he has altogether misapprehended that memorandum which he so confidently
cites. The Duke of Wellington did not advise the Government to station a
ship of war constantly in the China seas. The Duke, writing in 1835,
at a time when the regular course of the trade had been interrupted,
recommended that a ship of war should be stationed near Canton, "till
the trade should take its regular peaceable course." Those are His
Grace's own words. Do they not imply that, when the trade had again
taken its regular peaceable course, it might be right to remove the ship
of war? Well, Sir, the trade, after that memorandum was written, did
resume its regular peaceable course: that the right honourable Baronet
himself will admit; for it is part of his own case that Sir George
Robinson had succeeded in restoring quiet and security. The third charge
then is simply this, that the Ministers did not do in a time of perfect
tranquillity what the Duke of Wellington thought that it would have been
right to do in a time of trouble.
And now, Sir, I come to the fourth charge, the only real charge; for
the other three are so futile that I hardly understand how the right
honourable Baronet should have ventured to bring them forward.
The fourth charge is, that the Ministers omitted to send to the
Superintendent orders and powers to suppress the contraband trade, and
that this omission was the cause of the rupture.
Now, Sir, let me ask whether it was not notorious, when the right
honourable Baronet was in office, that British subjects carried on an
extensive contraband trade with China? Did the right honourable Baronet
and his colleagues instruct the Superintendent to put down that trade?
Never. That trade went on while the Duke of Wellington was at the
Foreign Office. Did the Duke of Wellington instruct the Superintendent
to put down that trade? No, Sir, never. Are then the followers of the
right honourable Baronet, are the followers of the Duke of Wellington,
prepared to pass a vote of censure on us for following the example of
the right honourable Baronet and of the Duke of Wellington? But I am
understating my case. Since the present Ministers came into office, the
reasons against sending out such instructions were much stronger than
when the right honourable Baronet was in office, or when the Duke of
Wellington was in office. Down to the month of May 1838, my noble friend
had good grounds for believing that the Chinese Government was about
to legalise the trade in opium. It is by no means easy to follow the
windings of Chinese politics. But, it is certain that about four years
ago the whole question was taken into serious consideration at Pekin.
The attention of the Emperor was called to the undoubted fact, that the
law which forbade the trade in opium was a dead letter. That law had
been intended to guard against two evils, which the Chinese legislators
seem to have regarded with equal horror, the importation of a noxious
drug, and the exportation of the precious metals. It was found, however,
that as many pounds of opium came in, and that as many pounds of silver
went out, as if there had been no such law. The only effect of the
prohibition was that the people learned to think lightly of imperial
edicts, and that no part of the great sums expended in the purchase
of the forbidden luxury came into the imperial treasury. These
considerations were set forth in a most luminous and judicious state
paper, drawn by Tang Tzee, President of the Sacrificial Offices. I am
sorry to hear that this enlightened Minister has been turned out of
office on account of his liberality: for to be turned out of office is,
I apprehend, a much more serious misfortune in China than in England.
Tang Tzee argued that it was unwise to attempt to exclude opium, for
that, while millions desired to have it, no law would keep it out, and
that the manner in which it had long been brought in had produced an
injurious effect both on the revenues of the state and on the morals of
the people. Opposed to Tang Tzee was Tchu Sing, a statesman of a very
different class, of a class which, I am sorry to say, is not confined to
China. Tchu Sing appears to be one of those staunch conservatives who,
when they find that a law is inefficient because it is too severe,
imagine that they can make it efficient by making it more severe still.
His historical knowledge is much on a par with his legislative wisdom.
He seems to have paid particular attention to the rise and progress of
our Indian Empire, and he informs his imperial master that opium is
the weapon by which England effects her conquests. She had, it seems,
persuaded the people of Hindostan to smoke and swallow this besotting
drug, till they became so feeble in body and mind, that they were
subjugated without difficulty. Some time appears to have elapsed before
the Emperor made up his mind on the point in dispute between Tang Tzee
and Tchu Sing. Our Superintendent, Captain Elliot, was of opinion that
the decision would be in favour of the rational view taken by Tang Tzee;
and such, as I can myself attest, was, during part of the year 1837, the
opinion of the whole mercantile community of Calcutta. Indeed, it was
expected that every ship which arrived in the Hoogley from Canton would
bring the news that the opium trade had been declared legal. Nor was
it known in London till May 1838, that the arguments of Tchu Sing had
prevailed. Surely, Sir, it would have been most absurd to order Captain
Elliot to suppress this trade at a time when everybody expected that it
would soon cease to be contraband. The right honourable Baronet must,
I think, himself admit that, till the month of May 1838, the Government
here omitted nothing that ought to have been done.
The question before us is therefore reduced to very narrow limits. It
is merely this: Ought my noble friend, in May 1838, to have sent out a
despatch commanding and empowering Captain Elliot to put down the opium
trade? I do not think that it would have been right or wise to send
out such a despatch. Consider, Sir, with what powers it would have been
necessary to arm the Superintendent. He must have been authorised to
arrest, to confine, to send across the sea any British subject whom he
might believe to have been concerned in introducing opium into China. I
do not deny that, under the Act of Parliament, the Government might have
invested him with this dictatorship. But I do say that the Government
ought not lightly to invest any man with such a dictatorship, and, that
if, in consequence of directions sent out by the Government, numerous
subjects of Her Majesty had been taken into custody and shipped off to
Bengal or to England without being permitted to wind up their affairs,
this House would in all probability have called the Ministers to a
strict account. Nor do I believe that by sending such directions the
Government would have averted the rupture which has taken place. I will
go further. I believe that, if such directions had been sent, we should
now have been, as we are, at war with China; and that we should have
been at war in circumstances singularly dishonourable and disastrous.
For, Sir, suppose that the Superintendent had been authorised and
commanded by the Government to put forth an order prohibiting British
subjects from trading in opium; suppose that he had put forth such an
order; how was he to enforce it? The right honourable Baronet has had
too much experience of public affairs to imagine that a lucrative trade
will be suppressed by a sheet of paper and a seal. In England we have a
preventive service which costs us half a million a year. We employ more
than fifty cruisers to guard our coasts. We have six thousand effective
men whose business is to intercept smugglers. And yet everybody knows
that every article which is much desired, which is easily concealed, and
which is heavily taxed, is smuggled into our island to a great extent.
The quantity of brandy which comes in without paying duty is known to
be not less than six hundred thousand gallons a year. Some people think
that the quantity of tobacco which is imported clandestinely is as great
as the quantity which goes through the custom-houses. Be this as it may,
there is no doubt that the illicit importation is enormous. It has been
proved before a Committee of this House that not less than four millions
of pounds of tobacco have lately been smuggled into Ireland. And all
this, observe, has been done in spite of the most efficient preventive
service that I believe ever existed in the world. Consider too that the
price of an ounce of opium is far, very far higher than the price of a
pound of tobacco. Knowing this, knowing that the whole power of King,
Lords, and Commons cannot here put a stop to a traffic less easy, and
less profitable than the traffic in opium, can you believe that an
order prohibiting the traffic in opium would have been readily obeyed?
Remember by what powerful motives both the buyer and the seller would
have been impelled to deal with each other. The buyer would have been
driven to the seller by something little short of torture, by a physical
craving as fierce and impatient as any to which our race is subject.
For, when stimulants of this sort have been long used, they are desired
with a rage which resembles the rage of hunger. The seller would have
been driven to the buyer by the hope of vast and rapid gain. And do
you imagine that the intense appetite on one side for what had become a
necessary of life, and on the other for riches, would have been appeased
by a few lines signed Charles Elliot? The very utmost effect which it
is possible to believe that such an order would have produced would
have been this, that the opium trade would have left Canton, where the
dealers were under the eye of the Superintendent, and where they would
have run some risk of being punished by him, and would have spread
itself along the coast. If we know anything about the Chinese
Government, we know this, that its coastguard is neither trusty nor
efficient; and we know that a coastguard as trusty and efficient as
our own would not be able to cut off communication between the merchant
longing for silver and the smoker longing for his pipe. Whole fleets
of vessels would have managed to land their cargoes along the shore.
Conflicts would have arisen between our countrymen and the local
magistrates, who would not, like the authorities of Canton, have
had some knowledge of European habits and feelings. The mere malum
prohibitum would, as usual, have produced the mala in se. The unlawful
traffic would inevitably have led to a crowd of acts, not only unlawful,
but immoral. The smuggler would, by the almost irresistible force of
circumstances, have been turned into a pirate. We know that, even at
Canton, where the smugglers stand in some awe of the authority of the
Superintendent and of the opinion of an English society which contains
many respectable persons, the illicit trade has caused many brawls and
outrages. What, then, was to be expected when every captain of a ship
laden with opium would have been the sole judge of his own conduct? It
is easy to guess what would have happened. A boat is sent ashore to fill
the water-casks and to buy fresh provisions. The provisions are refused.
The sailors take them by force. Then a well is poisoned. Two or three
of the ship's company die in agonies. The crew in a fury land, shoot
and stab every man whom they meet, and sack and burn a village. Is this
improbable? Have not similar causes repeatedly produced similar effects?
Do we not know that the jealous vigilance with which Spain excluded the
ships of other nations from her Transatlantic possessions turned men who
would otherwise have been honest merchant adventurers into buccaneers?
The same causes which raised up one race of buccaneers in the Gulf of
Mexico would soon have raised up another in the China Sea. And can
we doubt what would in that case have been the conduct of the Chinese
authorities at Canton? We see that Commissioner Lin has arrested and
confined men of spotless character, men whom he had not the slightest
reason to suspect of being engaged in any illicit commerce. He did so on
the ground that some of their countrymen had violated the revenue
laws of China. How then would he have acted if he had learned that
the red-headed devils had not merely been selling opium, but had been
fighting, plundering, slaying, burning? Would he not have put forth
a proclamation in his most vituperative style, setting forth that the
Outside Barbarians had undertaken to stop the contraband trade, but that
they had been found deceivers, that the Superintendent's edict was a
mere pretence, that there was more smuggling than ever, that to the
smuggling had been added robbery and murder, and that therefore he
should detain all men of the guilty race as hostages till reparation
should be made? I say, therefore, that, if the Ministers had done that
which the right honourable Baronet blames them for not doing, we should
only have reached by a worse way the point at which we now are.
I have now, Sir, gone through the four heads of the charge brought
against the Government; and I say with confidence that the interruption
of our friendly relations with China cannot justly be imputed to any one
of the omissions mentioned by the right honourable Baronet. In truth, if
I could feel assured that no gentleman would vote for the motion without
attentively reading it, and considering whether the proposition which it
affirms has been made out, I should have no uneasiness as to the
result of this debate. But I know that no member weighs the words of a
resolution for which he is asked to vote, as he would weigh the words
of an affidavit which he was asked to swear. And I am aware that
some persons, for whose humanity and honesty I entertain the greatest
respect, are inclined to divide with the right honourable Baronet, not
because they think that he has proved his case, but because they have
taken up a notion that we are making war for the purpose of forcing
the Government of China to admit opium into that country, and that,
therefore, we richly deserve to be censured. Certainly, Sir, if we
had been guilty of such absurdity and such atrocity as those gentlemen
impute to us, we should deserve not only censure but condign punishment.
But the imputation is altogether unfounded. Our course was clear. We may
doubt indeed whether the Emperor of China judged well in listening to
Tchu Sing and disgracing Tang Tzee. We may doubt whether it be a wise
policy to exclude altogether from any country a drug which is often
fatally abused, but which to those who use it rightly is one of the
most precious boons vouchsafed by Providence to man, powerful to assuage
pain, to soothe irritation, and to restore health. We may doubt whether
it be a wise policy to make laws for the purpose of preventing the
precious metals from being exported in the natural course of trade. We
have learned from all history, and from our own experience, that revenue
cutters, custom-house officers, informers, will never keep out of any
country foreign luxuries of small bulk for which consumers are willing
to pay high prices, and will never prevent gold and silver from going
abroad in exchange for such luxuries. We cannot believe that what
England with her skilfully organised fiscal system and her gigantic
marine, has never been able to effect, will be accomplished by the junks
which are at the command of the mandarins of China. But, whatever our
opinion on these points may be, we are perfectly aware that they are
points which it belongs not to us but to the Emperor of China to decide.
He had a perfect right to keep out opium and to keep in silver, if he
could do so by means consistent with morality and public law. If his
officers seized a chest of the forbidden drug, we were not entitled to
complain; nor did we complain. But when, finding that they could not
suppress the contraband trade by just means, they resorted to means
flagrantly unjust, when they imprisoned our innocent countrymen, when
they insulted our Sovereign in the person of her representative, then
it became our duty to demand satisfaction. Whether the opium trade be
a pernicious trade is not the question. Take a parallel case: take the
most execrable crime that ever was called a trade, the African slave
trade. You will hardly say that a contraband trade in opium is more
immoral than a contraband trade in negroes. We prohibited slave-trading:
we made it felony; we made it piracy; we invited foreign powers to join
with us in putting it down; to some foreign powers we paid large sums
in order to obtain their co-operation; we employed our naval force to
intercept the kidnappers; and yet it is notorious that, in spite of all
our exertions and sacrifices, great numbers of slaves were, even as
late as ten or twelve years ago, introduced from Madagascar into our
own island of Mauritius. Assuredly it was our right, it was our duty, to
guard the coasts of that island strictly, to stop slave ships, to bring
the buyers and sellers to punishment. But suppose, Sir, that a ship
under French colours was seen skulking near the island, that the
Governor was fully satisfied from her build, her rigging, and her
movements, that she was a slaver, and was only waiting for the night to
put on shore the wretches who were in her hold. Suppose that, not having
a sufficient naval force to seize this vessel, he were to arrest thirty
or forty French merchants, most of whom had never been suspected of
slave-trading, and were to lock them up. Suppose that he were to lay
violent hands on the French consul. Suppose that the Governor were
to threaten to starve his prisoners to death unless they produced the
proprietor of the slaver. Would not the French Government in such a case
have a right to demand reparation? And, if we refused reparation, would
not the French Government have a right to exact reparation by arms? And
would it be enough for us to say, "This is a wicked trade, an inhuman
trade. Think of the misery of the poor creatures who are torn from their
homes. Think of the horrors of the middle passage. Will you make war in
order to force us to admit slaves into our colonies?" Surely the answer
of the French would be, "We are not making war in order to force you
to admit slaves into the Mauritius. By all means keep them out. By
all means punish every man, French or English, whom you can convict of
bringing them in. What we complain of is that you have confounded
the innocent with the guilty, and that you have acted towards the
representative of our government in a manner inconsistent with the law
of nations. Do not, in your zeal for one great principle, trample on all
the other great principles of morality." Just such are the grounds on
which Her Majesty has demanded reparation from China. And was it not
time? See, Sir, see how rapidly injury has followed injury. The Imperial
Commissioner, emboldened by the facility with which he had perpetrated
the first outrage, and utterly ignorant of the relative position of his
country and ours in the scale of power and civilisation, has risen in
his requisitions. He began by confiscating property. His next demand was
for innocent blood. A Chinese had been slain. Careful inquiry was made;
but it was impossible to ascertain who was the slayer, or even to
what nation the slayer belonged. No matter. It was notified to the
Superintendent that some subject of the Queen, innocent or guilty, must
be delivered up to suffer death. The Superintendent refused to comply.
Then our countrymen at Canton were seized. Those who were at Macao
were driven thence: not men alone, but women with child, babies at the
breast. The fugitives begged in vain for a morsel of bread. Our Lascars,
people of a different colour from ours, but still our fellow-subjects,
were flung into the sea. An English gentleman was barbarously mutilated.
And was this to be borne? I am far from thinking that we ought, in our
dealings with such a people as the Chinese, to be litigious on points
of etiquette. The place of our country among the nations of the world is
not so mean or so ill ascertained that we need resent mere impertinence,
which is the effect of a very pitiable ignorance. Conscious of superior
power, we can bear to hear our Sovereign described as a tributary of the
Celestial Empire. Conscious of superior knowledge we can bear to hear
ourselves described as savages destitute of every useful art. When our
ambassadors were required to perform a prostration, which in Europe
would have been considered as degrading, we were rather amused than
irritated. It would have been unworthy of us to have recourse to arms on
account of an uncivil phrase, or of a dispute about a ceremony. But this
is not a question of phrases and ceremonies. The liberties and lives of
Englishmen are at stake: and it is fit that all nations, civilised and
uncivilised, should know that, wherever the Englishman may wander, he is
followed by the eye and guarded by the power of England.
I was much touched, and so, I dare say, were many other gentlemen, by
a passage in one of Captain Elliot's despatches. I mean that passage in
which he describes his arrival at the factory in the moment of extreme
danger. As soon as he landed he was surrounded by his countrymen, all
in an agony of distress and despair. The first thing which he did was
to order the British flag to be brought from his boat and planted in
the balcony. The sight immediately revived the hearts of those who had
a minute before given themselves up for lost. It was natural that they
should look up with hope and confidence to that victorious flag. For it
reminded them that they belonged to a country unaccustomed to defeat, to
submission, or to shame; to a country which had exacted such reparation
for the wrongs of her children as had made the ears of all who heard
of it to tingle; to a country which had made the Dey of Algiers humble
himself to the dust before her insulted Consul; to a country which had
avenged the victims of the Black Hole on the Field of Plassey; to a
country which had not degenerated since the Great Protector vowed that
he would make the name of Englishman as much respected as ever had been
the name of Roman citizen. They knew that, surrounded as they were by
enemies, and separated by great oceans and continents from all help, not
a hair of their heads would be harmed with impunity. On this part of the
subject I believe that both the great contending parties in this House
are agreed. I did not detect in the speech of the right honourable
Baronet,--and I listened to that speech with the closest attention,--one
word indicating that he is less disposed than we to insist on full
satisfaction for the great wrong which has been done. I cannot believe
that the House will pass a vote of censure so grossly unjust as that
which he has moved. But I rejoice to think that, whether we are censured
or not, the national honour will still be safe. There may be a change of
men; but, as respects China, there will be no change of measures. I have
done; and have only to express my fervent hope that this most righteous
quarrel may be prosecuted to a speedy and triumphant close; that the
brave men to whom is intrusted the task of exacting reparation may
perform their duty in such a manner as to spread, throughout regions
in which the English name is hardly known, the fame not only of English
skill and valour, but of English mercy and moderation; and that the
overruling care of that gracious Providence which has so often brought
good out of evil may make the war to which we have been forced the means
of establishing a durable peace, beneficial alike to the victors and the
vanquished.
*****
COPYRIGHT. (FEBRUARY 5, 1841) A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
ON THE 5TH OF FEBRUARY 1841.
On the twenty-ninth of January 1841, Mr Serjeant Talfourd obtained leave
to bring in a bill to amend the law of copyright. The object of this
bill was to extend the term of copyright in a book to sixty years,
reckoned from the death of the writer.
On the fifth of February Mr Serjeant Talfourd moved that the bill should
be read a second time. In reply to him the following Speech was made.
The bill was rejected by 45 votes to 38.
Though, Sir, it is in some sense agreeable to approach a subject with
which political animosities have nothing to do, I offer myself to your
notice with some reluctance. It is painful to me to take a course which
may possibly be misunderstood or misrepresented as unfriendly to the
interests of literature and literary men. It is painful to me, I will
add, to oppose my honourable and learned friend on a question which
he has taken up from the purest motives, and which he regards with a
parental interest. These feelings have hitherto kept me silent when
the law of copyright has been under discussion. But as I am, on full
consideration, satisfied that the measure before us will, if adopted,
inflict grievous injury on the public, without conferring any
compensating advantage on men of letters, I think it my duty to avow
that opinion and to defend it.