Chapter II: Part 2

We are tempted to ask what was the cause of this sudden increase in the consumption of opium. Increased facilities for its purchase was undoubtedly one cause, but Sir Charles Aitchison supplies us with another important one. "The people,"[49] he says, "are becoming emancipated from many restrictions of their old creed. The inevitable tendency of the education we give, and of the new sense of personal liberty which our Government creates among an Oriental people, is to weaken the sanctions of religious belief, and break down the restraints of social customs."[50] So far, and this is all that a perusal of anti-opium publications will tell us, the contention that opium is wholly pernicious seems fully borne out. But, as before pointed out, a proof of the injuriousness of opium-_eating_ is no proof that opium-smoking is injurious; and the zealous denouncers of the drug have omitted to mention all in the Report which tells strongly against their own case. At the very beginning of the memorandum the Commissioner says: "The Chinese population in British Burmah, and to some extent also the immigrants from India, especially Chittagonians and Bengalese, habitually consume opium without any apparent ill-effects; those of them who have acquired the habit do not regularly indulge to excess. With the Burmese and other indigenous races the case is different. The Burmese seem quite incapable of using the drug in moderation."[51] So that if there were no other difference between the Chinese and Burmans in their appetite for opium, there would be this, that the one habitually smokes in moderation, the other habitually indulges to excess. Further, one of the arguments brought forward by the Commissioner against the total closing of all shops, a step clamoured for by the anti-opiumists, not to mention the obvious difficulty of preventing smuggling, is that "the _legitimate requirements_ of the 200,000 Chinese and natives of Bengal, resident in British Burmah, must be considered and provided for. These, to whom the drug is a _necessary of life_, constitute perhaps the most thriving and industrious section of the population."[52] It will be seen, then, that we cannot argue from the effect of opium on the Burmese to its effect upon the Chinese.

The greater part of the opium consumed in India is supplied from the Government stores under the name of "abkari," or excise opium.[53] Four thousand chests are issued yearly for this purpose from the reserve stock of Bengal opium; but this year it has been decided to allow Malwa opium, for which the market is at present very slack, to supply this. Besides this excise opium, which is never sold at a rate low enough to encourage export, some little opium is imported from the Hill states, and a small quantity is grown in Rajpootana, the Punjaub, and the Central Provinces, under strict Government supervision and for local consumption only.

Besides in India opium is eaten in Turkey, where its virtues are so much appreciated that the legend stamped on the opium lozenges is "Mash-Allah," the "Gift of God"; and the habit is prevalent in Persia also. Among the Malays and Siamese, and in Java and Sumatra and the neighbouring islands, it is mostly smoked; and, of course, the Chinese carry the habit with them wherever they go. Even America has caught the infection, and the rapid progress of the habit, especially among the lower orders, called forth vigorous coercive measures. It may be that these will have the desired effect; but that will only be because the Americans have no natural craving for the drug, and prefer their national taste for gin and whiskey and rum. Some of the more violent opio-phobists, pointing to the spread of this "horrid and infectious vice" among the Americans, hint in almost triumphant tones that the secret use of opium in England is already considerable, and still increasing, as though it were a Nemesis, too long delayed, for her crimes.[54] If we may believe De Quincey,[55] opium-eating was by no means an uncommon thing among the upper classes, even in his day; and Dickens, in his description of an opium-den in _Edwin Drood_, draws no doubt upon his stores of personal knowledge acquired in his youthful rambles among the streets of London. However, we cannot think there is any real danger of the English people deliberately taking to opium. Tobacco answers every purpose. But it is an undoubted fact that the mortality among children in large towns like Bradford and Manchester is due, in a great measure, to their being unwittingly dosed with opium, which enters largely into the composition of soothing syrups, cordials, and elixirs of all kinds.[56] It has been estimated that 300,000 lbs. of opium are imported annually into the United Kingdom, only a part of which can be used medicinally.[57]

Before speaking more particularly of the political agitation against our policy with regard to opium, it will be necessary to state shortly what that policy has been in the case of India. The opium from which India derives her revenue is of two kinds, called respectively Bengal and Malwa opium. The former is that grown by the Government agencies at Patna and Benares; the latter, that grown by the native states of Scindia and Holkar, which has to pay a heavy duty in passing through our territory. With regard to the Government monopoly of Bengal opium, our policy has been very vacillating in past time; and mainly to this cause may be ascribed the fluctuations in the revenue derived from this source. The opium revenue amounted in 1838 to L1,586,445 net, which by 1857 had risen to L5,918,375. In 1871 the large total of L7,657,213 was reached, and this has been still further increased in the last decade to eight and a half millions. The constancy of increase noticeable in the revenue for the last few years has been due in great measure to the adoption of a plan proposed by Sir Cecil Beadon in 1867 that a reserve stock of opium should be formed from the abundance of fruitful years to supply the deficiencies of lean ones; so that a certain fixed amount of the drug might be brought into the market every year. This reserve stock, which amounted in 1878 to 48,500 chests, by constant demands upon it has diminished to 12,000 chests. The amount sold yearly has, in consequence, been lowered from 56,400 to 53,700 chests, and a further reduction to 50,000 chests is contemplated.[58] The revenue, therefore, is not likely to be in excess of the amount received 1881-2, which was eight and a half millions (net), of which three and a half millions are due to the export duty on Malwa, the other five millions to the direct profit on the Bengal drug.

The amount of land at present under opium cultivation in British India is about 500,000 acres,[59] and this amount does not admit of any considerable extension.

It was in 1826 first that the East India Company made an agreement with Holkar and other native chiefs that the former should have the exclusive right to purchase all opium grown in the table-land of Malwa.[60] But, in spite of this agreement, opium grown in these estates found its way to the Portuguese ports of Damaum and Diu on the Persian Gulf, for export to China. Consequently, after an unsuccessful attempt to limit the production in the native states, which almost occasioned a civil war, the existing system was abandoned, and a tax upon opium exported through Bombay substituted.

The number of chests annually exported out of India is about 45,000, which gives the Indian Government a revenue of L3,150,000; whereas a similar amount of Bengal would bring in five and a half millions sterling. It is difficult to estimate the exact revenue that accrues to the native princes from the culture of the poppy, but in any case it must form a main portion of their whole income, amounting in some cases to as much as half, in spite of the enormous duty we can lay upon its export. The cultivation is very popular in the native states, and the people, we may be sure, have no scruple in supplying China or any other nation that will buy their produce. "No rajah," says Dr. Christlieb, "under a purely native system, would administer the opium revenue as we do; the Brahmins would soon starve him out." What this remark precisely means, it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to discover; but the general meaning desired to be conveyed, no doubt, is that a native ruler would not be allowed to engage in so iniquitous a traffic by the superior sense of justice and morality inherent in his Brahmin councillors. Credat Judaeus! Whether it would be possible[61] or in accordance with justice, or consistent with the policy hitherto pursued towards the native states, to prevent opium from being grown by the native princes (if so be that the doctrines of the anti-opium league find favour in the sight of Englishmen), is a question which will be more fully dealt with when we come to discuss the remedial measures proposed by the denouncers of our opium policy. We only know that our last attempt at interference in this matter well-nigh caused a civil war.

Allowing, then, for all deductions on the score of "abkari" opium, and for a certain amount which the French colony of Chandernagore have a right to purchase at existing rates, we may say that about 95,000 chests of provision opium are exported from India every year: 45,000 chests of Malwa from Bombay, and 50,000 of Bengal opium from Calcutta. But it is a mistake to suppose that all this goes directly to China proper. About 1,000 chests a month, or more than one-fifth part of the whole annual amount sold at Calcutta, goes to supply the needs of the Chinese in the Straits Settlements and thereabouts, in Cochin China and Cambogia, and of the Siamese and Malays. Moreover, a considerable quantity is deflected at Hongkong for the use of the Chinese in California[62] and in the Philippine, Fiji, and other islands. The exact amount so deflected it is impossible to estimate;[63] but we may feel pretty sure that not much more than 80,000 chests of Indian opium are sold in China itself. The Bengal opium finds a better sale than the Malwa, partly from its inherent superiority and partly from the Government guarantee being affixed. Its price is very high, being 460 taels per picul or chest,[64] while native opium is only 350 taels, including transit dues.

The use of Indian opium is consequently restricted to the richer classes, and the poorer classes have to put up with the native drug. At present there is little fear that the native drug will drive out Indian opium, as there seems to be some peculiarity of soil or preparation which makes Bengal opium superior to all other kinds.

The present import tariff paid by Indian opium varies at the different ports, but is about thirty taels in most; and this brings in to the Chinese Government (including likin or transit dues),[65] about L2,000,000 a year. This they seek to increase by being allowed to levy a higher duty on the imported article than they themselves suggested after the Treaty of Tientsin. The negotiations on this subject have been already described, so we need not dwell upon them here. The English Government are naturally unwilling to agree to any large increase of duty, such as would afford a temptation to smugglers and restore the former unsatisfactory condition of things, while in all probability just as much Indian opium would find its way into China, the duty being at the same time evaded. But it is a mistake to say that the Chinese are powerless to tax opium, for they can place any transit duty they please upon it as soon as it has left the importer's hands, and they have not failed to avail themselves of this privilege, thereby causing in their own borders much successful smuggling. If the Chinese were allowed to double the import duty on Indian opium as they proposed to Sir Thomas Wade, and if they were able, as they formerly were distinctly unable, to prevent smuggling, our profits on the drug would no doubt be diminished in proportion to the increase of duty, and this rivalry would presumably lead to a compromise. But apart from this contingency there are two ways in which the opium revenue might be lost to India. On the one hand, by natural competition with other kinds of opium the Indian drug might be driven from the field. This, for many reasons, is unlikely. On the other hand, the political agitation against the trade, if successful, would have the effect of putting a sudden and complete stop to the traffic; and it behoves us to consider, in a calm and dispassionate manner, how far such a consummation is desirable, and, if desirable, how far it is practicable.

First, how far is it desirable? And here let us premise, with Major (now Sir Evelyn) Baring,[66] "that facts cannot be altered or their significance attenuated by any enunciation of abstract principles." Violent denunciations from platform and pulpit, combined with a persistent ignoring of the exigencies of the case, as though they were irrelevant matters, are not likely to commend themselves to those responsible ministers, either in England or India, who have to face the financial and political problems connected inseparably with any attempt to abolish the opium trade. It is really no answer to the financial difficulty to say, as the Lord Mayor[67] said at a meeting held at the Mansion House, "that the financial difficulty would be got over if the Government would only deal with the question and do what is right." Nor is it easy to believe that the English taxpayers will come forward with five millions a year as compensation to India. Those who seem to advocate this step do not fail to remind us of the L20,000,000 spent for the emancipation of slaves as a "glorious precedent." But the difference between the two cases need not be pointed out: they must be obvious to all. What the exact remedies proposed by the opponents of the traffic are, it is difficult to define; for, united as is their condemnation of the present policy with regard to the trade, they are by no means as unanimous in suggesting a policy of their own.

The various objections to the trade were first formulated in Lord Shaftesbury's memorial to Lord Clarendon in 1855. The challenge thus thrown down was at once taken up by Sir John Bowring, our Superintendent of Trade in China, who, as might be expected, knew somewhat more about the matter than the enthusiastic memorialists at home. He may be taken to have disproved all the most important allegations contained in that document, namely, that the trade was exclusively British; that the annual death-rate from opium rose to the "appalling" figure of more than a million; that the Chinese were really in earnest about prohibiting the traffic. Some of these points have been abandoned; others are considered irrelevant to the question really at issue, which is held to be whether any interference with the fiscal policy of a foreign state be in itself justifiable-- whether, that is, we are warranted in keeping China to her treaty-obligations to admit opium at a certain rate. It is quite natural that they should wish to confine the discussion to this their strongest point, but we are not disposed to allow that this is the real or only point at issue; and we will therefore take the main charges levelled against the opium trade separately, and endeavour to do them full justice.

These are: 1st. Opium is a poison, and _therefore_ opium-smoking as practised by the Chinese is poisoning the people. 2nd. We are responsible for the introduction of this habit into China. "We have held the poisoned chalice," an eloquent Bishop has said, "to the lips of the Chinese and forced them to drink it." 3rd. We have even forced it upon them, and are still forcing it. 4th. We hold a monopoly in the manufacture of opium, but a monopoly is always economically wrong, and the monopoly of a poison is morally indefensible. 5. This traffic is an insurmountable barrier to the labours of our missionaries. Let us take them in this order.

1. It is stated that opium in any form is a poison pure and simple, and has been declared to be so by Act of Parliament: that, moreover, its pleasures are so seductive that the habit of taking it, once established, can never be forgone, so that the moderate smoker glides almost imperceptibly, but no less certainly, into the excessive smoker: that this immoderate indulgence impoverishes the fortunes, mars the morality, and ruins the health of the victim himself, and plants the seeds of disease and vice in his children. This count in the indictment will not be quite complete unless we add, on the authority of the missionaries, that opium-smoking is all but universal, and the annual mortality due to it one million at least. As to the latter estimate, we may say with the late Dr. Medhurst, himself a zealous and enlightened medical missionary, that it "has not even the semblance of truth, but is an outrageous exaggeration." What the exact number of deaths from this cause may be is by no means so easy to discover;[68] for, apart from the fact that there is no register of deaths to appeal to, it would be impossible to decide how many even of the deaths caused by opium could be attributed to the habit of smoking opium as a luxury, for many of them, as has been pointed out, might be due to suicide,[69] for self-destruction by opium[70] seems as common a practice with the Chinese as suicide by drowning is with us. But there is another and more fertile element of error; for many, and probably the vast majority of cases so pathetically described by missionaries, of victims[71] to the vice in hospitals and dying by the roadside, are cases of men afflicted with some painful or incurable disorder who have taken to opium-smoking, as De Quincey did to opium-eating, as a relief and a solace. To such, indeed, it is a priceless boon, and it may well be doubted whether it is not oftener the means of prolonging life than of shortening it.[72] Much has been made of the evidence of T. T. Cooper before the Parliamentary Commission in 1871, where he says that he frequently saw men dying by the roadside, _simply from want of opium_. Yet it is difficult to see how he ascertained the cause of death in each case. He seems rather to have jumped at a conclusion, as he certainly did in another part of his evidence, where he gravely affirms that, in his opinion, were the opium supply to be suddenly cut off, _one-third_ of the adult population of China would die! Why, to begin with, one-third of the adult population do not even now, after the lapse of ten years, in which the spread of the habit has been unchecked, smoke opium; no, nor any number approaching it. Secondly, it has been proved in the case of prisoners, whose supply of opium is always stopped when they enter the jail,[73] that a sudden deprivation of the drug does not cause death. Again, opium is held accountable for pauperism, dishonesty, crime, and depravity of all sorts. That indulgence of any kind is a sign of moral weakness, and likely further to deprave the moral nature, is undeniable, but (and here we have Dr. Myers with us) "though excessive opium may hasten the effects of a general moral depravity, we are inclined to think that it is much more often rather a sequence than a cause." "In China," says Mr. Lay, "the spendthrift, the man of lewd habits, the drunkard, and a large assortment of bad characters slide into the opium-smoker: hence the drug seems chargeable with all the vices of the country." There will be no need to point out that opium is not the cause of all the pauperism and vice that exists among the Chinese people; for a vast amount of pauperism is common to all Eastern races, and dishonesty, untruthfulness, cruelty, and vice of the most revolting kind, were characteristic of the Chinese long before opium was so common as it now is.

What, then, are the effects of opium-smoking on the Chinese individually and as a nation? Had they been anything like what the anti-opiumists assert they must be, surely the effect would be visible after all these years in an increased death-rate or a decreased birth-rate. Needless to say, no such aggregate result is observable. Where opium is most smoked, there the population is most thriving and industrious,[74] and increases the fastest. "No China resident," says Dr. Ayres, colonial surgeon at Hongkong, "believes in the terrible frequency of the dull, sodden-witted, debilitated opium-smoker, met with in print." Mr. Gregory, H.M.'s Consul at Swatow, says: "I have _never_ seen a single case of opium intoxication, although living with and travelling for months and hundreds of miles with opium-smokers."[75] Dr. Myers, after ten years' medical practice in different parts of China, confesses that his "preconceived prejudices with reference to the universally baneful effects of the drug had been severely shaken." Again, it was estimated by the colonial surgeon at Hongkong, in 1855, that there were more deaths from drunkenness in Hongkong among the 600 Europeans than from opium among the 60,000 Chinamen. Similar testimony is borne by a recent medical report of the Straits Settlements,[76] wherein, under the head "poisons," it appears that there were from alcoholic poisoning thirty-nine deaths, of which twenty-six were Europeans, three Chinese, one Malay, nine Indians; while from opium only five in all--a result all the more significant as there are at least 300,000 Chinese in the Straits Settlements,[77] and only about 4,000 Europeans, including the military. Dr. Hobson, another medical missionary, and as such entirely averse to the trade, says: "Opium-smoking is not nearly so fatal to life as spirit-drinking is with us; its use is even compatible with longevity." It is very common to hear Chinese acknowledge that they have smoked opium for ten, twenty, or thirty years. Dr. Hobson mentions one case in which the smoker began at nineteen, and smoked for fifty-one years.[78] Further evidence is surely unnecessary to prove that opium-smoking is not necessarily, nor even commonly, destructive of life. Even opium-eating, _a far worse vice_, for it "sets up an incessant and cumulative craving, so that a rapid increase of dose is necessary"--not even opium-eating is inevitably fatal, as the case of the Rajpoots proves. De Quincey, as is well known, took 8,000 drops of laudanum a day for some time, which is equivalent to thirty-two grains, and two grains of opium swallowed are equal in effects to fifty-eight grains (one mace) smoked, three mace being a smoker's usual allowance.[79]

Though we cannot state for certain the number of deaths from opium, we can form a rough estimate of the number of smokers supplied by the Indian drug; and this has been done by Mr. Hart, Inspector-General of Chinese Customs. But his figures need some modification, inasmuch as he puts the number of chests imported at 100,000, whereas the number, for reasons given above, certainly does not exceed 85,000 all told. Moreover, he reckons the population of China at 300,000,000--surely a low estimate. We may safely assume it to be 350,000,000. Again, in his estimate of the native drug he errs on the other side, for the amount of the native drug produced is probably much more than 100,000 chests, and may be even four times as much.[80] Mr. Hart's figures, then, thus amended, give the following results:--Indian opium imported to China amounts to 85,000[81] chests at most = 8,500,000 catties (1-1/3 lb.). Provision opium, when boiled down and converted into prepared opium, loses at least 30 per cent. of its weight; consequently 8,500,000 catties of provision opium are equivalent to 5,950,000 catties of prepared drug, which = 952,000,000 mace (58 grains). This is sold at 800 taels per 100 catties, so that the whole quantity imported costs 47,600,000 taels, or L14,280,000, the price per mace being a little more than 3-1/2d. English. Average smokers take three mace of prepared opium a day, and spend 11d. Dividing the number of mace smoked by the days in the year, we get 2,608,219 mace as the amount smoked daily, at the cost of L39,123. As the average smoker takes three mace a day, there must be 869,406 smokers of the Indian drug, _i.e._ one person in every 400, or 1/4 per cent. The smokers of the native drug may be taken--a large estimate--to be four times as numerous. Still the two together will only form 1-1/4 per cent. of the population. The native drug costs only half as much as the Indian, so that the whole native crop, being four times as much, will only cost twice as much, or L28,560,000. The whole amount, then, spent by China on native and Indian opium will be L42,840,000 a year, and the number of smokers 4,347,000, of whom India is responsible for 870,000.[82] Not that we are to suppose these 4-1/3 millions of smokers to be all indulgers to excess. That is no more the case than that all who drink wine and spirits in this country are habitual drunkards. There is, indeed, in the case of each individual a well-defined limit, of which he knows that so far he can go with safety, and no further. This curious fact we owe to Dr. Myers,[83] who also gives it as his experience that opium-smokers may be divided into two classes:[84] "1st. The minority, who, from being rich, can afford to gratify their tastes. Of these the official class are less prone to excess than those well-to-do persons who suffer from idleness and ennui. 2nd. The majority, consisting of persons who have to work hard for their livings, among whom moderation is the rule." For, that opium does not destroy a capacity for hard physical[85] and intellectual[86] work, nay, even enhances it, has been abundantly proved, and that not only when taken on emergencies, but also when habitually indulged in.

In a recent letter to the _Times_[87] from a correspondent at the Straits Settlements, some interesting facts are recorded with regard to the use of opium there. The Chinese population of the Straits Settlements and the neighbourhood cannot be much more than one million souls. About 12,000 chests of Bengal opium are imported yearly, being more than one-seventh of the total amount of Indian opium exported. It appears, then, that the Chinese of the Straits Settlements, who are the finest specimens[88] of their race in existence, consume one-seventh part of the opium consumed by 175,000,000 Chinese, the other 175,000,000 being held to consume the native drug. Or, if the Straits scale of consumption prevails in China, then the quantity of opium imported is only enough to reach one-fiftieth part of the Chinese population, leaving the remaining forty-nine fiftieths to consume the home-grown article. The correspondent goes on to say: "According to the descriptions circulated by the Anti-Opium Society of decimation, emaciation, &c., the Straits Chinamen ought to be all dead men. But they live to disprove the anti-opium theory. Nay more, they are robust, energetic, and hearty beyond all other Eastern races."

It has, we think, been sufficiently proved that, though opium is strictly a poison, and if you take too much of it you must probably, as De Quincey says, "do what is particularly disagreeable to any man of regular habits, viz. die," yet taken in moderation it is, for the most part, harmless, if not beneficial.

We will now advert to the second charge, and endeavour to point out that we are not responsible for the introduction of opium into China, either as having first brought it to the notice of the Chinese, or as having planted in them a craving for it, which is really due partly to climatic causes, partly to constitutional characteristics.

From the history of the traffic given above, it will abundantly appear that the poppy was known and cultivated in China--to what extent it is impossible to define, but certainly to some extent--_long_ before any foreign opium found its way into the empire. But even if this were not so, the English would not be responsible for the first importation of foreign opium, since the Portuguese preceded them by some years. Not that the Portuguese or any other nation can be said to have created a craving for the drug among the Chinese by the mere fact of supplying it, as Mr. Storrs Turner insists, for such a view of the conditions of supply and demand is, we take it, untenable. We may be sure that in those early days, before the haughty Celestial had felt the power of the outside barbarians, whom he thoroughly despised and consistently ill-treated, he would have laughed to scorn the idea that a few foreign traders could force upon him anything he was determined not to have. But the truth is that the Chinese people, _literati_, gentry and all, did ardently covet this foreign drug; and there are surely weighty reasons--if we will only condescend to investigate them--to justify their preference.

Every nation, as has been repeatedly pointed out,[89] whether civilized or barbarous, in all ages of the world, has been addicted to the use of some stimulant or narcotic.[90] Of these there are more than fifty kinds in use in different regions of the globe, ranging from alcohol in Europe, to "pombe," a fermentation from millet, in Africa, and from bhang or hemp in India to coca and tobacco in America. Samshoo, a fiery distillation from rice, is the intoxicant of Japan, and was that of China before opium took its place.[91] The West Indians extract a strong spirit-rum from sugar-cane. Even the Kamschatkans draw an intoxicating liquor from mushrooms; even the Siberians express the juice of the crab-apple for the same purpose.[92] What but the natural craving of mankind for some intoxicant or narcotic "to make glad the heart of man" can have brought about the independent discovery and use of so many stimulants? For what purpose but to satisfy such a craving can Nature have scattered in such profusion the materials for its gratification? It has been said, and all known facts bear out the assertion, that "the craving for such indulgence, and the habit of gratifying it, are little less universal than the desire for, and the practice of, consuming the necessary materials of our common food." Not but that there are gradations in the wholesomeness of these several stimulants. Perhaps the most purely beneficial is coca, which has, in some unexplained way, the power of retarding waste of tissue, and at the same time increasing nerve-power. Next to it in value undoubtedly comes opium, both because it also, to a great extent, has this effect upon the tissues and on the nervous system, and also owing to its curative and sanative powers. Of the three principles of which it consists--morphine, narcotine, thebaine--the first supplies the intoxicating and nerve-affecting element; while the second base, the narcotine, is the tonic and febrifuge which makes the drug so valuable in the treatment of bowel complaints, and as a safeguard against ague and malaria. This naturally brings us to the reasons which have made opium-smoking so prevalent in China. These are, as before stated, partly climatic, partly constitutional. Taking the former first, we may note that China over one-third of its surface is a vast ill-drained marsh, and covered to a large extent with rice-fields, the cultivation of which is productive of much unhealthiness.[93] To counteract this unhealthiness, nothing is so efficacious or so handy as opium; for, though quinine is even more useful as a febrifuge, opium has the additional advantage, peculiar to itself, of checking blood-spitting and consumption, a disease fatally prevalent in these unwholesome localities. As a general rule, the unhealthier the locality is, the more opium is consumed there, not in China only, but in India (_e.g._ in Orissa and Assam), and in our own fen districts. But besides being a safeguard against malaria and its attendant ailments, opium is also a valuable agent in counteracting the effect of the putrid and unwholesome food which, by its piquancy, pleases the Celestial palate. But over and above these special reasons, there are general causes which predispose the Chinese to _some_ lazy habit. Their home life is not one which affords them many attractions. They have no books, except the everlasting _Confucius_, and no periodical literature to engage their thoughts. The domestic life of the Chinese has none of the charms implied by our word "home"; and it is this blankness, this want of home attractions, which no doubt causes much of the drunkenness of the poorer classes here in England. The gin-shop is the poor man's club. Lastly, opium is specially suited to the lethargic Turanian nature,[94] for while by the delightful dreamy sensations which it produces it supplies the place of an imagination which the Chinaman lacks, it does not rob him of that dignified repose, that impassive acquiescence, which is so marked a characteristic of the Oriental mind.[95]

And here it will not be amiss to institute a short comparison between the use of opium by the Chinese and the use of ardent spirits by ourselves. Those who agitate for a suppression of the opium trade demur to any such comparison being made; and naturally, for it tells entirely against them.

Dr. Hobson,[96] a member of the London Missionary Society, and for many years medical officer at Canton, says: "I place alcohol (the bane of Great Britain) and opium (the bane of China) in the same category, and on the same level, as to the general injurious influence upon society: what may be said against the latter may be said with equal truth against the former.... Opium is probably more seductive and tenacious than alcohol; and I should certainly affirm that it was not so frequently fatal to life, nor so fruitful of disease and crime, as is the case with intoxicating drinks in Great Britain."

Dr. Eatwell says: "Proofs are still wanting to show that the moderate use of opium produces more pernicious effects than the moderate use of spirituous liquors; while it is certain that the consequences of the abuse of the former are less appalling in their effects upon the victims, and less disastrous to society, than the consequences of the abuse of the latter."

Sir Henry Pottinger says:[97] "I believe that not one-hundredth part of the evils spring from it that arise in England from the use of spirituous liquors."

These witnesses, and they might be indefinitely multiplied, will be enough to show that there is no intrinsic difference between opium and alcohol such as to justify exceptional legislation in the case of the one which is not afforded to the other. What difference there is is wholly to the advantage of opium. We may go further than Dr. Eatwell, and say that there _is_ ample evidence to prove that the moderate use of opium--and nine-tenths of those who smoke it use it in moderation--is _not_ more injurious than the common use of wine and beer with us. Taken to excess, its effects, even if the worst accounts of its opponents be literally accepted, are no whit worse than, if they can be as bad as, the delirium tremens of the confirmed drunkard. "Physically," says Sirr,[98] "the effect of opium on the enslaved victim is almost beyond the power of language to pourtray." "It is impossible," writes another author, speaking of drink, "to exaggerate--impossible even truthfully to paint--the effects of this evil, either on those who are addicted to it, or on those who suffer from it." It would be easy, were it necessary, to quote descriptions of the visible physical effects of opium and alcohol upon their victims--so much alike that they could with very little verbal and no essential alteration be applied to either indifferently. It will be enough to point out where opium has the decided advantage over alcohol. One point in which this advantage is manifest will be obvious to all, and indeed is conceded by the bitterest opponents of the drug. Alcohol makes men noisy and quarrelsome, and maddens them till they are ready to commit any crime and perpetrate any outrage; opium lulls its votary into a dreamy rest quite incompatible with any violent or passionate action. Our gaols are filled with prisoners who, under the influence of drink, have committed horrible crimes.[99] Indeed, nine-tenths of all our prisoners owe their incarceration to their fatal propensity for drink. Everyone is familiar with the terrible accounts of wives beaten and kicked to death by husbands infuriated with drink. By far the largest proportion of murders of any kind are due to the same cause. Convictions for drunkenness and disorderly conduct number 170,000 every year. Our lunatic asylums owe at least thirty per cent.[100] of their patients to the "stuff that steals away men's brains." Nothing so bad as this has been, or can be, said of opium. But opium has another incalculable advantage over alcohol, for the disorders which it occasions are _functional_ only, whereas alcohol causes _organic_ disease--a most important difference surely; for once get the opium-smoker or eater to forgo his luxury, though the wrench may be severe at first, he will shortly be restored to _complete_ health. This, we need not say, is not the case with the confirmed drunkard. He may, indeed, give up his fatal indulgence; but he has planted the seeds of disease in his body, and no art can eradicate them. His very blood has assimilated the "flowing poison," and the heart is no longer the centre of life, but of death. The dipsomaniac, even if he escape the horrors of a death by delirium tremens, falls a victim to paralysis or heart disease. Happy indeed would it be if our drunkards could be converted into opium-smokers, and the desirability of effecting this has even been pointed out by medical men.[101]

But there is one point in which alcohol is considered very generally to have the distinct advantage over opium. The opponents of the latter say that it is much more seductive in its temptation than alcohol, as well as more tenacious in its grip; in fact, they roundly assert that while the use of alcohol _can_ be forgone, even by a confirmed dipsomaniac, opium grows more and more necessary the longer it is indulged in, and can only be resigned with life itself. Facts seem to have no force with these champions of a theory, or we might remind them that the Emperor Taou Kwang was himself a slave to the habit, but emancipated himself, as many others have done, among them our own De Quincey, for whom the task was so much the harder inasmuch as he drank the poison to the extent, for some time, of 8,000 drops of laudanum a day.[102] A Chinaman, writing to the _Times_ in 1875, says: "I have not yet seen or heard of a case where a confirmed opium-smoker could not reform himself if he had been compelled to leave off his vicious habit by necessity or from determined resolution." So much for the tenacity of the habit; but we are not disposed to admit even that it is more seductive than alcohol, for have we not Dr. Myers' opinion that "his experience both in Formosa and in other parts of China would go to support the statement that the use of opium through the medium of the pipe does not, at least up to a certain point, irresistibly and inherently tend to provoke excess, as is very often the case with the stimulants indulged in by foreigners."

Sufficient evidence has been produced to show that alcohol is productive of far more evil than opium, inasmuch as the former, though beneficial to most people when taken in moderation, yet with others acts as a virulent poison, even in the smallest quantities; while taken in excess its immediate effect is to make the drunkard like a "beast with lower pleasures," to bring out, in fact, the lower side of our nature, and to incite to deeds of violence and crime; and its certain subsequent result is disease, madness, and death. Opium, however, like alcohol, when taken in moderation is a comfort and a solace to thousands, and, while soothing and relieving the body, acts[103] in such a way on the brain as to quicken the intellectual faculties, and not in the manner of alcohol to deaden them. The opposite effects of opium and alcohol, the one in quickening,[104] the other in deadening the faculties, may be gathered from the fact that the Chinese indulge in the pipe _before_ entering upon business matters, while we reserve our wine till the matter in hand has been fully discussed. At the same time it may be admitted that excessive indulgence in opium impairs the fortune and health, and, like every other self-indulgence, weakens the moral nature of the victims to its "bewitching influence." This being so, the unprejudiced observer will ask with wonder why those who are so indignant about the opium traffic, do not turn their attention with the same zeal to the suppression of the traffic in spirits at home. The Chinese Emperor was reported to have said, and the sentiment has been extolled to the skies by the anti-opiumists: "I will not consent to derive a revenue from the misery and vice of my people." The English people, however, are not so fastidious, and our annual revenue from the duty on spirituous liquors is L27,000,000, and on tobacco L8,500,000, while our partiality to alcohol costs us L145,000,000. The Chinese, with a population ten times as great, only spend L42,000,000 on their luxury, opium, and derive a revenue therefrom, in spite of the Emperor's disclaimer, of more than three millions sterling. India exports to China about 5,300 tons of crude opium, which together with four times the amount of native-grown drug gives 2-1/2 oz. (avoird.) to each individual. We in England, with a population of thirty-three millions, consume 200,000 tons of alcohol, not to mention more than a billion gallons of wine and beer.[105] And the annual mortality resulting from this terrible indulgence in spirituous liquors is 128,000, while the number of habitual drunkards is 600,000;[106] that is, one in every 260 persons dies from over-indulgence in alcohol! What an appaling fact! we might say, echoing Lord Shaftesbury's words. Terrible as it is, it has been accepted by our countrymen as a deplorable necessity which cannot be altered by any legislative enactments against the importation of alcoholic drinks from abroad. All, or all except a few visionary enthusiasts, have come to see that the only way to check this widespread vice is by bringing the opinion of the people to bear upon it, to drive it out from among the lower classes as it has been driven out from the upper by the force of public example and public opinion. It is obvious that the same reasoning will apply to China[107], and accordingly we find that the drinking of samshoo, a deletrious extract from rice, was common among the people, and all prohibitions were powerless to prevent it till the religious influence of Buddhism was brought to bear upon it and had great success in diminishing the vice; so that samshoo-drinking is now comparatively rare in a great part of China, its place being taken by opium, which is allowed by Buddhist and Mohammedan laws.

But, say the anti-opiumists, if we have not introduced opium into China, we have certainly forced it upon the Chinese when they showed a sincere desire to have none of it; first by a system of armed smuggling; secondly, by open armed intervention in the wars of 1840 and 1857; and thirdly, by the imperious logic of Lord Elgin and others. Now, as to the armed smugglers, the answer is easy. They were armed to resist pirates, who swarm in the bays and creeks so abundant in the Chinese coast-line of 3,500 miles; and by no means, as implied, to fall foul of the Custom House officials. These were always amenable enough, and a recognized bribe paid in due time freed all opium vessels from farther molestation in that quarter. The second assumption, that the wars were opium wars, false as it is in reality when thus stated, is a most plausible one; for opium was certainly the _immediate_ cause of the first war. But it was not the real cause. European ideas of the equality of nations could not be reconciled with the insolent pretensions of the Chinese with regard to all foreigners. This, and much more to the same effect, has already been dwelt upon in the historical survey, and so need not detain us any longer now. We may, however, add that no mention whatever of opium was made in the Nankin Treaty, so that the edicts against the drug remained in force, though they were no more regarded now than before the war. And this was certainly not because the Chinese were exhausted by the war and afraid of a fresh conflict with the English. It is doubtful whether the authorities at Pekin really considered themselves beaten at all, and the reason why their edicts were disregarded was not that defeat had weakened the hands of the executive, but, as before, simply the corruption of the officials, and the imperious desire of the people for the drug. With regard to the second war, it is absurd to call that an opium war. Opium had nothing to do with its commencement, renewal, or end; nor was it even alluded to in the Treaty of Tientsin. It was only some months after the ratification of that treaty that in arranging the tariff of imports the Chinese Commissioner himself suggested that opium should pay a fixed tariff and be admitted as a legal import. No doubt Lord Elgin, and here he was seconded by the American Minister, as Sir Henry Pottinger and Sir J. Davis before the war, pointed out to the Chinese how eminently desirable it was that this "stone of offence" should be removed, but in reality it was the persuasive logic of facts which induced the Chinese to propose the legalization of the import. This second war, like the former one, was undertaken by the English[108] to exact compensation for injury to British subjects, and to make the Chinese understand that foreign nations were entitled to, and would exact fair and respectful usage. The French waged war to avenge the murder of a missionary, M. Chapdelaine, in 1856, so that we may in strict justice call this a missionary war; and certainly that part of the Treaty of Tientsin which may be said to have been wrung from the Chinese most against their wills is that which gives missionaries--Protestant as well as Roman Catholic--an entrance into any part of China, and extends to them while there, and to their converts, the protection of their respective Governments.[109]

So far, then, the evidence as to force breaks down entirely, but it cannot be denied that in a certain sense the Chinese are coerced in respect of the tariff on opium. This was fixed in the convention following the Treaty of Tientsin, with the condition attached that the tariff could be revised after ten years. And the Chinese have expressed a desire to alter the tariff by raising the dues on opium. The negotiations between Sir Thomas Wade and Prince Kung have been given at length above,[110] so it will only be necessary here to repeat that the Home Government have not seen their way yet to accept Sir Thomas' proposal;[111] and consequently (and here lies the one strong plea of the anti-opiumists) as the matter now stands, the Chinese are prevented from raising the import duty on opium, though they can alter the likin as much as they please. This may be fully conceded. What would be the result of allowing China free liberty in this matter will be discussed hereafter; but we may be allowed to remark here, that in this hasty denunciation of force applied to China, the eloquent advocates for the suppression of the opium trade forget that we are guilty of forcing not only opium and missionaries, but ourselves as a nation, our commerce, our civilization in their entirety, on an unwilling and exclusive people. On the abstract justice of such a course we need not dwell. It is enough to say that it has been pursued by the stronger towards the weaker in all ages of the world, and no treaty has ever been imposed upon an Asiatic by an European Power except by force.

The next objection refers to our _monopoly_ of the drug, some finding fault with it as economically wrong, others as morally indefensible. To the former, who like Sir Charles Trevelyan and Sir William Muir wish to substitute a "pass" system for the monopoly, it may be answered, as it has been answered before and always with success, that monopolies are a part of the system of Indian Government inherited from their Mohammedan predecessors; and any argument against the opium monopoly applies with tenfold force to the salt tax. Moreover, the Indian Government, it must be remembered, is the great landowner in India, and consequently the only undertaker of great enterprises, such as irrigation works and railways. Still it cannot be denied that, technically, the objection is sound enough, because monopolies tend to restrict labour and capital, and entail considerable cost in the production of the article monopolized. But it must not be forgotten that "in direct proportion to the removal of the economic objections, the moral objections would be intensified in degree."[112] For if the Government abandoned the manufacture of opium to private enterprise, contenting itself with placing a duty on its export, there can be no doubt that more opium would be manufactured and imported into China, while the revenue would be less. Moreover, if it be wrong to grow opium for Chinese consumption we shall not get out of the responsibility of it by placing a duty on all opium exported instead of growing and selling it ourselves.

Lastly, there is the objection that our introduction of opium into China paralyses the efforts of our missionaries. We have reserved this charge till the last, both because it has done more than any other with certain classes of people to bring discredit on the traffic, and also because it has been least adequately met by other writers on the subject. And the question is a very delicate one to discuss. It may seem presumptuous to call in question a statement of fact lying so entirely within the scope of a missionary's observation; and it certainly will seem invidious to point out, as we shall be obliged to do, the real causes of failure in our missionary efforts, presuming them to have failed.