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 Of ILLI NOIS
 
 EEPLY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 Defence of the Opium Trade 
 
 SHANGHAI CORRESPONDENT OF THE "TIMES.' 
 
 F. STORRS TURNER, 
 
 Secretary of the Society for the Siippression of the Opium Trade. 
 
 Eontion : 
 DYER BROTHERS, 
 
 AMEN COENER, PATEENOSTEB ROW, E.C. 
 1881.
 
 EXPLANATORY. 
 
 The Times, March 31st, published a letter from Shanghai, the avowed 
 ohject of which was to refute the arguments of the Society for the 
 Suppression of the Opium Trade. Several persons have intimated to the 
 Secretaiy their opinion that he ought to reply to the attack. It does not 
 appear to have occurred to their minds that a reply might have been sent 
 to the Times, and denied insertion. Such, however, was the case. 
 Possibly the Editor considered a reply unnecessary ; the same issue of the 
 Times which contained the Shanghai letter having also contained a leading 
 article, characterizing it thus : " It is a plea of extenuating circumstances 
 rather than of not guilty;" a plea which " might have been advanced in 
 the days of Queen Anne, on behalf of the stipulation by which England 
 acquired the privilege of providing the Spanish West Indies with negro 
 slaves." Having avowed himself unconvinced by his Correspondent's 
 logic, the Editor may have deemed it superfluous to print any other 
 reply. But, unfortunately, some provincial newspapers reproduced the 
 Shanghai letter, and not the leading article. It seems, therefore, to be 
 necessary that the Shanghai writer's attack should be answered by a 
 representative of the Society.
 
 Letter from the Marquis Tseng, the Chinese Minister in London. 
 
 The Frieiul of Chiiin for February contaiuiug a review of the correspondence between Sir Tiioiuas Wade and 
 liis Imperial Highness the Prince of Kung respecting the Chcfoo Convention, the Secretai-ji sent a copy of 
 the magazine to his Excellency the Marquis Tseng-, then in St. Petersbnrg, and ventured to draw his atten- 
 tion to the concluding paragraph, in which regret is expressed by the editor of the magazine that " throuo-h- 
 out this correspondence the Prince of Kung does not complain of the forcing of a deleterious drug into 
 China, but discusses the subject in its fiscal asjiect only." Our Secretary was fovoured by the following 
 reply :— 
 
 " Chinese Legation, St. PETEBSBuno, 
 
 " 18//;, Fehruarij, 1881. 
 
 " Siii, — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 31st idtinio, in which, after 
 calling ir.y attention to an article contained in the Friend of China, you express regret that, in the corre- 
 spondence to which it refers, his Imperial Highness the Prince of Kung should have discussed the opium 
 clause of the Chefoo Convention in its fiscal, rather than in its moral relations. You then go on to point 
 out the pi-obability of the ' defenders ' of the opium trade adducing this in support of the view that the 
 Chinese Government is indifferent to the lamentable consequences which it entails on the people, and regards 
 the matter only in so far as it concerns the revenue of the country. 
 
 "I should indeed be pained, could I bring myself to believe that the defenders of the opium trade, 
 supposing them to exist, could, in the face of so many facts to the contrary, presume to found on the prince's 
 ilespatches a conclusion so unjust and unwarrantable. 
 
 " Surely the action of the Chinese Covernment and the opinions of the Prince of Kung, on the subject 
 of opium, are well known, and have been too unequivocally expressed to admit of their sincerity in reprobating 
 the opium trade beiug for a moment put in question. The sale and the consumption o^the drug hare been 
 forbidden and condemned by the throne under several successive sovereigns. During many years the 
 CovernTuent steadily and firmly resisted the importation, and at last, rather than appear to sanction the usi> 
 of opium by authorizing its introduction, accepted the alternative of war. Can any country give a stronger 
 proof of the sincerity of its jjrofessions than by its consenting to maintain them by the ultima ratio regum / 
 
 " These things being so well known, will, I am sure, prevent the possibility of any one drawing the 
 conclusion which you seem to fear. Moreover, a little consideration will suffice to show that, under the 
 circumstances, the Prince of Kung placed the question alluded to on the only ground which was open to 
 him. As a statesman he had to deal with a treaty which recognized the question of opium in its fiscal aspect 
 alone. It was, therefore, incumbent on him to confine himself to that view of the case ; but even had it 
 been otherwise, it is questionable whether the laudable object which your Society was founded to effect would 
 liave been much furthered by mixing up questions of diplomacy with morality. Governments are not 
 proverbial for the success with which they have dealt with questions i-especting morals. Too often it has 
 been their fate to have to abandon them to private entei-prise, the influence of the spread of education, and 
 the silent operation of social causes which as yet are but imperfectly understood. Amongst the evils for 
 whose reformation we must look to these agencies, I am afraid, we must place those of spirit-drinkiug and 
 opium-smoking. 
 
 " Too often, also, at the risk ni appearing to sanction what they in reality condemned, Governments 
 have been reluctantly compelled to legislate for conditions which they would rather have chosen to abolish 
 or ignore. The fate of the Chinese Government has been no exception to this rule, and the number ot 
 instances in which English statesmen have been forced to do it in their own country, will prevent them fi-oiii 
 misinterpreting the motives of other Governments who have had to do the same. 
 
 " These considerations being borne in mind, will, I trust, prevent any one from fallmg into the iinstake 
 of considering that the Chinese Government has ceased to view the consumption of opium by its subjects 
 otherwise than as one of the most grievous evils which ever befell a nation. 
 
 " I have the honour to be. Sir, 
 
 " Your im)st obedient, humble Servant, 
 
 "TsKNG." 
 2y lln- Secretaky, An^lo-Orienial $<jrieli/Jhr the Siipji.'cs.sioii if the Opium Trade, Loh'Io.i.
 
 REPLY TO THE SHANGHAI COERESPONDENT OF 
 THE "TIMES." 
 
 Alarmed at the progress of the Anti-Opium agitation, the 
 Shanghai Correspondent of the Times has written a long letter 
 exclusively devoted to its confutation. The sum and substance 
 of the letter is contained in the statement that much opium is 
 produced in China, and in two deductions from it, that therefore 
 it is " unfair and untrue " to accuse England of forcing opium on 
 China, and that " the question of the supply by India to China 
 of opium hardly comes within the domain of practical politics." 
 The non sequitur is transparent. Granted that the Chinese also 
 produce the drug. Let us suppose, as seems not improbable, 
 that out of every thousand victims of the poison the Indian 
 drug only kills half. Are we justified in destroying the five 
 hundred, because the Chinese themselves poison the other five 
 hundred ? This logic is equivalent to saying that because there 
 is an immense amount of gambling always going on in England, 
 on the turf and elsewhere, therefore there can be no moral objec- 
 tion to the opening of State lotteries, and licensed rovge et noir 
 saloons in London ; and, moreover, if Russia were strong enough, 
 she might insist upon opening gambling-hells in our streets to 
 supply herself with a revenue ! It is not surprising that such 
 an argument is too bad even for the Times, as appears by the 
 Editor disavowing it in the very paper which contains the letter. 
 Before exposing the Shanghai writer's omission of essential 
 facts in relation to the poppy in China, a few words about the 
 "violence" of our agitation. Our adversary recounts the indict- 
 ment brought against the British nation, in language intended to 
 convey the impression of extravagance. But in his caricature 
 the main items of the grave indictment are recognizable, and 
 he does not attempt to dispute them, as indeed he could not. 
 Two points only call for remark. He says, '' the British 
 public is told that England taught China to smoke opium," 
 and that the Chinese Government has been " ever vigilant 
 to minimize the evil." The Socfety for the Suppression of 
 
 A 2
 
 tho Opium Trade cannot answer for every s[)eech made on 
 every platform in tho United Kingdom ; but wo know nothing 
 of these mis-statements. The organ of the Society has re- 
 peatedly pointed out and lamented the laxity of the Chinese 
 Government in enforcing its laws against opium. To say that 
 England taught China to smoke opium is absurd, for Englishmen 
 do not smoke it, nor do they know how to do it. The practice 
 is peculiar, and requires a special apparatus. 
 
 There is, however, a sense in which this country is guilty of 
 introducing and propagating in some parts of China a vice 
 unknown amongst ourselves. In a country village, teA miles 
 from the nearest public-house, drunkenness is not absolutely 
 unknown. There are two or three old topers there who regu- 
 larly get drunk on market-days, and even bring supplies of 
 liquor home with them. The landlord opens a public-house in 
 the village ; and in a few years' time there are scores of tipplers 
 found at its bar, who never got drunk before. Might it not 
 truthfully be said that that landlord taught those villagers to 
 drink ? In Burma opium-eating was not absolutely unknown, 
 but the mass of the population w^ere untouched by the vice. 
 England conquers the country, imports opium from Calcutta, 
 licenses shops for its sale, the agents of w^hich gratuitously 
 distribute cakes of opium, until the young men have got a 
 liking for the drug. In the Government Report on the Excise 
 Department in British Burma for the year 1879-80, the officer 
 for Prome District states : — 
 
 ** To novices, or to those altogether ignorant of the taste of opium, 
 a preparation called Koon-hone, is sold or given away. Koon-bone is 
 sliced betel leaf, steeped in a decoction of opium, and is chewed. It is 
 made up in small packets which are sold at a pice or two a packet, or 
 more frequently perhaps given away gratis, especially if the victim be 
 a lad twelve or fourteen j'ears old. Pure opium would, probably, at 
 first inspire disgust in one so young. His tastes are therefore con- 
 sulted, and he is invited to take the drug in a milder form. Thus he 
 is allured to evil courses which soon develope into evil habits, the 
 sequel of which is disgrace and ruin." 
 
 Is not that teaching the Burmese the vice ? So in China, 
 although, possibly, there may have been opium-smoking before, 
 and independent of, the Indian trade, the vice mightily increased, 
 gathered new victims, penetrated into new districts, in conse- 
 quence of that trade. In one sense, and in some degree, the 
 sad and shameful charge, that we tavght the Chinese the abuse 
 of the drug, is but too true. 
 
 Mr. Watters, Consul at Ichaug, is said to have discovered that 
 the vice has existed in China *' for several hundred years, long 

 
 before foreign merchants or their opium were ever dreamt of." 
 Ichang, in Western Hu-Pei, has become a Consular station since 
 the Chefoo Convention, and the same agreement has introduced a 
 Consular Agent into the province of Szechuen. These places 
 are in Western China, a region hitherto almost unknown to our 
 merchants and missionaries. Supposing that Mr. Watters' dis- 
 covery be true, it is needful to remember that China is a vast 
 country, to be compared in size to Europe, its provinces being 
 equal to European kingdoms — Szechuen being nearly three times 
 as large as England and Wales. Moreover, owing to the immense 
 distances and the slow methods of locomotion, a journey across 
 China is a matter of months. It would take as loner or 
 longer to go from Canton to the capital of Szechuen, as from 
 London to Melbourne ; and the intercourse between these distant 
 provinces is comparatively slight. If, therefore, the Chinese in 
 the far west smoked opium several hundred years ago, it is as 
 much a discovery to-day to the Chinese of the sea-board as it is 
 to Mr. Watters and ourselves. All the eastern provinces of 
 China know that the drug came to them from India ; and that the 
 baneful habit was propagated amongst them by the diffusion of the 
 " foreign dirt," or '' foreign medicine." Mr. Watters' -story affects 
 the question of our criminality, much as if we had debauched 
 North America with opium, and some one should say we 
 are not blameworthy because it has been discovered that in 
 South America opium has been used for centuries. Last year 
 Mr. Frank Trench, of the China Inland Mission, travelling in 
 Yunnan — undoubtedly the original seat of the poppy in China — 
 found the plant everywhere, and the people altogether given 
 over to the drug. What did they tell him ? One spoke of 
 opium, and said, ** Did it not come from Yang-kwoh (foreign 
 countries) ? " " It was a terrible curse," he said. And, again, ac 
 another village : — 
 
 *' Here I asked two or three old men how long had opium been commonly 
 smoked here ? They said for almost thirty years, but not for thirty years. 
 * Before that time had you opium here?' I asked. 'No.' 'Where 
 did it then come from?' Each said, from 'Yang-kwoh/ i.e. foreign 
 countries. That is, thirty years ago the poppy was a plant unknown in 
 this province; and I have been told the same in respect of the province 
 ofKweiChau." 
 
 Mr. Watters might mock at the ignorance of these villagers, 
 and produce some old book showing that the poppy was culti- 
 vated in Yunnan 300 years ago. So it was in one part of 
 Yunnaiiy and for medical purposes, as we know from the great 
 
 A3
 
 6 
 
 botanical work, the Pin Tso. But Yunnan is considerably larger 
 than England, and these old men, ignorant of what happened 
 elsewhere as a Somersetshire farm-labourer is ignorant of things 
 in Yorkshire, were, no doubt, correct in speaking of their own 
 part of the country. In a word, it is uncertain that opium 
 smoking was known at all in China before the middle of 
 last century; it is absolutely certain that the vice has only been 
 generally known throughout China within two or three genera- 
 tions at most ; and that this lamentable diffusion has taken 
 place in connexion with our Indian trade. 
 
 We are told, among these new discoveries, that in Western 
 China the habit is regarded "not as a curse, but as a sine qua 
 non for a Chinaman." This is very strange, and in flat contra- 
 diction to the opinion of the Yunnan elders, as stated to Mr. 
 Trench. Certainly it is quite otharwise in Eastern China, 
 where Bengal opium is smoked, the habit being regarded, as the 
 Marquis Tseng, the present Chinese Minister in Loudon, 
 describes it in his letter of February 18, 1881, as "one of the 
 most grievous evils which ever befell a nation," This is the 
 universal opinion of all Chinese with whom Europeans have 
 hitherto come in contact, of Sir Thomas Wade, Sir Rutherford 
 Alcock, and a host of medical men and missionaries. That the 
 native opium of Western China is somewhat less injurious than 
 the more potent product of Malwa and Benares, we knew from 
 Consul Hughes, of Hankow, who reported in 1874 (Commercial 
 Reports, China, 1874, page 4) : — 
 
 " Native opium seems, in fact, to be in rather more favour in this part 
 of China than formerly. It is known to be generally used by the inhabit- 
 ants of the localities where it is grown and elsewhere by those who cannot 
 afford to buy the foreign drug. But it is also stated that many well-to- 
 do Chinese, who had been in the habit of smoking foreign opium, have 
 given it up in whole or in part in favour of the native article, the use of 
 which is believed to be less hurtful to the constitution, and attended with 
 less ph3'sical inconvenience. For instance, the confirmed smoker of 
 Indian opium generally passes sleepless nights, whereas smokers of native 
 opium do not suffer to the same extent in this respect. The Szechuen 
 product contains much less pure opium than is contained in Malwa, the 
 ' touch ' of the former being, according to the report of an expert, 44, of 
 the latter 75. It is not, therefore, surprising that, as remarked by 
 travellers, boatmen and other labourers in Szechuen should be able to 
 smoke native opium without being unfitted for work.'' 
 
 Sir Rutherford Alcock also reported to the Government of 
 India, in 1869 : — " It appears that the native drug is not only far 
 less costly than the Indian, but greatly preferred by the Chinese, 
 as less potent in its effects, and consequently in all probability
 
 much less injurious " (Calcutta Blue Book, page 235). In 1877, 
 Consul Sinclair reported from Foochow :— " Native drug has 
 less potency and is less deleterious than Indian" (Commercial 
 Reports, China, 1877, page 56). 
 
 If, then, Chinese grown opium is not so destructive as Indian, 
 this, instead of being an argument for tolerating the Indian trade, 
 is an additional condemnation. Our drug is, we know, pernicious 
 in its effects ; let us cease to force it into China, and leave them 
 to supply themselves if they will with their own less injurious 
 article. 
 
 In regard to the amount of opium produced in China, nothing 
 accurate is known. Every scrap of information about this, to 
 be gathered from Consular and Customs Reports, has been care- 
 fully published, year by year, in the Friend of China. In the 
 Calcutta Blue Book (page 218), Mr. N. Nusserwanjee, in 1869, 
 writes to the Board of Revenue, as the result of his inquiries, 
 that *' not less than 40,000 piculs were produced last year " in 
 China. Turn over the page, and we read Mr. Keswick's (of 
 Jardine, Matheson, and Co.) estimate, received from a Chinese 
 source, for the same year, that the production was *' about 5000 
 piculs." In 1877, Sir B. Robertson, Consul at Canton, estimated 
 the outturn (China, No. 5, 1877, page 4), " on Chinese authority," 
 as from 25,000 to 32,000 piculs (133^ lbs. per picul). In the same 
 year, Mr. Hippisley, a Chinese Customs Officer, put down the 
 product in Kweichow alone as 15,000 piculs in 1868, and tells us 
 that Baron von Richthofen set down that of Szechuen, in 1872, 
 "as at least 60,000 piculs, perhaps 100,000." This last estimate is 
 similar to that given by the Shanghai letter, but it is purely con- 
 jectural. In 1878, Consul Gardner, an apologist for the opium 
 trade, says, " The average amount of foreign opium consumed in 
 China is about 12,000,000 lbs. per annum; probably 5,000,000 lbs. 
 more of native opium is produced " (Commercial Reports, China, 
 1878, page 55). It suits the advocate of the Indian opium trade 
 to flaunt the higher figures in our faces as though they were 
 ascertained facts ; but the truth is, they are mere guesses, no 
 more trustworthy than the lower. To talk of statistics in this 
 connexion is deceptive. The cultivation of the poppy is illegal 
 in China. There is no Imperial impost on the native drug. 
 Local mandarins take bribes to connive at the infringement of 
 the law ; and, since the Treaty of Tientsin, in some districts 
 this may have been done with such regularity as to give to the 
 collection of this black-mail the semblance of regular taxation. 
 Again, as foreign opium passes the inland customs stations on
 
 n 
 
 payment of li-kin, so, since 1868, the native drug has formed 
 a common article of commerce in Hankow and elsewhere, and 
 " provisional regulations," emanating from provincial authorities, 
 have permitted its transit (see the Chinese Customs Report, 
 quoted in Frierid of China, vol. iii. page 157), and thus the drug 
 comes within the cognizance of the Customs. But this can give 
 no sufficient basis for calculation of the amount of native opium 
 produced. We know that it is large, and that of recent years 
 it has been increasing frightfully, but the quantity produced 
 can only be vaguely conjectured. 
 
 We have now to point out a most important fact, altogether 
 lost sight of by the Shanghai correspondent. The recent rapid 
 jyrogress of the poppy in China is the sequence of our opium trade 
 and the Opium War. Briefly the case stands thus : before the 
 Opium War the importation of the drug and the cultivation of 
 the poppy were alike illegal in China. The Government 
 resisted both ; but the British opium smugglers were too strong 
 for them, and, although little is known of the interior in those 
 days, it is probable they had but indifferent success in their 
 opposition to the native poppy in the distant west. But the 
 broad fact is certain, that after the Opium War, the poppy spread 
 into new districts, and still more after the Treaty of Tientsin 
 legalized the foreign trade. The Calcutta Blue Book contains 
 many proofs of this. In 1848, Gulzlaff reported to the Indian 
 Government (page 202) : — 
 
 *' It is impossible to ascertain the whole amount of opium thus produced 
 in China, or to point out the progressive increase since the Nanking 
 Treaty. The Government having relaxed in the execution of its prohibi- 
 tion against the drug, there is not the least doubt of the plant being now 
 more extensively grown than ever before." 
 
 Consul Robertson writes of Kwangtung Province (page 223) : — 
 
 " As regards the cultivation, poppy seed was first brought into the 
 Sin-hwei District in 1861." 
 
 Mr. Mayers quotes an Edict in the Peking Gazette of January 
 22, 1869, which says (page 222):— 
 
 " Of late the growth has by degrees extended into the provinces of 
 Kiang-su, Ho-nan, Shan-tun g, &c." 
 
 Passing over other instances, quotation of which is not neces- 
 sary, the fact being notorious in China, we will only call atten- 
 tion to the following extract from the Report of the Delegates of 
 the Chamber of Commerce of Shanghai on the trade of the 
 Upper Yangtse, 1869 (page 260): —
 
 ** From the natives we learn that ten years ago all the opium that was 
 grown in Szechuen was in small patches in gardens, ostensibly for amuse- 
 ment, the penalty for growing it being death." 
 
 A Memorandum of the Financial Department of the Indian 
 Government, dated 23rd February, 1871, sums up the results of 
 wide inquiry in terms which fully support our view ; particularly 
 stating (1) that up to 1817, native opium was produced only in 
 Yunnan; (2) that between 1817 and 1840, the cultivation was 
 introduced into Szechuen, Kvvangsi, and Kwei-chow; (3) that 
 up to 1848 the Imperial Government strenuously opposed the 
 cultivation ; (4) that after 1848 a great increase of the poppy 
 took place; so that in fifteen years, from 1848 to 1864, the whole 
 of Western China became an opium-producing region. The 
 Opium War ended in 1842. The progress of the poppy in the 
 eastern provinces, since the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858, is 
 equally marked. 
 
 What produced this rapid increase of the cultivation ? We 
 are not left to conjecture about this. Our Consular reports 
 again and again speak of the policy of China as verging towards 
 the legalization of the growth. Some Viceroys were reported 
 positively to encourage it, with the avowed object o/ ousting the 
 more injurious foreign drug. In the Prince of Kung's great 
 despatch to Sir R. Alcock, in 1869, this state of things is 
 distinctly pourtrayed (Calcutta Blue Book, page 264): — 
 
 ''There are others, again, who suggest the removal of the prohibitions 
 against the growth of the poppy. They argue that, as there is no means 
 of stopping the foreign (opium) trade, there can be no harm, as a temporary 
 measure, in withdrawing the prohibition on its growth. We should thus 
 not only deprive the foreign merchant of a main source of his profits, but 
 should increase our revenue to boot. The sovereign rights of China are, 
 indeed, competent to this. Such a course would be practicable ; and, 
 indeed, the writers cannot say that, as a last resource, it will not come to 
 this ; but they are most unwilling that such prohibition should be 
 removed, holding as they do, that a right system of government should 
 appreciate the beneficence of Heaven, and (seek to) remove any grievance 
 which afflicts its people, while, to allow them to go on to destruction, 
 though an increase of revenue may result, will provoke the judgment of 
 Heaven and the condemnation of men. Neither of the above plans, indeed, 
 is satisfactory. If it be desired to remove the very root, and to stop the 
 evil at its source, nothing will be effective but a prohibition to be enforced 
 alike by both parties." 
 
 The hesitancy of the Government is clearly traceable. They 
 felt the hopelessness of combating the native growth while com- 
 pelled to admit the Indian drug, yet they could not bring their 
 minds to legalize the injurious production. They have not 
 legalized it to this day. On the contrary, within the last five
 
 10 
 
 years fresh Imperial Edicts have again prohibited both the culti- 
 vation and consumption of the drug, and the Reports of Her 
 Majesty's Consuls contain many references to the efforts of 
 Provincial Governors to extirpate the poppy and close the opium- 
 smoking houses. These, however, have not been felt throughout 
 the whole Empire, nor steadily maintained anywhere. Admitting 
 and deploring the weakness of Chinese administration, we must 
 not forget that the foreign trade to a large extent paralyzes its 
 efforts against the internal production.* The result has been that 
 enormous increase of the Chinese cultivation which the Shanghai 
 Correspondent brings forward as a reason why England should not 
 be troubled inconscience about the Indian trade. Our iniquitous 
 traffic is the occasion of the development of the Chinese growth, 
 and then the Chinese growth is pleaded as a justification of our 
 iniquitous traffic ! 
 
 Our reply to the Shanghai letter may be summed up thus : — 
 
 1. The fact, artfully paraded as a new discovery, that a great 
 quantity of opium is produced in China, is no discovery at all, 
 but has been taken into account all along. 
 
 2. This fact cannot excuse the British opium trade, inasmuch 
 as it is partly a consequence of that trade. 
 
 3. The assertions about the antiquity of opium smoking in 
 Western China, and its comparative harmlessness, are mere asser- 
 tions, easily made, as they have been often made before, but 
 never yet substantiated. If, however, they should prove to be 
 true, they apply only to the distant west of China, and do not 
 affect the eastern half of China, where the more powerful Indian 
 drug is used. 
 
 4. The statements that " the Chinese allow the free cultivation 
 of the poppy," and regard native-grown opium as a *' legitimate 
 source of revenue," are both contrary to fact. None of the 
 Imperial prohibitions have been repealed, and no "legitimate" 
 revenue is derived from the Chinese poppy. Ever and anon, 
 efforts are made in different places to extirpate the vice and the 
 cultivation together ; but it is not to be wondered at that these 
 are not steadily persisted hi, while the foreign import continues. 
 
 * The following shows one way in which this eflfect is produced. In a 
 Chinese newspaper, the Wan Kuo Kung Pao, of date 20tli April, 1878, it is 
 related that the District Magistrate of Siangshan, hearing of a certain 
 farmer who, regardless of his proclamations, had declared that he would 
 not give up cultivating the poppy, went to the spot, and directed the man 
 to pull up the crop and plant grain instead. The former replied, " When 
 the authorities will cease to collect a revenue from Foreign Opium, I will 
 obey your orders and destroy the poppies ; but failing this, how can you 
 forbid me to plant them ? "
 
 11 
 
 Mr. Allen, Consul at Shanghai, in 1879, says in his last Report : — 
 *' I have no hesitation in expressing my opinion that the better 
 class of Chinese officials feel that the trade in opium, and the 
 consumption of it, are two evils which must eventually be put 
 down." The Prince of Kung wrote to Sir R. Alcock : — " Were 
 both nations to vigorously prohibit the growth of the poppy, 
 both the traffic in, and the consumption of opium might alike be 
 put an end to. ... If his Excellency the British Minister 
 cannot, before it is too late, arrange a plan for the joint 
 prohibition (of the traffic), then no matter with what devotedness 
 the writers may plead, they may be unable to cause the people to 
 put aside ill-feeling, and so strengthen friendly relations as to 
 place them for ever beyond the fear of disturbance." This is a 
 polite way of saying that unless we cease to force our opium into 
 China, sooner or later we shall have to fight another opium war. 
 
 The argument of the Shanghai apologist for the opium trade is 
 answered. But there still remains a serious difficulty. In its naked 
 deformity, the plea that as the Chinese will have poison we may as 
 well furnish it to them and get the profits, revolts every honest man. 
 Put, however, in another way, the same argument discourages many 
 good men from active effiDrt against our opium trade. They admit 
 the ^vil, and deplore it, but think that it is past cure. China is 
 hopelessly addicted to the drug, they say ; and if India were to 
 cease to send it, other sources would supply the deficiency. What 
 practical good would result ? Shall we call upon Great Britain 
 for an heroic sacrifice which will lead to no practical good ? 
 
 To answer this query we must consider what would be the 
 probable and what the certain consequences if Great Britain were 
 at this time to do its best to extinguish the pernicious trade, 
 which its emissaries in India have so long fostered. 
 
 The probable effisct would be an immediate check to the opium- 
 vice in China, and its gradual diminution. We can only speak 
 of probabilities here, which different minds will estimate according 
 to their prepossessions. The attitude of the Chinese Government 
 leads to the expectation that it would embrace the opportunity 
 for a vigorous effi)rt to stamp out the poppy in China. In this it 
 would be supported by the moral sense of the nation. Instant 
 and complete success could not be looked for. National vices do 
 not die out instantly before hostile legislation ; but certainly the 
 struggle against opium smoking would be much easier and more 
 hopeful were the foreign import removed, or the Chinese per- 
 mitted to control it at their pleasure. Another probable conse-
 
 12 
 
 quencc would be the increase of exports from Great Britain to 
 China, partly as a direct result of the removal of opium, and still 
 more through the increase of good-will granting new facilities 
 for commerce. 
 
 Other results are not probable, but certain, and these would 
 amply repay us for the effort and the sacrifice. It is certain that a 
 reversal of the policy pursued by our Government hitherto would 
 remove a great scandal, and exalt Britain in the eyes of all mankind ; 
 it is certain that it would conciliate the Chinese nation, and do more 
 than anything else in our power to promote beneficial intercourse 
 between the two nations ; it is certain that the contemplated step 
 would remove two serious dangers, the danger to India of a 
 sudden and unexpected collapse of the opium revenue at a time 
 when it would be most inconvenient to meet it, and the danger of 
 a rupture with China, which is always imminent so long as 
 this scandal continues ; it is certain that such action on our part 
 would promote the progress of civilization and Christianity, both 
 in India and in China, that is, among half the human race. 
 There is no limit to the far-reaching happy consequences which 
 would certainly ensue if even now, at the eleventh hour, Britain 
 had the moral courage to own her fault, and to cease from the 
 perpetration of a wrong which outrages the conscience of man- 
 kind.
 
 
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