form a rough estimate of the number of smokers supplied by the Indian
drug; and this has been done by Mr. Hart, Inspector-General of Chinese
Customs. But his figures need some modification, inasmuch as he puts the
number of chests imported at 100,000, whereas the number, for reasons
given above, certainly does not exceed 85,000 all told. Moreover, he
reckons the population of China at 300,000,000--surely a low estimate. We
may safely assume it to be 350,000,000. Again, in his estimate of the
native drug he errs on the other side, for the amount of the native drug
produced is probably much more than 100,000 chests, and may be even four
times as much.[80] Mr. Hart's figures, then, thus amended, give the
following results:--Indian opium imported to China amounts to 85,000[81]
chests at most = 8,500,000 catties (1-1/3 lb.). Provision opium, when
boiled down and converted into prepared opium, loses at least 30 per cent.
of its weight; consequently 8,500,000 catties of provision opium are
equivalent to 5,950,000 catties of prepared drug, which = 952,000,000 mace
(58 grains). This is sold at 800 taels per 100 catties, so that the whole
quantity imported costs 47,600,000 taels, or L14,280,000, the price per
mace being a little more than 3-1/2d. English. Average smokers take three
mace of prepared opium a day, and spend 11d. Dividing the number of mace
smoked by the days in the year, we get 2,608,219 mace as the amount smoked
daily, at the cost of L39,123. As the average smoker takes three mace a
day, there must be 869,406 smokers of the Indian drug, _i.e._ one person
in every 400, or 1/4 per cent. The smokers of the native drug may be
taken--a large estimate--to be four times as numerous. Still the two
together will only form 1-1/4 per cent. of the population. The native drug
costs only half as much as the Indian, so that the whole native crop,
being four times as much, will only cost twice as much, or L28,560,000.
The whole amount, then, spent by China on native and Indian opium will be
L42,840,000 a year, and the number of smokers 4,347,000, of whom India is
responsible for 870,000.[82] Not that we are to suppose these 4-1/3
millions of smokers to be all indulgers to excess. That is no more the
case than that all who drink wine and spirits in this country are habitual
drunkards. There is, indeed, in the case of each individual a well-defined
limit, of which he knows that so far he can go with safety, and no
further. This curious fact we owe to Dr. Myers,[83] who also gives it as
his experience that opium-smokers may be divided into two classes:[84]
"1st. The minority, who, from being rich, can afford to gratify their
tastes. Of these the official class are less prone to excess than those
well-to-do persons who suffer from idleness and ennui. 2nd. The majority,
consisting of persons who have to work hard for their livings, among whom
moderation is the rule." For, that opium does not destroy a capacity for
hard physical[85] and intellectual[86] work, nay, even enhances it, has
been abundantly proved, and that not only when taken on emergencies, but
also when habitually indulged in.
In a recent letter to the _Times_[87] from a correspondent at the Straits
Settlements, some interesting facts are recorded with regard to the use of
opium there. The Chinese population of the Straits Settlements and the
neighbourhood cannot be much more than one million souls. About 12,000
chests of Bengal opium are imported yearly, being more than one-seventh of
the total amount of Indian opium exported. It appears, then, that the
Chinese of the Straits Settlements, who are the finest specimens[88] of
their race in existence, consume one-seventh part of the opium consumed by
175,000,000 Chinese, the other 175,000,000 being held to consume the
native drug. Or, if the Straits scale of consumption prevails in China,
then the quantity of opium imported is only enough to reach one-fiftieth
part of the Chinese population, leaving the remaining forty-nine fiftieths
to consume the home-grown article. The correspondent goes on to say:
"According to the descriptions circulated by the Anti-Opium Society of
decimation, emaciation, &c., the Straits Chinamen ought to be all dead
men. But they live to disprove the anti-opium theory. Nay more, they are
robust, energetic, and hearty beyond all other Eastern races."
It has, we think, been sufficiently proved that, though opium is strictly
a poison, and if you take too much of it you must probably, as De Quincey
says, "do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits,
viz. die," yet taken in moderation it is, for the most part, harmless, if
not beneficial.
We will now advert to the second charge, and endeavour to point out that
we are not responsible for the introduction of opium into China, either as
having first brought it to the notice of the Chinese, or as having planted
in them a craving for it, which is really due partly to climatic causes,
partly to constitutional characteristics.
From the history of the traffic given above, it will abundantly appear
that the poppy was known and cultivated in China--to what extent it is
impossible to define, but certainly to some extent--_long_ before any
foreign opium found its way into the empire. But even if this were not so,
the English would not be responsible for the first importation of foreign
opium, since the Portuguese preceded them by some years. Not that the
Portuguese or any other nation can be said to have created a craving for
the drug among the Chinese by the mere fact of supplying it, as Mr.
Storrs Turner insists, for such a view of the conditions of supply and
demand is, we take it, untenable. We may be sure that in those early days,
before the haughty Celestial had felt the power of the outside barbarians,
whom he thoroughly despised and consistently ill-treated, he would have
laughed to scorn the idea that a few foreign traders could force upon him
anything he was determined not to have. But the truth is that the Chinese
people, _literati_, gentry and all, did ardently covet this foreign drug;
and there are surely weighty reasons--if we will only condescend to
investigate them--to justify their preference.
Every nation, as has been repeatedly pointed out,[89] whether civilized or
barbarous, in all ages of the world, has been addicted to the use of some
stimulant or narcotic.[90] Of these there are more than fifty kinds in use
in different regions of the globe, ranging from alcohol in Europe, to
"pombe," a fermentation from millet, in Africa, and from bhang or hemp in
India to coca and tobacco in America. Samshoo, a fiery distillation from
rice, is the intoxicant of Japan, and was that of China before opium took
its place.[91] The West Indians extract a strong spirit-rum from
sugar-cane. Even the Kamschatkans draw an intoxicating liquor from
mushrooms; even the Siberians express the juice of the crab-apple for the
same purpose.[92] What but the natural craving of mankind for some
intoxicant or narcotic "to make glad the heart of man" can have brought
about the independent discovery and use of so many stimulants? For what
purpose but to satisfy such a craving can Nature have scattered in such
profusion the materials for its gratification? It has been said, and all
known facts bear out the assertion, that "the craving for such indulgence,
and the habit of gratifying it, are little less universal than the desire
for, and the practice of, consuming the necessary materials of our common
food." Not but that there are gradations in the wholesomeness of these
several stimulants. Perhaps the most purely beneficial is coca, which has,
in some unexplained way, the power of retarding waste of tissue, and at
the same time increasing nerve-power. Next to it in value undoubtedly
comes opium, both because it also, to a great extent, has this effect upon
the tissues and on the nervous system, and also owing to its curative and
sanative powers. Of the three principles of which it consists--morphine,
narcotine, thebaine--the first supplies the intoxicating and
nerve-affecting element; while the second base, the narcotine, is the
tonic and febrifuge which makes the drug so valuable in the treatment of
bowel complaints, and as a safeguard against ague and malaria. This
naturally brings us to the reasons which have made opium-smoking so
prevalent in China. These are, as before stated, partly climatic, partly
constitutional. Taking the former first, we may note that China over
one-third of its surface is a vast ill-drained marsh, and covered to a
large extent with rice-fields, the cultivation of which is productive of
much unhealthiness.[93] To counteract this unhealthiness, nothing is so
efficacious or so handy as opium; for, though quinine is even more useful
as a febrifuge, opium has the additional advantage, peculiar to itself, of
checking blood-spitting and consumption, a disease fatally prevalent in
these unwholesome localities. As a general rule, the unhealthier the
locality is, the more opium is consumed there, not in China only, but in
India (_e.g._ in Orissa and Assam), and in our own fen districts. But
besides being a safeguard against malaria and its attendant ailments,
opium is also a valuable agent in counteracting the effect of the putrid
and unwholesome food which, by its piquancy, pleases the Celestial palate.
But over and above these special reasons, there are general causes which
predispose the Chinese to _some_ lazy habit. Their home life is not one
which affords them many attractions. They have no books, except the
everlasting _Confucius_, and no periodical literature to engage their
thoughts. The domestic life of the Chinese has none of the charms implied
by our word "home"; and it is this blankness, this want of home
attractions, which no doubt causes much of the drunkenness of the poorer
classes here in England. The gin-shop is the poor man's club. Lastly,
opium is specially suited to the lethargic Turanian nature,[94] for while
by the delightful dreamy sensations which it produces it supplies the
place of an imagination which the Chinaman lacks, it does not rob him of
that dignified repose, that impassive acquiescence, which is so marked a
characteristic of the Oriental mind.[95]
And here it will not be amiss to institute a short comparison between the
use of opium by the Chinese and the use of ardent spirits by ourselves.
Those who agitate for a suppression of the opium trade demur to any such
comparison being made; and naturally, for it tells entirely against them.
Dr. Hobson,[96] a member of the London Missionary Society, and for many
years medical officer at Canton, says: "I place alcohol (the bane of Great
Britain) and opium (the bane of China) in the same category, and on the
same level, as to the general injurious influence upon society: what may
be said against the latter may be said with equal truth against the
former.... Opium is probably more seductive and tenacious than alcohol;
and I should certainly affirm that it was not so frequently fatal to life,
nor so fruitful of disease and crime, as is the case with intoxicating
drinks in Great Britain."
Dr. Eatwell says: "Proofs are still wanting to show that the moderate use
of opium produces more pernicious effects than the moderate use of
spirituous liquors; while it is certain that the consequences of the abuse
of the former are less appalling in their effects upon the victims, and
less disastrous to society, than the consequences of the abuse of the
latter."
Sir Henry Pottinger says:[97] "I believe that not one-hundredth part of
the evils spring from it that arise in England from the use of spirituous
liquors."
These witnesses, and they might be indefinitely multiplied, will be enough
to show that there is no intrinsic difference between opium and alcohol
such as to justify exceptional legislation in the case of the one which is
not afforded to the other. What difference there is is wholly to the
advantage of opium. We may go further than Dr. Eatwell, and say that there
_is_ ample evidence to prove that the moderate use of opium--and
nine-tenths of those who smoke it use it in moderation--is _not_ more
injurious than the common use of wine and beer with us. Taken to excess,
its effects, even if the worst accounts of its opponents be literally
accepted, are no whit worse than, if they can be as bad as, the delirium
tremens of the confirmed drunkard. "Physically," says Sirr,[98] "the
effect of opium on the enslaved victim is almost beyond the power of
language to pourtray." "It is impossible," writes another author,
speaking of drink, "to exaggerate--impossible even truthfully to
paint--the effects of this evil, either on those who are addicted to it,
or on those who suffer from it." It would be easy, were it necessary, to
quote descriptions of the visible physical effects of opium and alcohol
upon their victims--so much alike that they could with very little verbal
and no essential alteration be applied to either indifferently. It will be
enough to point out where opium has the decided advantage over alcohol.
One point in which this advantage is manifest will be obvious to all, and
indeed is conceded by the bitterest opponents of the drug. Alcohol makes
men noisy and quarrelsome, and maddens them till they are ready to commit
any crime and perpetrate any outrage; opium lulls its votary into a dreamy
rest quite incompatible with any violent or passionate action. Our gaols
are filled with prisoners who, under the influence of drink, have
committed horrible crimes.[99] Indeed, nine-tenths of all our prisoners
owe their incarceration to their fatal propensity for drink. Everyone is
familiar with the terrible accounts of wives beaten and kicked to death by
husbands infuriated with drink. By far the largest proportion of murders
of any kind are due to the same cause. Convictions for drunkenness and
disorderly conduct number 170,000 every year. Our lunatic asylums owe at
least thirty per cent.[100] of their patients to the "stuff that steals
away men's brains." Nothing so bad as this has been, or can be, said of
opium. But opium has another incalculable advantage over alcohol, for the
disorders which it occasions are _functional_ only, whereas alcohol causes
_organic_ disease--a most important difference surely; for once get the
opium-smoker or eater to forgo his luxury, though the wrench may be severe
at first, he will shortly be restored to _complete_ health. This, we need
not say, is not the case with the confirmed drunkard. He may, indeed, give
up his fatal indulgence; but he has planted the seeds of disease in his
body, and no art can eradicate them. His very blood has assimilated the
"flowing poison," and the heart is no longer the centre of life, but of
death. The dipsomaniac, even if he escape the horrors of a death by
delirium tremens, falls a victim to paralysis or heart disease. Happy
indeed would it be if our drunkards could be converted into opium-smokers,
and the desirability of effecting this has even been pointed out by
medical men.[101]
But there is one point in which alcohol is considered very generally to
have the distinct advantage over opium. The opponents of the latter say
that it is much more seductive in its temptation than alcohol, as well as
more tenacious in its grip; in fact, they roundly assert that while the
use of alcohol _can_ be forgone, even by a confirmed dipsomaniac, opium
grows more and more necessary the longer it is indulged in, and can only
be resigned with life itself. Facts seem to have no force with these
champions of a theory, or we might remind them that the Emperor Taou Kwang
was himself a slave to the habit, but emancipated himself, as many others
have done, among them our own De Quincey, for whom the task was so much
the harder inasmuch as he drank the poison to the extent, for some time,
of 8,000 drops of laudanum a day.[102] A Chinaman, writing to the _Times_
in 1875, says: "I have not yet seen or heard of a case where a confirmed
opium-smoker could not reform himself if he had been compelled to leave
off his vicious habit by necessity or from determined resolution." So much
for the tenacity of the habit; but we are not disposed to admit even that
it is more seductive than alcohol, for have we not Dr. Myers' opinion that
"his experience both in Formosa and in other parts of China would go to
support the statement that the use of opium through the medium of the
pipe does not, at least up to a certain point, irresistibly and inherently
tend to provoke excess, as is very often the case with the stimulants
indulged in by foreigners."
Sufficient evidence has been produced to show that alcohol is productive
of far more evil than opium, inasmuch as the former, though beneficial to
most people when taken in moderation, yet with others acts as a virulent
poison, even in the smallest quantities; while taken in excess its
immediate effect is to make the drunkard like a "beast with lower
pleasures," to bring out, in fact, the lower side of our nature, and to
incite to deeds of violence and crime; and its certain subsequent result
is disease, madness, and death. Opium, however, like alcohol, when taken
in moderation is a comfort and a solace to thousands, and, while soothing
and relieving the body, acts[103] in such a way on the brain as to quicken
the intellectual faculties, and not in the manner of alcohol to deaden
them. The opposite effects of opium and alcohol, the one in
quickening,[104] the other in deadening the faculties, may be gathered
from the fact that the Chinese indulge in the pipe _before_ entering upon
business matters, while we reserve our wine till the matter in hand has
been fully discussed. At the same time it may be admitted that excessive
indulgence in opium impairs the fortune and health, and, like every other
self-indulgence, weakens the moral nature of the victims to its
"bewitching influence." This being so, the unprejudiced observer will ask
with wonder why those who are so indignant about the opium traffic, do not
turn their attention with the same zeal to the suppression of the traffic
in spirits at home. The Chinese Emperor was reported to have said, and
the sentiment has been extolled to the skies by the anti-opiumists: "I
will not consent to derive a revenue from the misery and vice of my
people." The English people, however, are not so fastidious, and our
annual revenue from the duty on spirituous liquors is L27,000,000, and on
tobacco L8,500,000, while our partiality to alcohol costs us L145,000,000.
The Chinese, with a population ten times as great, only spend L42,000,000
on their luxury, opium, and derive a revenue therefrom, in spite of the
Emperor's disclaimer, of more than three millions sterling. India exports
to China about 5,300 tons of crude opium, which together with four times
the amount of native-grown drug gives 2-1/2 oz. (avoird.) to each
individual. We in England, with a population of thirty-three millions,
consume 200,000 tons of alcohol, not to mention more than a billion
gallons of wine and beer.[105] And the annual mortality resulting from
this terrible indulgence in spirituous liquors is 128,000, while the
number of habitual drunkards is 600,000;[106] that is, one in every 260
persons dies from over-indulgence in alcohol! What an appaling fact! we
might say, echoing Lord Shaftesbury's words. Terrible as it is, it has
been accepted by our countrymen as a deplorable necessity which cannot be
altered by any legislative enactments against the importation of alcoholic
drinks from abroad. All, or all except a few visionary enthusiasts, have
come to see that the only way to check this widespread vice is by bringing
the opinion of the people to bear upon it, to drive it out from among the
lower classes as it has been driven out from the upper by the force of
public example and public opinion. It is obvious that the same reasoning
will apply to China[107], and accordingly we find that the drinking of
samshoo, a deletrious extract from rice, was common among the people, and
all prohibitions were powerless to prevent it till the religious influence
of Buddhism was brought to bear upon it and had great success in
diminishing the vice; so that samshoo-drinking is now comparatively rare
in a great part of China, its place being taken by opium, which is allowed
by Buddhist and Mohammedan laws.
But, say the anti-opiumists, if we have not introduced opium into China,
we have certainly forced it upon the Chinese when they showed a sincere
desire to have none of it; first by a system of armed smuggling; secondly,
by open armed intervention in the wars of 1840 and 1857; and thirdly, by
the imperious logic of Lord Elgin and others. Now, as to the armed
smugglers, the answer is easy. They were armed to resist pirates, who
swarm in the bays and creeks so abundant in the Chinese coast-line of
3,500 miles; and by no means, as implied, to fall foul of the Custom House
officials. These were always amenable enough, and a recognized bribe paid
in due time freed all opium vessels from farther molestation in that
quarter. The second assumption, that the wars were opium wars, false as it
is in reality when thus stated, is a most plausible one; for opium was
certainly the _immediate_ cause of the first war. But it was not the real
cause. European ideas of the equality of nations could not be reconciled
with the insolent pretensions of the Chinese with regard to all
foreigners. This, and much more to the same effect, has already been dwelt
upon in the historical survey, and so need not detain us any longer now.
We may, however, add that no mention whatever of opium was made in the
Nankin Treaty, so that the edicts against the drug remained in force,
though they were no more regarded now than before the war. And this was
certainly not because the Chinese were exhausted by the war and afraid of
a fresh conflict with the English. It is doubtful whether the authorities
at Pekin really considered themselves beaten at all, and the reason why
their edicts were disregarded was not that defeat had weakened the hands
of the executive, but, as before, simply the corruption of the officials,
and the imperious desire of the people for the drug. With regard to the
second war, it is absurd to call that an opium war. Opium had nothing to
do with its commencement, renewal, or end; nor was it even alluded to in
the Treaty of Tientsin. It was only some months after the ratification of
that treaty that in arranging the tariff of imports the Chinese
Commissioner himself suggested that opium should pay a fixed tariff and be
admitted as a legal import. No doubt Lord Elgin, and here he was seconded
by the American Minister, as Sir Henry Pottinger and Sir J. Davis before
the war, pointed out to the Chinese how eminently desirable it was that
this "stone of offence" should be removed, but in reality it was the
persuasive logic of facts which induced the Chinese to propose the
legalization of the import. This second war, like the former one, was
undertaken by the English[108] to exact compensation for injury to British
subjects, and to make the Chinese understand that foreign nations were
entitled to, and would exact fair and respectful usage. The French waged
war to avenge the murder of a missionary, M. Chapdelaine, in 1856, so that
we may in strict justice call this a missionary war; and certainly that
part of the Treaty of Tientsin which may be said to have been wrung from
the Chinese most against their wills is that which gives
missionaries--Protestant as well as Roman Catholic--an entrance into any
part of China, and extends to them while there, and to their converts, the
protection of their respective Governments.[109]
So far, then, the evidence as to force breaks down entirely, but it cannot
be denied that in a certain sense the Chinese are coerced in respect of
the tariff on opium. This was fixed in the convention following the Treaty
of Tientsin, with the condition attached that the tariff could be revised
after ten years. And the Chinese have expressed a desire to alter the
tariff by raising the dues on opium. The negotiations between Sir Thomas
Wade and Prince Kung have been given at length above,[110] so it will only
be necessary here to repeat that the Home Government have not seen their
way yet to accept Sir Thomas' proposal;[111] and consequently (and here
lies the one strong plea of the anti-opiumists) as the matter now stands,
the Chinese are prevented from raising the import duty on opium, though
they can alter the likin as much as they please. This may be fully
conceded. What would be the result of allowing China free liberty in this
matter will be discussed hereafter; but we may be allowed to remark here,
that in this hasty denunciation of force applied to China, the eloquent
advocates for the suppression of the opium trade forget that we are guilty
of forcing not only opium and missionaries, but ourselves as a nation, our
commerce, our civilization in their entirety, on an unwilling and
exclusive people. On the abstract justice of such a course we need not
dwell. It is enough to say that it has been pursued by the stronger
towards the weaker in all ages of the world, and no treaty has ever been
imposed upon an Asiatic by an European Power except by force.
The next objection refers to our _monopoly_ of the drug, some finding
fault with it as economically wrong, others as morally indefensible. To
the former, who like Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir William Muir wish to
substitute a "pass" system for the monopoly, it may be answered, as it has
been answered before and always with success, that monopolies are a part
of the system of Indian Government inherited from their Mohammedan
predecessors; and any argument against the opium monopoly applies with
tenfold force to the salt tax. Moreover, the Indian Government, it must be
remembered, is the great landowner in India, and consequently the only
undertaker of great enterprises, such as irrigation works and railways.
Still it cannot be denied that, technically, the objection is sound
enough, because monopolies tend to restrict labour and capital, and entail
considerable cost in the production of the article monopolized. But it
must not be forgotten that "in direct proportion to the removal of the
economic objections, the moral objections would be intensified in
degree."[112] For if the Government abandoned the manufacture of opium to
private enterprise, contenting itself with placing a duty on its export,
there can be no doubt that more opium would be manufactured and imported
into China, while the revenue would be less. Moreover, if it be wrong to
grow opium for Chinese consumption we shall not get out of the
responsibility of it by placing a duty on all opium exported instead of
growing and selling it ourselves.
Lastly, there is the objection that our introduction of opium into China
paralyses the efforts of our missionaries. We have reserved this charge
till the last, both because it has done more than any other with certain
classes of people to bring discredit on the traffic, and also because it
has been least adequately met by other writers on the subject. And the
question is a very delicate one to discuss. It may seem presumptuous to
call in question a statement of fact lying so entirely within the scope of
a missionary's observation; and it certainly will seem invidious to point
out, as we shall be obliged to do, the real causes of failure in our
missionary efforts, presuming them to have failed.
Our missionaries, then, almost unanimously assert that "opium has been
the means of closing millions of Chinese hearts to the influence of
Christian preaching," partly by setting the Chinese against foreigners in
general and Englishmen in particular, but chiefly by supplying them with a
ready-made argument against the Christian religion as one that tolerates
so iniquitous a traffic to the ruin of a friendly nation. Dr.
Medhurst[113] supplies us with a sufficient answer to this. "If we do
supply the opium, why do you smoke it? Why do you even grow it?" But, in
truth, whatever ingenious arguments the astute Chinaman may use to justify
his rejection of the new doctrine, the reason of the ill success of our
missionaries is not to be found here. For why, if opium be the only
obstacle to conversion, are we not more successful in India? There are in
the whole of British India only 900,000 converted Christians, of whom far
the largest number are Roman Catholic "hereditary" Christians, about a
quarter of a million being Protestants of various denominations. "Of
course there are some," says a correspondent to the _Times_, "perhaps
even a considerable number, whose views of life are really elevated by
their Christianity; but it is a fact worthy of all attention that really
devout Indians who have, under the influence of Christian teaching, cast
off Hindooism, have preferred to create a new and, as they say, a purer
religion for themselves, rather than accept Christianity in the form in
which it is presented to them by the missionaries." The "Brama Somaj" is
indeed worthy of all consideration, but obviously cannot be discussed
here. Missionaries in India impute their failure to the advantages given
by Government to secular education. The Japanese again,[114] though their
orators confess that they are no bigoted adherents of any creed, that
their minds are like blank paper, fitted to receive new characters from
the pen of any ready writer, decline to embrace Christianity because they
do not consider it a good religion; for they see that it does not prevent
the English from being licentious and brutal to their coolies, and from
having no reverence for old age. Such excuses, and they are mere excuses,
are fatally easy; and while Christian practice differs so much from
Christian profession, will always remain a weapon of offence against the
followers of Christ in the hands of unbelievers. But so far from opium
being a barrier to the acceptance of the Christian religion, it has been
the means[115] indirectly of opening the gate of the empire for the
admission of Western ideas, and, among them, for the introduction of the
Gospel of Christ.
"The passion of the Chinese for opium," says one writer, "was the first
link in the chain which was destined to connect them at some future day
with all the other families of mankind." Again, it may reasonably be asked
with Sir John Bowring, "whether the greater proportionate number of native
professing Christians is not to be found in those districts where opium is
most consumed, and how the undoubted fact is to be explained that in
Siam, where the Siamese do not smoke the drug, there is scarcely a
solitary instance of conversion among the native population, while among
the Chinese and other foreign settlers in Siam who habitually employ it,
conversions are many." What, then, are the causes of our failure? Dr.
Hobson, himself a medical missionary, and by no means an apologist for the
traffic, says, "Our chief obstacle at Canton is the unfriendly character
of the people." And there can be no doubt that this inveterate hostility
exists all over China against foreigners in general and missionaries in
particular, and has repeatedly shown itself in outbreaks of brutal
violence against foreign residents, culminating in the murder of M.
Chapdelaine in 1856, and the massacre of the French Mission together with
the Consul and several Russian residents at Tientsin in 1870. Later still,
we have had the murder of Mr. Margary in Yuennan. This hatred is
intensified in the case of missionaries by their civil[116] and political
action, and by the fact of Roman Catholic Governments exterritorializing
all their converts, _i.e._ making them for all intents and purposes their
own subjects, and releasing them from all subjection to Chinese authority.
This establishment of an "_imperium in imperio_" cannot fail to be
intolerable to an independent State, even if it be consistent with the
idea of a State at all. Moreover, the admission of missionaries no less
than of opium is a permanent badge of their defeat in several wars, and
the sense of humiliation aggravates their dislike for the "outer
barbarians." So that we can believe Prince Kung's wish, expressed to Sir
Rutherford Alcock, to have been a heart-felt one: "Take away," he said,
"your opium and your missionaries, and we need have no more trouble in
China." Of the two, indeed, they hate missionaries most, for did not their
most powerful mandarins, Li Hung Chang[117] and Tso Tsung Taang, say to
Sir Thomas Wade, "_Of the two evils we would prefer to have your opium, if
you will take away all your missionaries_." Sir Rutherford Alcock gave
similar evidence before the Commission in 1871: "The Chinese," he said,
"if at liberty to do so, would exterminate every missionary and their
converts."[118] But cordially as they detest all missionaries, who, backed
by their respective Governments,[119] assume a protectorate over their
converts, their bitterest hate is reserved for the Romanists. These
penetrate into the interior, and aggregate property, own land, and houses,
and pagodas, and are now some of the largest landed proprietors in the
different localities. They have even gained the right, by the French
Treaty, of reclaiming whatever lands and houses belonged to the Christian
communities when the persecution and expulsion of the Jesuits took place
in the seventeenth century. But besides the hostility of the _literati_
and gentry, other causes are at work to render the labours of our
missionaries abortive. Chief among these is one mentioned in a publication
by the Church Missionary Society itself, called the _Story of the Fuh-kien
Mission_. "Christianity," says Mr. Wolfe, a missionary at Foochow, "would
be tolerated too, and the Chinese would be easily induced to accept
Christ among the number of their gods, if it could be content with the
same terms on which all the other systems are willing to be received, viz.
that no one of them claims to be absolute and exclusive truth. Now, as
Christianity does claim this, and openly avows its determination to expel
by moral force every rival system from the altars of this nation, it
naturally at first appears strange and presumptuous to this people."[120]
Very similar in old times was the attitude of the Roman polytheism towards
the various religions with which it was brought into contact. It was
tolerant of all religions and non-religions except (_a_) exclusive and
aggressive ones, like Christianity and Judaism; (_b_) national ones, like
Druidism; and (_c_) extravagant and mystic ones, like the worship of Isis.
So now the Buddhists and Taouists would be ready enough to associate the
religion of Christ with that of Buddha or Laoutze, seeing indeed, as they
say, little difference between the doctrines of Buddha and of Christ.
Buddhism was introduced into China at the very time when in the West the
Fall of Jerusalem had set Christianity free from its dependence on
Judaism, and enabled it to go forth in its own might, conquering and to
conquer, till it became the religion of the whole Roman world. The name of
Christ was not heard in China till 600 years later; and it was not till
1575 A.D. that a permanent Jesuit mission was established in that distant
land. This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that the Chinese
are unwilling to renounce a religion in many respects as pure and as moral
a one as the pagan world has ever seen, and one which they have held for
eighteen centuries, in favour of a creed, as it would seem to them, of
yesterday, and one which the hated foreigner seeks to force upon them at
the point of the bayonet; for the war of 1857 _was_ a missionary war,
though not by any means an opium war; and it is only by the Treaty of
Tientsin that missionaries have any right to preach Christianity in China.
Previously to this Christianity had been forbidden by King Yoong-t-ching
in 1723, and that edict had never been repealed.
But though these two causes, the hostility of the people and the assumed
intellectual superiority of the Buddhists and Confucianists, render the
path of our missionaries unusually difficult, and fully account for their
ill success, yet it may be asked why the Roman Catholic missionaries are
more successful than ours. Both the above reasons apply to them as
strongly, or even more strongly, than to Protestant missionaries. They
have even an additional disadvantage in their confessional with women, a
proceeding which is looked upon with the greatest suspicion by the Chinese
who, as far as possible, seclude their women from the sight of all men.
Perhaps, as has been hinted at by a correspondent to the _Times_, the
celibacy of the Roman Catholic priesthood, an institution which they hold
in common with the priests of Buddha, impresses the people with a
favourable view of the religion. But there are other reasons.
As mentioned already, the Jesuits established themselves in China at the
latter part of the sixteenth century. They first landed at Ningpo, and
thence made their way to Pekin,[121] where, "by good policy, scientific
acquirements, and conciliatory demeanour, they won the good-will of the
people and the toleration of the Government." In 1692, Kang Hi published
an edict permitting the propagation of Christianity. From the success of
these Jesuits, sanguine expectations were entertained in Europe of the
speedy evangelization of China--hopes that were not destined to be
realized. Various causes conspired to effect their downfall in China,
principally connected with the political state of Europe at that time. In
1723 Christianity was prohibited, and the Jesuits expelled. "The
extinction of the Order of Jesuits," says Sir George Staunton, in the
preface to his _Penal Code of China_, "caused the adoption of a plan of
conversion more _strict_, and probably more orthodox, but, in the same
proportion, more unaccommodating to the prejudices of the people, and more
alarming to the jealousies of the Government. Generally speaking, it threw
the profession _into less able hands_, and the cause of Christianity and
of Europe lost much of its lustre and influence. The Jesuits were
generally _artists_ and men of science, as well as religious teachers."
There can be no doubt that this was the main secret of their success; and
in order to ensure like success, we must send out missionaries of like
stamp, men of high genius and refined education, who have grasped the
theory of Aryan civilization; who can meet the Buddhist, and the Hindoo,
and the Confucianist on their own ground; who, going forth in the spirit
of Our Lord's words, "I come not to destroy, but to fulfil," can, if
necessary, graft the law of Christ on the doctrines of Buddha. Let them
treat Vishnoo and Buddha as St. Paul treated Venus and Mars, and say to a
people given up to idolatry, "Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare we
unto you." Not that we would counsel them to make any sacrifice of
principle in order to secure converts, as the Romanists seem to have done;
such a course must be fatal: and, indeed, "these unworthy concessions to
the habits of vice and superstition so prevalent in China" have already
been a serious obstacle to the spread of the true doctrine;[122] for
enquirers have expressed their readiness to join the Church if, like the
people belonging to the religion of the "Lord of Heaven" (_i.e._
Romanism), they may continue opium-smoking, and work as usual upon the
Lord's Day. So successful in one sense have these tactics been, that the
Roman Catholic missionaries claim to have 30,000 converts in the province
of Fuh-kien alone, mostly hereditary Christians of the fifth generation.
These so-called Christians are, however, very ignorant of Scripture, and
in most respects indistinguishable from heathens. For instance, they
identify the Virgin Mary with one of their deities called Seng Mu, or Holy
Mother, and pay idolatrous worship to her. Such success need not be envied
by our missionaries.
The two points, then, in which the Roman Catholic missions have had the
advantage over Protestant ones are--1st. Their missionaries, especially
the earlier ones, were far more able men than the generality of our
mission clergy. "You may get men," says a writer to the _Times_,[123] "of
average attainments to go abroad as missionaries, just as you get clerks
and engineers. But they who adopt propagandism as a means of living--and
it is no disparagement to the missionaries that they do so--are not
exactly the men to impart a living impulse to the hearts of masses of
people. Xaviers and Bishop Pattesons, indeed, appear at intervals to prove
that the apostolic spirit is not yet extinct among men; but such
exceptional phenomena fail to redeem the common-place character of the
ordinary missionary field-force." 2nd. The Roman Catholic faith, by its
very oneness, by its remarkable similarity to the institutions of
Buddhism, and by its concessions to some of the grosser instincts of the
human mind, no less than by having a united and organized Church behind
it, cannot fail to commend itself more readily to the minds of the heathen
than the more spiritual and independent, but at the same time more narrow
and sectarian, beliefs which are all ranked as branches of the Reformed
Church. "Thinking[124] they are invading a country as soldiers of the
Cross, these young missionaries go forth, denouncing the beliefs, the
traditions, the worship of the people, calling on them to curse all that
they have ever held sacred, and to accept, on pain of eternal perdition,
the peculiar arrangements of beliefs which the missionary has compounded
for them, and of which Christianity is one, but not always a very
perceptible ingredient; and so the poor heathen, hungering, however
unconsciously, for the bread of life, is offered instead the shibboleths
of a very Babel of sects." But though they have failed as yet in the
higher aim which they have set before themselves, the efforts of the
missionaries have been wonderfully successful, though they care not for
this success, in raising the social standard of the people with whom they
are brought into contact. "They deserve infinite praise for the way they
have created written languages where none existed, and for their assiduity
in educating and civilizing thousands of savages."[125]
Our missionaries, then, who deserve every credit for their noble and
self-sacrificing efforts in the cause of Christ, who in the face of
difficulties such as few can appreciate, do their Master's work with
cheerfulness and zeal, in spite of danger and privation, comparing their
own failure with the success of missionaries elsewhere, as, for instance,
in Madagascar, and seeking to account for it before their countrymen at
home, miss the true causes which we have been compelled, however
ungraciously, to point out, and, taking the nominal objection from the
mouths of their opponents, with heedless confidence assert that opium is
the great obstacle to the propagation of the Gospel, forgetting that it
was the difficulties connected with opium that first opened a way for them
into the heart of China; that it was the second opium war, as they love to
call it, which gave them a _locus standi_ in the country. But, in truth,
in comparing their work with that of their fellow-workers in Africa and
elsewhere, they are placing themselves at an enormous disadvantage; for we
must not forget that in China and India we are dealing with races[126]
immeasurably superior to the North American Indians and the savages of
Africa; that we are confronted by civilizations which were in their prime
when England was inhabited by naked savages, and was indeed, as the
Chinese still believe it to be, but as "an anthill in the ocean," and by a
race of men who were "learned," as Cobden said in the House of Commons,
"when our Plantagenet kings could not write, and who had a system of logic
before Aristotle, and a code of morals before Socrates." It would be
surprising indeed if we could persuade such intellectual and civilised
races to give up in a moment beliefs which have taken centuries to mature;
and the difficulty is the greater in the case of the Buddhists from the
striking similarity which exists between the general principles professed
by followers of Buddha and disciples of Christ. "Conversion to
Christianity," as Dr. Moore says, "involves the belief in certain
statements the counterparts of which, when found in Buddhism, are regarded
as impossible and untrue by Christians."
What, then, should a missionary do in the face of all these difficulties?
Let him follow Dr. Medhurst's advice, and remember that "the effectual
fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much"; let him exhort the
Chinese to abandon the habit of opium-smoking, and compel their converts
to give up the drug; and, above all, let him be careful not to make
exaggerated statements about the opium traffic, which merely tend to
disquiet the minds of his countrymen at home, and, when the falsity of his
statements becomes apparent, to throw discredit on the cause which he has
at heart. But if the missionary's duty is clear, no less clearly is it
_our_ duty who remain at home to make the most strenuous efforts to aid
the good cause by subscribing more largely to the missionary fund (instead
of expending our money for the purpose of raising an agitation against
opium in England), and so, by increasing the remuneration offered to
workers in this large field (for the labourer is worthy of his hire), to
induce the ablest and most intellectual of our clergy to go out to
encounter Buddhism and Taouism--opponents quite worthy of our
steel--feeling sure that success, though delayed, is certain in the end,
and that the Chinese only need to become Christians in order to be one of
the greatest nations upon earth.
It remains now only to mention the remedies proposed by the supporters of
the Anti-Opium Society for the evils of the opium traffic, pointing out
such objections as may occur to us; and finally to state the alternative
course which we ourselves propose. We may premise, however, before dealing
with this part of the subject, that there is a considerable divergence of
opinion manifest in the ranks of the Anti-Opium Society with regard to the
nature of the remedies suggested. Some are for merely washing our hands of
the monopoly, so that the Government would have no direct participation in
the _manufacture_ of the drug, but would, by means of an export duty,
retain more or less of the revenue therefrom. This course, it must be
said, does not find favour with the majority, who demand, consistently
enough, the total abandonment by India of the manufacture of opium _and_
the revenue from it.
Let us consider the less radical proposal first.
As long ago as 1832, the question of abolishing the opium monopoly
suggested itself to the East India Company; and the same course was
proposed by Sir Charles Trevelyan in 1864.[127] If the opium revenue is
to be retained while the monopoly is abolished, there is only one
practicable course to be pursued. A Customs duty must be laid on the
export of all opium. And this method has obtained the support of many able
men who, objecting to the opium traffic as at present conducted, and at
the same time seeing the difficulties in the way of its total abolition,
propose this compromise. Such are Sir Bartle Frere,[128] Sir Richard
Temple, the Marquis of Hartington, and others. But there are many serious
drawbacks even to this solution of the difficulty, and such as have always
prevailed against it when it has been proposed, as it often has, in
Council. On the one hand, the revenue derived from this system would be
much less. Sir Evelyn Baring, who is studiously moderate in his figures,
informed us in his financial statement for 1882 how much loss would
actually in this way ensue. For whereas a chest of Bengal opium costs us
to manufacture it 421 Rs., we can sell it for 1,280 Rs. (average of ten
years), thus making a clear profit per chest of 859 Rs.; but if we
decided to introduce the excise system, the opium would not bear more than
600 Rs. a chest as export duty.[129] The average number of chests exported
may be taken as likely to be 45,000. Duty on these would give L2,700,000.
But our net revenue from Bengal opium is at least L5,000,000, so that our
loss would be nearly two millions and a half; and besides the loss to the
Imperial exchequer, the Provincial Governments would lose a part of their
income. Moreover, the cost of preventive establishments would be great,
and still some part of the produce would evade duty. Again, the
cultivators would suffer in every way. Their actual profits would be less,
and the zemindars would take the opportunity of squeezing them by
rack-renting and other recognized means of oppression, as has been the
case in indigo-cultivation, where great disturbances have been caused
among the ryots. Add to this that vested interests would be created which
would render any return to the old system very difficult, if not
impossible. On the other hand--and this must be clear even to the
anti-opiumists--India would not release herself from the responsibility of
the traffic, whatever that may be, by this means. Direct participation in
the manufacture may be more undignified for an Imperial Government than
merely a share in the profits; but it cannot affect its moral
responsibility. Nor would an ounce less opium enter China because of this
measure. "The monopoly," says Sir Henry Pottinger, "has rather tended to
check than otherwise the production, as it certainly has the exportation,
of the drug."
Dismissing, then, this possibility as one perforce abandoned by the
opponents of monopolies, no less than by the opponents of opium, the only
other alternative left to us is the total abolition of the growth and
manufacture of opium in India. But we are confronted with a difficulty to
start with. Do the supporters of this theory mean that the cultivation of
opium should be forbidden throughout _all_ India? If so, how are we to
deal with the native States which cultivate the poppy, and derive a
considerable, in some cases a principal, part of their revenue from this
source? A previous attempt to interfere with this cultivation occasioned
serious disturbances, and almost a civil war. Are we ready to go to that
length to enforce our advanced ideas of total abstinence on the
independent States of Holkar and Scindia? If they do not mean this, how
are we to prevent the cultivators in Malwa taking up the trade abandoned
by us, and instead of 45,000 chests, sending 90,000 to China yearly?
Again, if the poppy culture be strictly forbidden in _all_ India, how are
the legitimate wants of the Rajpoots and the Sikhs in the Punjaub, and the
inhabitants of Orissa and Assam, to be supplied? Shall we go to China for
our opium, thereby getting a more deleterious drug at higher prices, and
inducing our subjects to substitute for the comparatively beneficial opium
the maddening stimulus of bhang and the poisonous mixtures imported under
the name of "French brandies," but composed of such deleterious
ingredients as potato spirit and fusel oil? It would, indeed, be a strange
finale if the success of this agitation should cause China to export opium
into India as she already does into Burmah.
Apart from these contingent possibilities the financial objections to
this measure are overwhelming in the opinion of all who are or have been
responsible for the financial administration of India. The immediate
effect of the cessation of the culture of the poppy would be the
disturbance of the cultivation of land amounting to 500,000 acres in
British India alone, the readjustment of which would be a difficult and
troublesome business. But, of course, the point to be chiefly considered
is the immense loss of revenue that must unavoidably ensue. Some, no
doubt, of this loss might be made good by the cultivation of other crops
on the poppy lands, which comprise some of the best land in the
presidency; but how much would thus be recouped is uncertain. In any case
it would not amount to a tithe of the loss, and would, moreover, go mostly
into the pockets of the zemindars, or middlemen. Again, the present staff
employed in the manufacture would have to be pensioned, which would be
another item of expense. Practically we may assume, then, that the Indian
Exchequer would lose some six millions a year; and this loss would have to
be met at once. The importance of this opium revenue to India can
scarcely be over-estimated. It is, next to the land tax, the largest item
in the revenue. It forms one-seventh of all the revenue of India. It is
the most easily collected and the most productive tax ever known. It, and
it only, by its marvellous increase, has enabled a series of Chancellors
of the Indian Exchequer to tide over the difficulties occasioned by
unexpected wars and disastrous famines. It has given the Indian Government
the power to carry out innumerable sorely-needed reforms in the
administration of justice, in the promotion of education, in the
organization of the police and the post-office, in the reduction of the
salt tax, and in the furtherance generally of public works; and this will
seem no exaggeration when it is stated that in the last twenty years opium
has poured into the Indian treasury the colossal revenue of L134,000,000
sterling.
Do away with this revenue and we sacrifice all chance of carrying out
these reforms to a successful conclusion, and cripple our whole
administration in India. But it behoves us to consider how the deficit
_could_ be met, if it became necessary. And we may here again remark that
it is to the utmost degree unlikely that the British tax-payer will put
his hand into his own pocket in order to help India out of her
difficulties. Nor, if England _did_ offer to meet the deficit, would that
be a good precedent to establish. A gift of L20,000,000, which the
anti-opiumists speak of, would not nearly cover India's loss. It would
cost three times that sum in ten years, _i.e._ if the present rate of
revenue be maintained, as there is good reason to suppose that it
will.[130] How, then, could the loss be made good?
The expenditure, civil and military, might be curtailed by doing away with
the separate establishments of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies and
centralizing the whole in Bengal. But this curtailment of the civil
expenditure could not bring much relief, as it only amounts to L10,000,000
as it is. A reduction of the military establishments, besides being a
danger in the face of Russia's advance towards India, would necessitate a
corresponding diminution of the independent native armies, a step which
would be unpopular if demanded by our Government. However, this will be
necessary if the opium revenue be cut off.
Among other possible expedients for increasing the revenue or lowering the
expenditure are a cessation of ordinary, as distinguished from
_productive_, public works, such as roads, railways; a reimposition of
abandoned taxes like the customs duties, the salt tax (lately partially
remitted), the tobacco tax, and the income tax--but there are grave
objections to all these; or the land tax could be augmented, as the
periods for new settlements came round, and these, perhaps, afford the
best prospect of an increase of revenue.
Such are the principal heads under which an increase of revenue might on
an emergency be secured. But the increase would not in any case be large;
and it must not be forgotten that Sir Evelyn Baring, in his Budget
statement for 1882, has given it as his opinion (and who is more able to
give an opinion on the subject?) that an _aggregate_ increase of taxation
is not possible, even reduction in some branches absolutely necessary;
_while any essential decrease of expenditure is quite out of the
question_. So far from the expenditure showing a tendency to decrease, or
even to remain stationary, it has increased last year by a million and a
half, this year[131] by three millions and more--under a Liberal
Government.
Apart from these direct means for making good the loss of the opium
revenue, there is the prospective one of a general increase from
reproductive public works, and from a prosperous condition of the country;
but it must be borne in mind that this would be greatly lessened and
impeded by any increase of taxation.
"_It cannot be too clearly understood_," says Sir Evelyn Baring (sect.
59), "_that neither by any measure tending to develop the resources of the
country, nor by any 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 way at present hope to recoup the loss
which would accrue from the suppression of the poppy cultivation in
India._"
On the whole, then, we may conclude with Sir Evelyn Baring that without
the revenue which she derives from opium India would be insolvent; that
is, her expenditure would be permanently in excess of her income. India is
by no means a rich country except in the language of poetry, and her
inhabitants are perhaps the poorest in the world, the average income of
the ryot being twenty-seven rupees a year! On the other hand, the
financial prospects of India are not at present so gloomy as Mr. Fawcett
and others would have us believe, but under a succession of able
financiers, like Sir John Strachey and Sir Evelyn Baring, a wonderful
improvement has been effected; but their efforts would have been crippled
and their far-sighted policy paralyzed, if it had not been for the
magnificent revenue derived from the sale of opium, which has indeed
proved, as it has been called, "the sheet anchor" of Indian finance. And
if this revenue _be_ badly acquired, there is no question but that it has
been splendidly applied; and if the Chinese will have opium, as there is
no doubt they will, the superfluity of their wealth cannot be better spent
than in the amelioration of the lot of the Indian ryot. This is the very
class which would suffer most severely from any increase of taxation,
and, as Sir Evelyn Baring says, "to tax India in order to provide a
cure--which would almost certainly be ineffectual--for the vices of the
Chinese would be wholly unjustifiable." In doing a little right to China,
let us beware lest we do a great wrong to India.
As to the effects upon Indian commerce of a large diminution of the opium
trade, India would lose her present large profits on a product of which
she owns a natural monopoly. She would also be obliged to increase her
exports largely, the value of which would consequently be depreciated;
except that the Indian tea-trade would be benefited by a disturbance of
the China trade. Further, India would be forced to reduce her imports,
however necessary these may be. Lastly, there is a prospect of a fall in
the rate of exchange, and a further depreciation of silver, which would
increase her liabilities and imperil her financial position.
Such, then, are the difficulties which are inseparably connected with any
sudden cessation of the opium trade; but it remains for us still to notice
one proposal emanating from the supporters of the anti-opium policy, which
is remarkable for its naivete. It recommends that England should demand
from China other privileges as an equivalent for the renunciation of a
formal right, and as an indemnification of a great loss sustained. This
equivalent would no doubt take the shape of commercial concessions, such
as the opening up of the interior of China to foreign intercourse, the
working of the mines in China, which are numerous and valuable, and the
construction and working of railways by English engineers. There is no
doubt that China offers a large and virgin field to the commercial
activity of England, and the result that followed the opening of ports
after our two wars with China are sufficiently remarkable. By the first
treaty we gained a trade of L2,000,000; by the second of L3,500,000
annually. In our commercial dealings with the Chinese we have to deal not
only with "the obstructive policy of the mandarins, but also the passive
and unconscious resistance of a people of stagnant ideas, of very limited
enterprise, and possessing only primitive means of
inter-communication."[132] For a further development of our commercial
intercourse, Medhurst goes on to say, two things are wanting:--1st,
access to new markets by having new ports opened and by procuring a right
to navigate inland waters, and to improve the means of communication; 2nd,
a full and frank acknowledgment by the Chinese at all the ports of the
right of foreign goods to be covered and protected from inland dues by
transit passes. Some such concessions the anti-opiumists would have us
demand; but these benevolent protestors against forcing the Chinese forget
that concessions of this kind, wrung from an unwilling people, would be
far more galling than any importation of opium, which it is quite clear,
even to them, that they need not buy if they do not wish it. Moreover, the
important point seems to have been overlooked, that _India_ would lose her
revenue, while the gain from increased intercourse would be wholly on the
side of _England_. As it is, the native community in India can hardly
believe that there is not a selfish motive at the bottom of this agitation
in England, and, should this last proposal be carried out, we could hardly
blame them if they pointed to this as a proof that their suspicions were
well founded.
We may here briefly notice[133] Li Hung Chang's latest proposal, that he
should farm or purchase the monopoly of all the Indian opium; with the
intention, he would no doubt himself say, of getting the control of the
trade into his own hands, and limiting the import, just as on a previous
occasion, in a communication to the Anglo-Opium Society, he asserted that
the only object of the Chinese authorities in taxing opium was in the
past, as it would be in the future, the desire to repress the traffic.
Considering, then, the sudden abolition of the opium traffic as
practically out of the question, and leaving out of sight the undoubtedly
possible, though not likely, gradual cessation of the trade between India
and China owing to the competition of the native drug, it only remains for
us to propose some practical solution of the difficulty, some less heroic
method of removing this rock of offence that has so divided the current of
English feeling. If we reject the total suppression theory, there are, as
it seems, two alternatives, and two only, left to us. We may on the one
hand follow the sensible and statesman-like recommendation of Sir
Rutherford Alcock in 1869. With a view to test the sincerity of the
Chinese Government, and their power to prohibit the growth of the poppy in
their own dominions, that experienced Minister proposed, in a Convention
which the Chinese seem disposed to ratify, that they should receive an
increased duty on opium imported, "and moreover be allowed to test their
power and will to limit or diminish the hitherto unchecked production of
opium in their own provinces by an understanding with the Indian
Government during a certain period not to extend the production in India;
and if the Chinese Government kept faith and showed the power greatly to
diminish, and more or less rapidly stop, the culture of the poppy
altogether, the Indian Government would then, _pari passu_, consider how
far they could further co-operate by diminishing their own area of
culture, having time to substitute other crops and industries to take its
place."
The effects of this arrangement, if carried out, would be clearly the
same as those arising from a gradual cessation of the trade through
competition with native opium. The cultivation in India would have time to
change without serious injury to the growers of the poppy, and trade would
by degrees adapt itself to the altered conditions; but the same results
would follow, as in the other case, though not to anything like the same
extent. The loss of revenue would still be great, but the general growth
of other branches of income would be more likely, if any sudden
displacement of industry or capital were avoided. But we can hardly escape
the conviction that the Chinese would show themselves as unable or as
unwilling to stop the cultivation in China, no less than the import from
India, as they have ever been. In fact, the lofty utterance of Taou Kwang
notwithstanding, the Chinese authorities are very glad to draw a revenue
even from the vices of their people, and they would be very reluctant, not
to say quite averse, to sacrifice a revenue now amounting to more than two
millions. What they _do_ want is to obtain a larger share in the profits
arising from the sale of the Indian drug. Let those who believe in the
"child-like simplicity"[134] of the Chinese pin their faith to such
assertions as that of Li Hung Chang quoted above, that the only aim of the
Chinese Government in taxing opium is to limit the import, and that their
only object in allowing and even encouraging the native growth is to drive
out the foreign drug, and, when they have in this way obtained the command
of the market, to suppress the cultivation altogether. This air of injured
innocence is remarkably effective with some people; but the exquisite
plausibility and adroitness of these and other similar pleas must not
blind us to their inherent falsity. Li Hung Chang can no more prevent the
Chinese from consuming opium than we can prevent our countrymen from
drinking wine and spirits and smoking tobacco by mere legislative
enactments, and it would be considered a remarkable method for attaining
this desirable end if the distillation of spirits were made as free and
unrestrained as the brewing of beer.
Lastly--and this would have the advantage of satisfying the only just plea
urged by the "Society,"--we might proclaim to China in unmistakeable
terms that she was free to carry out her own fiscal policy as suited her
best, with regard to opium as well as all other imports. Not that we are
disposed to allow that this is an international _duty_, unless it be an
international duty also to free China from _all_ the conditions we have
forced upon her: unless we are ready, for example, to cede Hongkong, to
let the Chinese close their ports if they feel inclined, to give up our
missionaries to the tender mercies of Chinese fanaticism, or forbid them
to set foot within the Celestial Empire.
The ratification of the Chefoo Convention would be a step in this
direction, and may well be tried as a temporary measure, though it is
manifestly unfair to say that we are guilty of any breach of faith in
regard to this convention.[135]
We have now to consider what would be the result of such a policy to
India. China would no doubt take advantage of her freedom, and tax Indian
opium as heavily as it would bear, and in this way transfer to herself
some of the profits which now go to India; but, on the other hand, she
would be unwilling to place a prohibitive tariff upon it, knowing, as she
well does, that none the less would it enter China by being smuggled in,
and the revenue which should go into the imperial coffers would be paid,
as before, to the officials in the shape of bribes. India would certainly
not lose _all_ its revenue; for a considerable part, one-seventh at least,
goes to the Straits Settlements and the neighbouring islands, to the
Netherlands of India, to Hongkong for export to the islands of the
Pacific, and to California. Moreover, Indian opium has a monopoly value,
and is, besides, superior in flavour to all other opium--holds, in fact,
that place among the various kinds of the drug which champagne holds among
wines. So that, on the whole, this policy, which would strike at the very
root of the anti-opium agitation, would not, as it seems, have any very
alarming effects upon India.
And now we have done. We have tried to point out the fallacy of the
principal arguments urged by the Anti-Opium Society against the traffic,
and the injustice and dangers involved in the remedies which they propose.
But we have not hesitated to acknowlege it when their objections seemed
well-founded. Their opinions, it need not be said, have undergone
considerable modification since the days of Earl Shaftesbury's memorial;
and it is by no means clear yet what the actual policy advocated by a
majority of their supporters is. "Some shout one thing and some another,
and the greater part know not wherefore they have been called together."
And though we have condemned their measures, we must not be thought to be
condemning the men. They, we freely admit, are actuated by the highest and
noblest motives of benevolence and philanthropy; but in their sensibility
to the sufferings of others, they are apt to disregard the justice due to
their own countrymen. If one half of the allegations of the missionaries
and their supporters could be accepted as true, and brought home to the
intelligence of the nation, there would not be a voice raised for the
traffic. The cry would not indeed be "Perish India," but "Perish the opium
revenue," at whatever cost to England. The very rejection of these extreme
opinions by a large majority of those who, from their position and
experience, are best qualified to form a judgment on the question, is in
itself a strong argument against their truth; and if not true, how
pernicious must be the effect of their dissemination! Here is what an
Englishman of ability and experience, for many years resident in Hongkong,
says: "I say that the missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society, in the
course of their agitation for the abolition of the Indo-Chinese opium
trade, are vilifying their countrymen and blackening their country in the
eyes of the whole world, so that the foreigner can convict us out of our
own mouths, and gibe at us for hypocrisy and turpitude, which we are
wholly innocent of, and for crimes we have never committed."
But making every allowance for the loftiness of their motives and the
sincerity of their opinions, we must take grievous exception to some of
their methods of propagandism. Among the numerous pamphlets and tracts
published by the society is one called _Poppies: a Talk with Boys and
Girls_, of which the reviewer in the _Friend of China_[136] says himself:
"To acknowledge our sins and the sins of our fathers to ourselves, and in
the face of the world, is painful and humiliating enough; but to tell our
children that England is not the brave, generous, Christian country,
foremost of the nations in the cause of liberty and religion all the world
over, which we should like them to think her, but, on the contrary,
capable of the _meanness_, _hypocrisy_, _greed_, and _cruelty_ of our
treatment of China, is a bitter task." Bitter, indeed! and what if it be
wholly unjustifiable? There is no high-minded Englishman but will utterly
resent and protest against this poisoning of the minds of our children
with delusive and exaggerated statements, and thus prejudicing them on a
subject which they are not yet of an age to form a fair judgment about.
As to the meanness, hypocrisy, and the rest, we need not say more than we
have already said, but may notice in passing that unlimited abuse of
England's foreign policy seems, curiously enough, to be a guarantee with
some people of the speaker or writer's having the real interests of
England at heart; and a man needs only to stigmatize the national policy
with the added acrimony of alliteration as "cruel, cowardly, and
criminal,"[137] for him to pass for the purest of patriots.
And now, in conclusion, we are content to leave the issue of this
controversy to the judgment of our countrymen, feeling sure that, if
justice and right are on the side of the agitators, they will succeed; if
not, that the agitation will inevitably die a natural death: ever withal
remembering the maxim--
_Magna est veritas et prevalebit._