R Veteran 
 ]V[ISSIOKflHV’S « 
 
 .3. « ^ EVIDENCE 
 
 AS TO 
 
 ^ of 0|?ium tn ^^tna. 
 
 The following evidence was given in London, 
 before the Royal Commission on Opium, on the 
 gth of September, 1893, by the Rev. George Pierc}-, 
 formerly of the Wesle3^an Mission, Canton, 
 thirty-two years a Missionary in China. 
 
R Vetemp IWissionarg’s Evidence. 
 
 Q. — {Chairman, Lord Brassey), You are, I believe, the founder of the Wesleyan Mission in China ? 
 A.— Yes. 
 
 Q . — Have 3'ou spent any considerable portion of time in China yourself? A . — I was 32 years 
 connected with the Mission, from its foundation until the j^ear 1882. Since that time I have been in 
 London looking after the Chinamen who come here, so that 1 have been connected with the Chinese 
 every month of every year since 1850. 
 
 Q . — In what parts of China did j'ou reside ? A . — At Canton and Hong Kong, in the South of 
 China. 
 
 < 2 .^ — We shall be glad to hear what your personal impressions are with reference to the evils 
 resulting from the use of opium among the better class of the Chinese ? A . — I may say, my Lord, that 
 I have heard the evidence that has been given here, yesterday and this morning, the whole of it.* 
 Still there are two points that I should like to lay before the Commission which have not been touched 
 upon, I think, at all. I wish to be as brief as possible, and yet wish to give emphasis to those two 
 special points. 
 
 (Bum of QUercpan^e. 
 
 The first is a short account of a body of merchants in China, in Canton, who existed under the 
 old regime as a very important class of men. There was a time, when Canton was the only 
 port open to Western commerce in China. During that time there was a body of merchants in Canton 
 upon whom the Chinese Government devolved the responsibility of the conduct of all the trade, giving them 
 
 * Evidence had been given by ^lissionaries having experience in various parts of China as to the terrible injury inflicted by Opium. 
 
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 the monopoly of importation and exportation. These were termed in those days the Hong Merchants. 
 The number was from 12 — -varying no doubt at different times — from 12 to 18 or 20. In China, the 
 rulers, the official class, is the highest, and with them comes the scholarly class of the Chinese ; but in 
 Canton we had what I do not think has ever existed since in any of the ports of China, and what cannot 
 exist again — there was a body of merchants who conducted the whole of the trade between outside 
 nations and China. I wish to say respecting that body of merchants that they were princely men, the 
 wealthiest of the commercial class in China. They were in numbers nearer 20 houses than 10; and they 
 were men who, according to Chinese customs, had large families. Polygamy is an institution in 
 China, and they were men with large families. Now the families of this Cohong, as I term them, being 
 among the wealthiest in China, would be recognised by Englishmen as being in the category of men in 
 eminent position ; and their families in some respects the most respectable and most influential that 
 existed. What I have to state about them is this : that only two families of them survive to the 
 present time. Those two families were called respectively Puntingkwa and Howkwa. The other 
 merchants had somewhat similar names, their family names, or names of their firms. But what I wish 
 to bring before the Commission is this ; that of these large families, consisting, some 50 years ago, 
 of many sons and of a host of grandsons — all those families, with the exception of one, are all 
 but extinct; or reduced to extreme poverty and distress. The hoards of wealth which their 
 fathers gathered when they held that monopoly, and the property they acquired, the gardens of pleasure 
 and their palatial residences, all these have gone to wreck and ruin, and there is only the one famil}’ 
 of Howkwa left in Canton of those i6 or 18 Hong merchants. That name may be remembered 
 somewhat in England by a certain blend of tea in the old time that was called “ Howkwa’s mixture.” 
 This, I have no doubt, the ladies appreciated. Now here is a case in point in which there was great 
 wealth, high respectability, good position in society, and in which that wealth was bequeathed to sons 
 and to grandchildren ; yet it has almost entirely disappeared, and disappeared because the sons and 
 the grandsons took opium in large quantities, beginning, of course, with small doses when smoking it, 
 and going on to larger doses, until in some of those families a man was kept to prepare the opium for 
 
A CHINESE MERCHANT, 
 
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 smoking — to bring it from its raw condition by 
 repeated processes into the state of prepared 
 opium for smoking purposes ; and this went on 
 until at last these families have been entirely ruined. 
 This seemed to me, so far as I have known and so 
 far as I have learned also of the results of the 
 mischief that opium has done in China, to be a 
 most prominent example of the evils wrought among 
 a body of people who were exceedingly well-to-do, 
 and who were also well trained and scholarly to a 
 certain degree. 
 
 < 2 . — And the example which you quote includes 
 a ver}^ considerable number of individuals ? 
 ■A. — Yes, my Lord, more than a hundred. A 
 great many more than a hundred. 
 
 Q . — And among that total number you would 
 onl}' name one who has been able to resist this 
 course of degradation ? A . — Only one family. 
 The other house that I named was Puntingkwa’s. 
 That family owned large and extensive gardens in 
 the western suburbs of Canton, and for many, many 
 years during my residence in China those gardens 
 were visited by foreigners, by missionary families, 
 and by man}' wealthy Chinese as beautiful pleasure 
 grounds. Within the last 20 years those gardens 
 have been sold, the buildings have been pulled 
 
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 down, and, in connection with other extensive house property in the western suburbs of Canton, all 
 has been scattered to the winds. I myself know of no case in China in which there is so sig'nificant 
 a proof of the mischief wrought by opium smoking. 
 
 Q . — And you connect all this which has happened with the loss of energy and with the loss of 
 ability arising out of the consumption in excess of opium ? A . — Yes, my Lord ; and there are numbers 
 of other gentlemen, some who are in this country and some who are in China, who could speak to the 
 very letter as to the truth of that to which I have referred — that the sons of these families, with the 
 rare exception of perhaps one or two, were all useless, and became more or less abandoned, owing to 
 this evil habit, and their property was entirely scattered as the years rolled by. 
 
 Q. ( Sh' y. Lyall .) — Whenever a commercial monopoly like that for a time gives a certain number 
 of families an enormous advantage over the rest of the public, and raises them to a great wealth and 
 then is suddenly broken up as this monopoly was, I believe that the state of those families is apt to 
 decay and to fall into that sort of condition that 3mu describe, although, no doubt, opium was also a 
 very great cause. But I have seen exactly the same thing in other parts of the world, where a family 
 had possessed a monopoly for a certain time and became through that monopoly very wealth}', and 
 when suddenly that monopoly was broken down, the}' proved unable to support themselves or to carry 
 on industry in an open market ? A . — I can quite readily believe that ; in fact, I have some knowledge 
 of great riches, especially when suddenly acquired, almost as suddenly disappearing ; but the state- 
 ments which came to our ears from time to time, and the results which we actually saw ourselves were 
 such relative to the enormous consumption of opium in those families — went to show that they were 
 ruined entirely by the consumption of opium. 
 
 Q. ( Chairmafi J . — While you recognise the possible operation of those other influences and the 
 change of circumstances to which Sir James Lyall has alluded, you remain of opinion that in the case 
 of those families to whom you were referring the personal degradation and the personal incapacity of 
 those concerned arising out of the opium habit was the principal cause of their destruction A . — That 
 
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 is my own full conviction ; and it was also the conviction of all the incelligent friends that I had for man}' 
 years in Canton. 
 
 ®eg^^a6a^ton of Common (peopfe. 
 
 Q. — Now what have you known of the use of opium and of its effects among the masses in China ? 
 A. — Most of my life was spent in the city of Canton, but the last two years that I was in China I was 
 resident in a large town, 12 miles from Canton, of the name of Fatshan. In China we only give the 
 name “ city ” to walled cities ; this is an unwalled town, but with 400,000 inhabitants. It was an 
 immense place, and we were residing in the outskirts of it. Now in speaking with some of my Christian 
 friends there about opium, I said to one of the most intelligent among them : “You ought to give us 
 more information about opium than you do ; ” and he said, “ But you hardly dare to examine into the 
 great evil it is doing in China, and doing in this place.” I said, “I think we dare do it. What is there 
 that we do not know yet that you can make known to us ? ” “ Well,” he said, “ I can take you to a 
 
 place in the heart of this great town where you would see opium and the mischief it is working, and 
 especially the stimulus that it is giving to other vices.” I replied, “ I am ready to go there whenever 
 you will take me.” But as soon as I expressed my willingness to go with him, then he seemed desirous 
 to back out, and began to say that it would be very dangerous, in fact, that it would perhaps be at the 
 risk of some broken limb, or even of our lives if we visited the place. I said to him, “ But you have 
 said that we don’t know, and are afraid to examine into the full extent of this evil. Now, for one, I am 
 not afraid, and if you will take me, I will go.” So he took me. On our way he informed me, that it 
 was a number of buildings surrounding an open square ; on the one side were opium houses — large 
 places — and on another side there were gambling houses, and that it was especially from the gambling 
 houses that he feared difficulties. Then at another side of the square there were brothels, and he said: 
 “ I am taking you when in all probability there will be less danger than at any other time — certainly 
 much less danger than in the evening or at night. Where I am taking you, you will see the extent of 
 these opium houses, and some of the people that are in them, but many more will be there at night; you 
 
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 will also see the exterior of the other places.” We looked through a series of buildings where there was 
 ever}' arrangement for opium smoking, and where I have no doubt that 300 or 400 persons could be 
 accommodated day after day, and night after night, to smoke opium. The other buildings of course 
 I did not go into. Into one it would have been improper for me to have gone, and into the other it 
 was hardly worth risking it. I had seen numbers both of small gambling places and innumerable houses in 
 Fatshan where opium is smoked, but these were on a much larger scale. We came away, and my 
 friend was exceedingly glad when we got home without any danger whatever. That incident impressed 
 me more fully than almost everything which I had seen in China as to the evils of opium. In that place 
 there would be from 200 to 400 or 500 men assembled — smoking opium. From this place they went to 
 the other places. I don’t say that no other persons went to the other places, but I say that here there 
 was a focus of evil ; and as we recognise in this country that the public-house and the intoxicating 
 glass are provocatives, and the source of many evils, and lead to a great deal of work in the police- 
 courts and gaols, and houses of correction, so I found there on a scale that I had not seen in any other 
 place what seemed to me to be the strongest proof which I have had of the mischiefthat opium smoking 
 Avas doing among the lower classes of the population. That is all I need to say on that point. 
 
 (Uo (Bxa^^era^ton 
 
 I Avill add one word, if you will permit me, my Lord ; it is this, that whereas occasionally speakers 
 against opium, and anti-opium agitators, as they have been called, have been spoken of as 
 exaggerating, as immensely exaggerating, the evils of the trade and the evils of smoking in China ; 
 just alloAv me, my Lord, to say I believe that it is entirely impossible to exaggerate these evils. I 
 believe it is possible to make great mistakes when we give figures. When we come to state numbers 
 I think we can be wide of the mark, but as to the total amount of evil done to the opium smoker 
 himself, and the evils w'hich flow from his wrong-doing, to his family, to his relatives, and to his friends, 
 I think, a Commission sitting in all the leading cities of China would fail in summing up the total of 
 the mischief and ruin and death that is wrought by opium in China I believe, from this point of view 
 
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 that there can be no exaggeration whatever. It is beyond the powers of one, or of one hundred men to 
 gather together, to tabulate, and to fully estimate the evils that are wrought in China by opium. 
 
 Chairman . — You have summed up the results of all 3’our experience in China in that concise and 
 powerful statement, which of course will have very great weight with the Commission, and I do not 
 know that I can press you to go into details. You have given us, in a comprehensive view, your 
 impression. The Commission is much obliged to you. 
 
 Q. (Mr. Pease ). — You have said that you have listened to all the evidence that has been given, 
 but you wished rather to enforce these two statements ; may we understand that you generally approve 
 of the evidence that has been given ? A. — Yes, but I have studiously avoided taking up points which 
 have been brought up before. 
 
 (). (Chairman ). — We are very much obliged to you for your consideration of the necessity of 
 moving forward. A . — I wish, however, to be permitted to state that almost entirely I agree with the 
 evidence which was given yesterday and this morning.* In many points, if necessary, I could 
 corroborate and strengthen that evidence, but I do not consider m3-self that it is necessary to do so. 
 Those two particular points have been in my mind since I have been before the Commission, and I 
 challenge any man to overturn the evidence now given as to the entire ruin of the Hong merchants in 
 Canton, and in regard to the other matter also. 
 
 {The ahave is extracted from the Report of the Royal Commission on Opinm, presented to 
 Parliament, vol. /., pp. 35, 36.] 
 
 Issued b3' the Societ3' for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, Finsbuiy House, Blomfield Street, 
 
 London, E.C. 
 
 July, 1896. 
 
 Price — One Half-penny. 
 
 See Xote at Paiie 2.