy motive to any of them. Those who
are and have been engaged in the Anti-Opium agitation are, I admit,
influenced by the best motives. I have myself throughout been solely
actuated by a desire to remove the unfounded delusions that have got
possession of these worthy people, which have done great injustice to our
fellow-countrymen in China, as well as to the benevolent British public,
which has kept this Anti-Opium Society provided with the funds that have
enabled them to carry on their operations, to the embarrassment of the
administration of our great Indian Entire. Personally, I say again, that I
have no interest whatever in the matter, nor have I any leaning towards
the interests of any of the merchants now engaged in the opium trade. My
hands in this matter are absolutely clean. In the preface to the first
edition of these lectures I have explained how and why I came to deliver
them; that is my explanation without any mental reservation whatsoever. I
have, I admit, a very strong feeling upon the subject, but so also have
those who differ from me; and I would ask those most excellent and
honourable people to remember that there are two sides to most
questions,--to imagine, if they can, that there are other persons, totally
opposed to their views, who are quite as honest in their convictions as
they are themselves,--to look upon me as one of those persons, and to
measure my feelings by the strength of their own. I say this because I
have heard that a rumour to the effect of my being in some way personally
interested in the Indo-China opium trade has been circulated. If such is
the case, this rumour has no foundation in fact. I cannot prevent the
dissemination of such reports; but they are, I repeat, utterly groundless.
Honest in my purpose, I can afford to treat them with unconcern, and can
justly add, whilst far from setting myself up as better than my
neighbours, that--
"I am arm'd so strong in honesty,
That they pass me by as the idle wind,
Which I respect not."