would be good (to get still nearer home) for the children and infants of
Great Britain, is an idea so monstrous, so horrible, that I hardly dare
suggest it. No one, I think, would go so far as to say that the Royal
Commission would have reached those same extraordinary conclusions had the
problem lain in Great Britain instead of in far-off India and China. Walk
about, of a sunny afternoon, in Kensington Gardens. Watch the ruddy,
healthy children sailing their boats in the Round Pond, or playing in the
long grass where the sheep are nibbling, or running merrily along the
well-kept borders of the Serpentine. They are splendid youngsters, these
little Britishers. Their skins are tanned, their eyes are clear, their
little bodies are compactly knit. Each child has its watchful nurse. What
would the mothers say if His Majesty's Most Excellent Government should
undertake the manufacture and distribution of attractive little pills of
opium and spices for these children, and should defend its course not only
on the ground that "the practice does not appear to any appreciable extent
injurious," but also on the ground that "the revenue obtained is
indispensable for carrying on the government with efficiency"?
What would these British mothers say? It is a fair question. The
"conservative" pro-opiumist is always ready with an answer to this
question. He claims that it is not fair. He maintains that the Oriental is
different from the Occidental--racially. Opium, he says, has no such
marked effect on the Chinaman as it has on the Englishman, no such marked
effect on the Chinese infant as it has on the British infant. I have met
this "conservative" pro-opiumist many times on coasting and river steamers
and in treaty port hotels. I have been one of a group about a rusty little
stove in a German-kept hostelry where this question was thrashed out. Your
"conservative" is so cock-sure about it that he grows, in the heat of his
argument, almost triumphant. At first I thought that perhaps he might be
partially right. One man's meat is occasionally another man's poison. The
Chinese differ from us in so many ways that possibly they might have a
greater capacity to withstand the ravages of opium.
It was partly to answer this question that I went to China. I did not
leave China until I had arrived at an answer that seemed convincing. If,
in presenting the facts in these columns, the picture I have been painting
of China's problem should verge on the painful, that, I am afraid, will be
the fault of the facts. It is a picture of the hugest empire in the whole
world, fighting a curse which has all but mastered it, turning for aid, in
sheer despair, to the government, that has brought it to the edge of ruin.
Strange to say, this British government, as it is to-day constituted,
would apparently like to help. But, across the path of assistance stands,
like a grotesque, inhuman dragon,--the Indian Revenue.
VIII
THE POSITION OF GREAT BRITAIN
An observant correspondent recently wrote from Shanghai to a New York
newspaper: "China has missed catching the fire of the West in the manner
of Japan, and has lain idle and supine while neighbour and foreigner
despoiled her. Her statesmanship has been languid and irresolute, and her
armies slow and spiritless in the field. Observers who know China, and are
familiar at the same time with the symptoms of opium, say that it is as if
the listless symptoms of the drug were to be seen in the very nation
itself. Many conclude that the military and political inertia of the
Chinese is due to the special prevalence of the opium habit among the two
classes of Chinamen directly responsible: both the soldiers and the
scholars, among whom all the civil and political posts are held in
monopoly, are notoriously addicted to opium."
The point which these chapters should make clear is that opium is the
evil thing which is not only holding China back but is also actually
threatening to bring about the most complete demoralization and decadence
that any large portion of the world has ever experienced. It is evident,
in this day of extended trade interests, that such a paralysis of the
hugest and the most industrious of the great races would amount to a
world-disaster. Already the United States is suffering from the weakness
of the Chinese government in Manchuria, which permits Japan to control in
the Manchurian province and to discriminate against American trade. This
discrimination would appear to have been one strong reason for the sailing
of the battleship fleet to the Pacific. If this relatively small result of
China's weakness and inertia can arouse great nations and can play a part
in the moving of great fleets, it is not difficult to imagine the
world-importance of a complete breakdown. Every great Western nation has a
trade or territorial footing in China to defend and maintain. Every great
Western nation is watching the complicated Chinese situation with
sleepless eyes. Such a breakdown might quite possibly mean the
unconditional surrender of China's destiny into the hands of Japan;
which, with Japan's growing desire to dominate the Pacific, and with it
the world, might quite possibly mean the rapid approach of the great
international conflict.
We have seen, in the course of these chapters, that China appears to be
almost completely in the grasp of her master-vice. The opium curse in
China is a dreadful example of the economic waste of evil. It has not only
lowered the vitality, and therefore the efficiency of men, women, and
children in all walks of life, but it has also crowded the healthier crops
off the land, usurped no small part of the industrial life, turned the
balance of trade against China, plunged her into wars, loaded her with
indemnity charges, taken away part of her territory, and made her the
plundering ground of the nations. She has been compelled to look
indolently on while Japan, alight with the fire of progress, has raised
her brown head proudly among the peoples of the West. So China has at last
been driven to make a desperate stand against the encroachments of the
curse which is wrecking her. The fight is on to-day. It is plain that
China is sincere; she must be sincere, because her only hope lies in
conquering opium. She has turned for help to Great Britain, for Britain's
Indian government developed the opium trade ("for purposes of foreign
commerce only") and continues to-day to pour a flood of the drug into the
channels of Chinese trade. Once China thought to crowd out the Indian
product by producing the drug herself, as a preliminary to controlling the
traffic, but she has never been able to develop a grade of opium that can
compete with the brown paste from the Ganges Valley.
This summing up brings us to a consideration of two questions which must
be considered sooner or later by the people of the civilized world:
1. Can China hope to conquer the opium curse without the help of Great
Britain?
2. What is Great Britain doing to help her?
In attempting to work out the answer to these questions, we must think of
them simply as practical problems bearing on the trade, the territorial
development, and the military and naval power of the nations. We must try
for the present to ignore the mere moral and ethical suggestions which the
questions arouse.
First, then: can China, single-handed, possibly succeed in this fight, now
going on, against the slow paralysis of opium?
China is not a nation in the sense in which we ordinarily use the word. If
we picture to ourselves the countries of Europe, with their different
languages and different customs drawn together into a loose confederation
under the government of a conquering race, we shall have some small
conception of what this Chinese "nation" really is. The peoples of these
different European countries are all Caucasians; the different peoples of
China are all Mongolians. These Chinese people speak eighteen or twenty
"languages," each divided into almost innumerable dialects and
sub-dialects. They are governed by Manchu, or Tartar, conquerors who
spring from a different stock, wear different costumes, and speak, among
themselves, a language wholly different from any of the eighteen or twenty
native tongues.
In making this diversity clear, it is necessary only to cite a few
illustrations. There is not even a standard of currency in China. Each
province or group of provinces has its own standard tael, differing
greatly in value from the tael which may be the basis of value in the next
province or group. There is no government coinage whatever. All the mints
are privately owned and are run for profit in supplying the local demand
for currency, and the basis of this currency is the Mexican dollar, a
foreign unit. They make dollar bills in Honan Province. I went into Chili
Province and offered some of these Honan bills in exchange for purchases.
The merchants merely looked at them and shook their heads. "Tientsin
dollar have got?" was the question. So the money of a community or a
province is simply a local commodity and has either a lower value or no
value elsewhere, for the simple reason that the average Chinaman knows
only his local money and will accept no other. The diversity of language
is as easily observed as the diversity of coinage. On the wharves at
Shanghai you can hear a Canton Chinaman and a Shanghai Chinaman talking
together in pidgin English, their only means of communication. When I was
travelling in the Northwest, I was accosted in French one day by a Chinese
station-agent, on the Shansi Railroad, who frankly said that he was led to
speak to me, a foreigner, by the fact that he was a "foreigner" too. With
his blue gown and his black pigtail, he looked to me no different from the
other natives; but he told me that he found the language and customs of
Shansi "difficult," and that he sometimes grew homesick for his native
city in the South.
That the Chinese of different provinces really regard one another as
foreigners may be illustrated by the fact that, during the Boxer troubles
about Tientsin, it was a common occurrence for the northern soldiers to
shoot down indiscriminately with the white men any Cantonese who appeared
within rifle-shot.
This diversity, probably a result of the cost and difficulty of travel, is
a factor in the immense inertia which hinders all progress in China.
People who differ in coinage, language, and customs, who have never been
taught to "think imperially" or in terms other than those of the village
or city, cannot easily be led into cooeperation on a large scale. It is
difficult enough, Heaven knows, to effect any real change in the
government of an American city or state, or of the nation, let alone
effecting any real changes in the habits of men. Witness our own struggle
against graft. Witness also the vast struggle against the liquor traffic
now going on in a score of our states. Even in this land of ours, which is
so new that there has hardly been time to form traditions; which is alert
to the value of changes and quick to leap in the direction of progress;
which is essentially homogeneous in structure, with but one language,
innumerable daily newspapers, and a close network of fast, comfortable
railway trains to keep the various communities in touch with the
prevailing idea of the moment, how easy do we find it to wipe out
race-track gambling, say, or to make our insurance laws really effective,
or to check the corrupt practices of corporations, or to establish the
principle of local municipal ownership? To put it in still another light,
how easy do we find it to bring about a change which the great majority of
us agree would be for the better, such as making over the costly,
cumbersome express business into a government parcels post?
But there are large money interests which would suffer by such reforms,
you say? True; and there are large money interests suffering by the opium
reforms in China, relatively as large as any money interests we have in
this country. The opium reforms affect the large and the small farmers,
the manufacturers, the transportation companies, the bankers, the
commission men, the hundreds of thousands of shopkeepers, and the
government revenues, for the opium traffic is an almost inextricable
strand in the fabric of Chinese commerce. In addition to these bewildering
complications of the problem, there is the discouraging inertia to
overcome of a land which, far from being alert and active, is sunk in the
lethargy of ancient local custom.
No, in putting down her master-vice, China must not only overcome all the
familiar economic difficulties that tend to block reform everywhere, but,
in addition, must find a way to rouse and energize the most backward and
(outside of the age-old grooves of conduct and government) the most
unmanageable empire in the world.
On what element in her population must China rely to put this huge reform
into effect? On the officials, or mandarins, who carry out the
governmental edicts in every province, administer Chinese justice, and
control the military and finances. But of these officials, more than
ninety per cent. have been known to be opium-smokers, and fully fifty per
cent. have been financially interested in the trade.
Still another obstacle blocking reform is the powerful example and
widespread influence of the treaty ports. Perhaps the white race is
"superior" to the yellow; I shall not dispute that notion here. But one
fact which I know personally is that every one of the treaty ports, where
the white men rule, including the British crown colony of Hongkong, chose
last year to maintain its opium revenue regardless of the protests of the
Chinese officials.
Putting down opium in China would appear to be a pretty big job. The
"vested interests," yellow and white, are against a change; the personal
habits of the officials themselves work against it; the British keep on
pouring in their Indian opium; and by way of a positive force on the
affirmative side of the question there would appear to be only the
lethargy and impotence of a decadent, chaotic race. How would you like to
tackle a problem of this magnitude, as Yuan Shi K'ai and Tong Shao-i have
done? Try to organize a campaign in your home town against the bill-board
nuisance; against corrupt politics; against drink or cigarettes. Would it
be easy to succeed? When you have thought over some of the difficulties
that would block you on every hand, multiply them by fifty thousand and
then take off your hat to Tong Shao-i and Yuan Shi K'ai. Personally, I
think I should prefer undertaking to stamp out drink in Europe. I should
know, of course, that it would be rather a difficult business, but still
it would be easier than this Chinese proposition.
So much for the difficulties of the problem. Suppose now we take a look at
the results of the first year of the fight. There are no exact statistics
to be had, but based as it is on personal travel and observation, on
reports of travelling officials, merchants, missionaries, and of other
journalists who have been in regions which I did not reach, I think my
estimate should be fairly accurate. Remember, this is a fight to a finish.
If the Chinese government loses, opium will win.
The plan of the government, let me repeat, is briefly as follows: First,
the area under poppy cultivation is to be decreased about ten per cent.
each year, until that cultivation ceases altogether; and simultaneously
the British government is to be requested to decrease the exportation of
opium from India ten per cent. each year. Second, all opium dens or places
where couches or lamps are supplied for public smoking are to be closed at
once under penalty of confiscation. Third, all persons who purchase opium
at sale shops are to be registered, and the amount supplied to them to be
diminished from month to month. Meantime, the farmer is to be given all
possible advice and aid in the matter of substituting some other crop for
the poppy; opium cures and hospitals are to be established as widely as
possible; and preachers and lecturers are to be sent out to explain the
dangers of opium to the illiterate millions.
The central government at Peking started in by giving the high officials
six months in which to change their habits. At the end of that period a
large number were suspended from office, including Prince Chuau and Prince
Jui.
In one opium province, Shansi, we have seen that the enforcement was at
the start effective. The evidence, gathered with some difficulty from
residents and travellers, from roadside gossip, and from talks with
officials, all went to show that the dens in all the leading cities were
closed, that the manufacturers of opium and its accessories were going out
of business, and that the farmers were beginning to limit their crops.
The enforcements in the adjoining province, Chih-li, in which lies Peking,
was also thoroughly effective at the start. The opium dens in all the
large cities were closed during the spring, and the restaurants and
disorderly houses which had formerly served opium to their customers
surrendered their lamps and implements. Throughout the other provinces
north of the Yangtse River, while there was evidence of a fairly
consistent attempt to enforce the new regulations, the results were not
altogether satisfying. Along the central and southern coast, from Shanghai
to Canton, the enforcement was effective in about half the important
centers of population. In Canton, or Kwangtung Province, the prohibition
was practically complete.
The real test of the prohibition movement is to come in the great interior
provinces of the South, Yunnan and Kweichou, and in the huge western
province of Sze-chuan. It is in these regions that opium has had its
strongest grip on the people, and where the financial and agricultural
phases of the problems are most acute. All observers recognized that it
was unfair to expect immediate and complete prohibition in these regions,
where opium-growing is quite as grave a question as opium-smoking. The
beginning of the enforcement in Sze-chuan seems to have been cautious but
sincere. In this one province the share of the imperial tax on opium
alone, over and above local needs, amounts to more than $2,000,000
(gold), and, thanks to the constant demands of the foreign powers for
their "indemnity" money, the imperial government is hardly in a position
to forego its demands on the provinces. But recognizing that a new revenue
must be built up to supplant the old, the three new opium commissioners of
Sze-chuan have begun by preparing addresses explaining the evils of opium,
and sending out "public orators" to deliver them to the people. They have
also used the local newspapers extensively for their educational work; and
they have sent out the provincial police to make lists of all
opium-smokers, post their names on the outside of their houses, and make
certain that they will be debarred from all public employment and from
posts of honour. The chief commissioner, Tso, declares that he will clear
Chen-tu, the provincial capital, a city of 400,000 inhabitants, of opium
within four years; and no one seems to doubt that he will do it as
effectively as he has cleared the streets of the beggars for which Chen-tu
was formerly notorious. When Mr. J. G. Alexander, of the British
Anti-Opium Society, was in Chen-tu last year, this same Commissioner Tso
called a mass-meeting for him, at which the native officials and gentry
sat on the platform with representatives of the missionary societies, and
ten thousand Chinese crowded about to hear Mr. Alexander's address.
The most disappointing region in the matter of the opium prohibition is
the upper Yangtse Valley. In the lower valley, from Nanking down to
Soochow and Shanghai (native city), the enforcement ranges from partial to
complete. But in the upper valley, from Nanking to Hankow and above, I
could not find the slightest evidence of enforcement. At the river ports
the dens were running openly, many of them with doors opening directly off
the street and with smokers visible on the couches within. The viceroy of
the upper Yangtse provinces, Chang-chi-tung, "the Great Viceroy," has been
recognized for a generation as one of China's most advanced thinkers and
reformers. His book, "China's Only Hope," has been translated into many
languages, and is recognized as the most eloquent analysis of China's
problems ever made by Chinese or Manchu. In it he is flatly on record
against opium. Indeed, when governor of Shansi, twenty odd years ago, this
same official sent out his soldiers to beat down the poppy crop. Yet it
was in this viceroyalty alone, among all the larger subdivisions of China,
that there was no evidence whatever last year of an intention to enforce
the anti-opium edicts. The only explanation of this state of things seems
to be that Chang-chi-tung is now a very old man, and that to a great
extent he has lost his vigour and his grip on his work. Whatever the
reason, this fact has been used with telling effect in pro-opium arguments
in the British Parliament as an illustration of China's "insincerity."
The situation seems to sum up about as follows: The prohibition of opium
was immediately effective over about one-quarter of China, and partially
effective over about two-thirds. This, it has seemed to me, considering
the difficulty and immensity of the problem, is an extraordinary record.
Every opium den actually closed in China represents a victory. Whether the
dens will stay closed, after the first frenzy of reform has passed, or
whether the prohibition movement will gain in strength and effectiveness,
time alone will tell. But there is an ancient popular saying in China to
this effect, "Do not fear to go slowly; fear to stop."
We have seen, then, that while the Chinese are fighting the opium evil
earnestly, and in part effectively, they are still some little way short
of conquering it. Also, we must not forget, that all reforms are strongest
in their beginnings. The Chinese, no less than the rest of us, will take
up a moral issue in a burst of enthusiasm. But human beings cannot
continue indefinitely in a bursting condition. Reaction must always follow
extraordinary exertion, and it is then that the habits of life regain
their ascendency. Remarkable as this reform battle has been in its
results, it certainly cannot show a complete, or even a half-complete,
victory over the brown drug. And meantime the government of British India
is pouring four-fifths of its immense opium production into China by way
of Hongkong and the treaty ports. It should be added, further, that while
the various self-governing ports, excepting Shanghai, have very recently
been forced, one by one, to cover up at least the appearance of evil, the
crown colony of Hongkong, which is under the direct rule of Great Britain,
is still clinging doggedly to its opium revenues. The whole miserable
business was summed up thus in a recent speech in the House of Commons:
"The mischief is in China; the money is in India."
What is Great Britain doing to help China? His Majesty's government has
indulged in a resolution now and then, has expressed diplomatic "sympathy"
with its yellow victims, and has even "urged" India in the matter, but is
it really doing anything to help?
There are reasons why the world has a right to ask this question.
If China is to grow weaker, she must ultimately submit to conquest by
foreign powers. There are nine or ten of these powers which have some sort
of a footing in China. No one of them trusts any one of the others,
therefore each must be prepared to fight in defense of its own interests.
It is not safe to tempt great commercial nations with a prize so rich as
China; they might yield. Once this conquest, this "partition," sets in,
there can result nothing but chaos and world-wide trouble.
The trend of events is to-day in the direction of this world-wide trouble.
The only apparent way to head it off is to begin strengthening China to a
point where she can defend herself against conquest. The first step in
this strengthening process is the putting down of opium--there is no
other first step. Before you can put down opium, you have got to stop
opium production in India. And therefore the Anglo-Indian opium business
is not England's business, but the world's business. The world is to-day
paying the cost of this highly expensive luxury along with China. Every
sallow morphine victim on the streets of San Francisco, Chicago, and New
York is helping to pay for this government traffic in vice.
But is Great Britain planning to help China?