A Vindication Of England's Policy With Regard To The Opium Trade Part 2

"The pa.s.sion of the Chinese for opium," says one writer, "was the first link in the chain which was destined to connect them at some future day with all the other families of mankind." Again, it may reasonably be asked with Sir John Bowring, "whether the greater proportionate number of native professing Christians is not to be found in those districts where opium is most consumed, and how the undoubted fact is to be explained that in Siam, where the Siamese do not smoke the drug, there is scarcely a solitary instance of conversion among the native population, while among the Chinese and other foreign settlers in Siam who habitually employ it, conversions are many." What, then, are the causes of our failure? Dr.

Hobson, himself a medical missionary, and by no means an apologist for the traffic, says, "Our chief obstacle at Canton is the unfriendly character of the people." And there can be no doubt that this inveterate hostility exists all over China against foreigners in general and missionaries in particular, and has repeatedly shown itself in outbreaks of brutal violence against foreign residents, culminating in the murder of M.

Chapdelaine in 1856, and the ma.s.sacre of the French Mission together with the Consul and several Russian residents at Tientsin in 1870. Later still, we have had the murder of Mr. Margary in Yunnan. This hatred is intensified in the case of missionaries by their civil[116] and political action, and by the fact of Roman Catholic Governments exterritorializing all their converts, _i.e._ making them for all intents and purposes their own subjects, and releasing them from all subjection to Chinese authority.

This establishment of an "_imperium in imperio_" cannot fail to be intolerable to an independent State, even if it be consistent with the idea of a State at all. Moreover, the admission of missionaries no less than of opium is a permanent badge of their defeat in several wars, and the sense of humiliation aggravates their dislike for the "outer barbarians." So that we can believe Prince Kung's wish, expressed to Sir Rutherford Alc.o.c.k, to have been a heart-felt one: "Take away," he said, "your opium and your missionaries, and we need have no more trouble in China." Of the two, indeed, they hate missionaries most, for did not their most powerful mandarins, Li Hung Chang[117] and Tso Tsung Taang, say to Sir Thomas Wade, "_Of the two evils we would prefer to have your opium, if you will take away all your missionaries_." Sir Rutherford Alc.o.c.k gave similar evidence before the Commission in 1871: "The Chinese," he said, "if at liberty to do so, would exterminate every missionary and their converts."[118] But cordially as they detest all missionaries, who, backed by their respective Governments,[119] a.s.sume a protectorate over their converts, their bitterest hate is reserved for the Romanists. These penetrate into the interior, and aggregate property, own land, and houses, and paG.o.das, and are now some of the largest landed proprietors in the different localities. They have even gained the right, by the French Treaty, of reclaiming whatever lands and houses belonged to the Christian communities when the persecution and expulsion of the Jesuits took place in the seventeenth century. But besides the hostility of the _literati_ and gentry, other causes are at work to render the labours of our missionaries abortive. Chief among these is one mentioned in a publication by the Church Missionary Society itself, called the _Story of the Fuh-kien Mission_. "Christianity," says Mr. Wolfe, a missionary at Foochow, "would be tolerated too, and the Chinese would be easily induced to accept Christ among the number of their G.o.ds, if it could be content with the same terms on which all the other systems are willing to be received, viz.

that no one of them claims to be absolute and exclusive truth. Now, as Christianity does claim this, and openly avows its determination to expel by moral force every rival system from the altars of this nation, it naturally at first appears strange and presumptuous to this people."[120]

Very similar in old times was the att.i.tude of the Roman polytheism towards the various religions with which it was brought into contact. It was tolerant of all religions and non-religions except (_a_) exclusive and aggressive ones, like Christianity and Judaism; (_b_) national ones, like Druidism; and (_c_) extravagant and mystic ones, like the wors.h.i.+p of Isis.

So now the Buddhists and Taouists would be ready enough to a.s.sociate the religion of Christ with that of Buddha or Laoutze, seeing indeed, as they say, little difference between the doctrines of Buddha and of Christ.

Buddhism was introduced into China at the very time when in the West the Fall of Jerusalem had set Christianity free from its dependence on Judaism, and enabled it to go forth in its own might, conquering and to conquer, till it became the religion of the whole Roman world. The name of Christ was not heard in China till 600 years later; and it was not till 1575 A.D. that a permanent Jesuit mission was established in that distant land. This being the case, it is not to be wondered at that the Chinese are unwilling to renounce a religion in many respects as pure and as moral a one as the pagan world has ever seen, and one which they have held for eighteen centuries, in favour of a creed, as it would seem to them, of yesterday, and one which the hated foreigner seeks to force upon them at the point of the bayonet; for the war of 1857 _was_ a missionary war, though not by any means an opium war; and it is only by the Treaty of Tientsin that missionaries have any right to preach Christianity in China.

Previously to this Christianity had been forbidden by King Yoong-t-ching in 1723, and that edict had never been repealed.

But though these two causes, the hostility of the people and the a.s.sumed intellectual superiority of the Buddhists and Confucianists, render the path of our missionaries unusually difficult, and fully account for their ill success, yet it may be asked why the Roman Catholic missionaries are more successful than ours. Both the above reasons apply to them as strongly, or even more strongly, than to Protestant missionaries. They have even an additional disadvantage in their confessional with women, a proceeding which is looked upon with the greatest suspicion by the Chinese who, as far as possible, seclude their women from the sight of all men.

Perhaps, as has been hinted at by a correspondent to the _Times_, the celibacy of the Roman Catholic priesthood, an inst.i.tution which they hold in common with the priests of Buddha, impresses the people with a favourable view of the religion. But there are other reasons.

As mentioned already, the Jesuits established themselves in China at the latter part of the sixteenth century. They first landed at Ningpo, and thence made their way to Pekin,[121] where, "by good policy, scientific acquirements, and conciliatory demeanour, they won the good-will of the people and the toleration of the Government." In 1692, Kang Hi published an edict permitting the propagation of Christianity. From the success of these Jesuits, sanguine expectations were entertained in Europe of the speedy evangelization of China--hopes that were not destined to be realized. Various causes conspired to effect their downfall in China, princ.i.p.ally connected with the political state of Europe at that time. In 1723 Christianity was prohibited, and the Jesuits expelled. "The extinction of the Order of Jesuits," says Sir George Staunton, in the preface to his _Penal Code of China_, "caused the adoption of a plan of conversion more _strict_, and probably more orthodox, but, in the same proportion, more unaccommodating to the prejudices of the people, and more alarming to the jealousies of the Government. Generally speaking, it threw the profession _into less able hands_, and the cause of Christianity and of Europe lost much of its l.u.s.tre and influence. The Jesuits were generally _artists_ and men of science, as well as religious teachers."

There can be no doubt that this was the main secret of their success; and in order to ensure like success, we must send out missionaries of like stamp, men of high genius and refined education, who have grasped the theory of Aryan civilization; who can meet the Buddhist, and the Hindoo, and the Confucianist on their own ground; who, going forth in the spirit of Our Lord's words, "I come not to destroy, but to fulfil," can, if necessary, graft the law of Christ on the doctrines of Buddha. Let them treat Vishnoo and Buddha as St. Paul treated Venus and Mars, and say to a people given up to idolatry, "Whom ye ignorantly wors.h.i.+p, Him declare we unto you." Not that we would counsel them to make any sacrifice of principle in order to secure converts, as the Romanists seem to have done; such a course must be fatal: and, indeed, "these unworthy concessions to the habits of vice and superst.i.tion so prevalent in China" have already been a serious obstacle to the spread of the true doctrine;[122] for enquirers have expressed their readiness to join the Church if, like the people belonging to the religion of the "Lord of Heaven" (_i.e._ Romanism), they may continue opium-smoking, and work as usual upon the Lord's Day. So successful in one sense have these tactics been, that the Roman Catholic missionaries claim to have 30,000 converts in the province of Fuh-kien alone, mostly hereditary Christians of the fifth generation.

These so-called Christians are, however, very ignorant of Scripture, and in most respects indistinguishable from heathens. For instance, they identify the Virgin Mary with one of their deities called Seng Mu, or Holy Mother, and pay idolatrous wors.h.i.+p to her. Such success need not be envied by our missionaries.

The two points, then, in which the Roman Catholic missions have had the advantage over Protestant ones are--1st. Their missionaries, especially the earlier ones, were far more able men than the generality of our mission clergy. "You may get men," says a writer to the _Times_,[123] "of average attainments to go abroad as missionaries, just as you get clerks and engineers. But they who adopt propagandism as a means of living--and it is no disparagement to the missionaries that they do so--are not exactly the men to impart a living impulse to the hearts of ma.s.ses of people. Xaviers and Bishop Pattesons, indeed, appear at intervals to prove that the apostolic spirit is not yet extinct among men; but such exceptional phenomena fail to redeem the common-place character of the ordinary missionary field-force." 2nd. The Roman Catholic faith, by its very oneness, by its remarkable similarity to the inst.i.tutions of Buddhism, and by its concessions to some of the grosser instincts of the human mind, no less than by having a united and organized Church behind it, cannot fail to commend itself more readily to the minds of the heathen than the more spiritual and independent, but at the same time more narrow and sectarian, beliefs which are all ranked as branches of the Reformed Church. "Thinking[124] they are invading a country as soldiers of the Cross, these young missionaries go forth, denouncing the beliefs, the traditions, the wors.h.i.+p of the people, calling on them to curse all that they have ever held sacred, and to accept, on pain of eternal perdition, the peculiar arrangements of beliefs which the missionary has compounded for them, and of which Christianity is one, but not always a very perceptible ingredient; and so the poor heathen, hungering, however unconsciously, for the bread of life, is offered instead the s.h.i.+bboleths of a very Babel of sects." But though they have failed as yet in the higher aim which they have set before themselves, the efforts of the missionaries have been wonderfully successful, though they care not for this success, in raising the social standard of the people with whom they are brought into contact. "They deserve infinite praise for the way they have created written languages where none existed, and for their a.s.siduity in educating and civilizing thousands of savages."[125]

Our missionaries, then, who deserve every credit for their n.o.ble and self-sacrificing efforts in the cause of Christ, who in the face of difficulties such as few can appreciate, do their Master's work with cheerfulness and zeal, in spite of danger and privation, comparing their own failure with the success of missionaries elsewhere, as, for instance, in Madagascar, and seeking to account for it before their countrymen at home, miss the true causes which we have been compelled, however ungraciously, to point out, and, taking the nominal objection from the mouths of their opponents, with heedless confidence a.s.sert that opium is the great obstacle to the propagation of the Gospel, forgetting that it was the difficulties connected with opium that first opened a way for them into the heart of China; that it was the second opium war, as they love to call it, which gave them a _locus standi_ in the country. But, in truth, in comparing their work with that of their fellow-workers in Africa and elsewhere, they are placing themselves at an enormous disadvantage; for we must not forget that in China and India we are dealing with races[126]

immeasurably superior to the North American Indians and the savages of Africa; that we are confronted by civilizations which were in their prime when England was inhabited by naked savages, and was indeed, as the Chinese still believe it to be, but as "an anthill in the ocean," and by a race of men who were "learned," as Cobden said in the House of Commons, "when our Plantagenet kings could not write, and who had a system of logic before Aristotle, and a code of morals before Socrates." It would be surprising indeed if we could persuade such intellectual and civilised races to give up in a moment beliefs which have taken centuries to mature; and the difficulty is the greater in the case of the Buddhists from the striking similarity which exists between the general principles professed by followers of Buddha and disciples of Christ. "Conversion to Christianity," as Dr. Moore says, "involves the belief in certain statements the counterparts of which, when found in Buddhism, are regarded as impossible and untrue by Christians."

What, then, should a missionary do in the face of all these difficulties?

Let him follow Dr. Medhurst's advice, and remember that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much"; let him exhort the Chinese to abandon the habit of opium-smoking, and compel their converts to give up the drug; and, above all, let him be careful not to make exaggerated statements about the opium traffic, which merely tend to disquiet the minds of his countrymen at home, and, when the falsity of his statements becomes apparent, to throw discredit on the cause which he has at heart. But if the missionary's duty is clear, no less clearly is it _our_ duty who remain at home to make the most strenuous efforts to aid the good cause by subscribing more largely to the missionary fund (instead of expending our money for the purpose of raising an agitation against opium in England), and so, by increasing the remuneration offered to workers in this large field (for the labourer is worthy of his hire), to induce the ablest and most intellectual of our clergy to go out to encounter Buddhism and Taouism--opponents quite worthy of our steel--feeling sure that success, though delayed, is certain in the end, and that the Chinese only need to become Christians in order to be one of the greatest nations upon earth.

It remains now only to mention the remedies proposed by the supporters of the Anti-Opium Society for the evils of the opium traffic, pointing out such objections as may occur to us; and finally to state the alternative course which we ourselves propose. We may premise, however, before dealing with this part of the subject, that there is a considerable divergence of opinion manifest in the ranks of the Anti-Opium Society with regard to the nature of the remedies suggested. Some are for merely was.h.i.+ng our hands of the monopoly, so that the Government would have no direct partic.i.p.ation in the _manufacture_ of the drug, but would, by means of an export duty, retain more or less of the revenue therefrom. This course, it must be said, does not find favour with the majority, who demand, consistently enough, the total abandonment by India of the manufacture of opium _and_ the revenue from it.

Let us consider the less radical proposal first.

As long ago as 1832, the question of abolis.h.i.+ng the opium monopoly suggested itself to the East India Company; and the same course was proposed by Sir Charles Trevelyan in 1864.[127] If the opium revenue is to be retained while the monopoly is abolished, there is only one practicable course to be pursued. A Customs duty must be laid on the export of all opium. And this method has obtained the support of many able men who, objecting to the opium traffic as at present conducted, and at the same time seeing the difficulties in the way of its total abolition, propose this compromise. Such are Sir Bartle Frere,[128] Sir Richard Temple, the Marquis of Hartington, and others. But there are many serious drawbacks even to this solution of the difficulty, and such as have always prevailed against it when it has been proposed, as it often has, in Council. On the one hand, the revenue derived from this system would be much less. Sir Evelyn Baring, who is studiously moderate in his figures, informed us in his financial statement for 1882 how much loss would actually in this way ensue. For whereas a chest of Bengal opium costs us to manufacture it 421 Rs., we can sell it for 1,280 Rs. (average of ten years), thus making a clear profit per chest of 859 Rs.; but if we decided to introduce the excise system, the opium would not bear more than 600 Rs. a chest as export duty.[129] The average number of chests exported may be taken as likely to be 45,000. Duty on these would give 2,700,000.

But our net revenue from Bengal opium is at least 5,000,000, so that our loss would be nearly two millions and a half; and besides the loss to the Imperial exchequer, the Provincial Governments would lose a part of their income. Moreover, the cost of preventive establishments would be great, and still some part of the produce would evade duty. Again, the cultivators would suffer in every way. Their actual profits would be less, and the zemindars would take the opportunity of squeezing them by rack-renting and other recognized means of oppression, as has been the case in indigo-cultivation, where great disturbances have been caused among the ryots. Add to this that vested interests would be created which would render any return to the old system very difficult, if not impossible. On the other hand--and this must be clear even to the anti-opiumists--India would not release herself from the responsibility of the traffic, whatever that may be, by this means. Direct partic.i.p.ation in the manufacture may be more undignified for an Imperial Government than merely a share in the profits; but it cannot affect its moral responsibility. Nor would an ounce less opium enter China because of this measure. "The monopoly," says Sir Henry Pottinger, "has rather tended to check than otherwise the production, as it certainly has the exportation, of the drug."

Dismissing, then, this possibility as one perforce abandoned by the opponents of monopolies, no less than by the opponents of opium, the only other alternative left to us is the total abolition of the growth and manufacture of opium in India. But we are confronted with a difficulty to start with. Do the supporters of this theory mean that the cultivation of opium should be forbidden throughout _all_ India? If so, how are we to deal with the native States which cultivate the poppy, and derive a considerable, in some cases a princ.i.p.al, part of their revenue from this source? A previous attempt to interfere with this cultivation occasioned serious disturbances, and almost a civil war. Are we ready to go to that length to enforce our advanced ideas of total abstinence on the independent States of Holkar and Scindia? If they do not mean this, how are we to prevent the cultivators in Malwa taking up the trade abandoned by us, and instead of 45,000 chests, sending 90,000 to China yearly?

Again, if the poppy culture be strictly forbidden in _all_ India, how are the legitimate wants of the Rajpoots and the Sikhs in the Punjaub, and the inhabitants of Orissa and a.s.sam, to be supplied? Shall we go to China for our opium, thereby getting a more deleterious drug at higher prices, and inducing our subjects to subst.i.tute for the comparatively beneficial opium the maddening stimulus of bhang and the poisonous mixtures imported under the name of "French brandies," but composed of such deleterious ingredients as potato spirit and fusel oil? It would, indeed, be a strange finale if the success of this agitation should cause China to export opium into India as she already does into Burmah.

Apart from these contingent possibilities the financial objections to this measure are overwhelming in the opinion of all who are or have been responsible for the financial administration of India. The immediate effect of the cessation of the culture of the poppy would be the disturbance of the cultivation of land amounting to 500,000 acres in British India alone, the readjustment of which would be a difficult and troublesome business. But, of course, the point to be chiefly considered is the immense loss of revenue that must unavoidably ensue. Some, no doubt, of this loss might be made good by the cultivation of other crops on the poppy lands, which comprise some of the best land in the presidency; but how much would thus be recouped is uncertain. In any case it would not amount to a t.i.the of the loss, and would, moreover, go mostly into the pockets of the zemindars, or middlemen. Again, the present staff employed in the manufacture would have to be pensioned, which would be another item of expense. Practically we may a.s.sume, then, that the Indian Exchequer would lose some six millions a year; and this loss would have to be met at once. The importance of this opium revenue to India can scarcely be over-estimated. It is, next to the land tax, the largest item in the revenue. It forms one-seventh of all the revenue of India. It is the most easily collected and the most productive tax ever known. It, and it only, by its marvellous increase, has enabled a series of Chancellors of the Indian Exchequer to tide over the difficulties occasioned by unexpected wars and disastrous famines. It has given the Indian Government the power to carry out innumerable sorely-needed reforms in the administration of justice, in the promotion of education, in the organization of the police and the post-office, in the reduction of the salt tax, and in the furtherance generally of public works; and this will seem no exaggeration when it is stated that in the last twenty years opium has poured into the Indian treasury the colossal revenue of 134,000,000 sterling.

Do away with this revenue and we sacrifice all chance of carrying out these reforms to a successful conclusion, and cripple our whole administration in India. But it behoves us to consider how the deficit _could_ be met, if it became necessary. And we may here again remark that it is to the utmost degree unlikely that the British tax-payer will put his hand into his own pocket in order to help India out of her difficulties. Nor, if England _did_ offer to meet the deficit, would that be a good precedent to establish. A gift of 20,000,000, which the anti-opiumists speak of, would not nearly cover India's loss. It would cost three times that sum in ten years, _i.e._ if the present rate of revenue be maintained, as there is good reason to suppose that it will.[130] How, then, could the loss be made good?

The expenditure, civil and military, might be curtailed by doing away with the separate establishments of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies and centralizing the whole in Bengal. But this curtailment of the civil expenditure could not bring much relief, as it only amounts to 10,000,000 as it is. A reduction of the military establishments, besides being a danger in the face of Russia's advance towards India, would necessitate a corresponding diminution of the independent native armies, a step which would be unpopular if demanded by our Government. However, this will be necessary if the opium revenue be cut off.

Among other possible expedients for increasing the revenue or lowering the expenditure are a cessation of ordinary, as distinguished from _productive_, public works, such as roads, railways; a reimposition of abandoned taxes like the customs duties, the salt tax (lately partially remitted), the tobacco tax, and the income tax--but there are grave objections to all these; or the land tax could be augmented, as the periods for new settlements came round, and these, perhaps, afford the best prospect of an increase of revenue.

Such are the princ.i.p.al heads under which an increase of revenue might on an emergency be secured. But the increase would not in any case be large; and it must not be forgotten that Sir Evelyn Baring, in his Budget statement for 1882, has given it as his opinion (and who is more able to give an opinion on the subject?) that an _aggregate_ increase of taxation is not possible, even reduction in some branches absolutely necessary; _while any essential decrease of expenditure is quite out of the question_. So far from the expenditure showing a tendency to decrease, or even to remain stationary, it has increased last year by a million and a half, this year[131] by three millions and more--under a Liberal Government.

Apart from these direct means for making good the loss of the opium revenue, there is the prospective one of a general increase from reproductive public works, and from a prosperous condition of the country; but it must be borne in mind that this would be greatly lessened and impeded by any increase of taxation.

"_It cannot be too clearly understood_," says Sir Evelyn Baring (sect.

59), "_that neither by any measure tending to develop the resources of the country, nor by any increase of taxation which is practically within the range of possibility, nor by any reduction of expenditure, could the Government of India in any adequate way at present hope to recoup the loss which would accrue from the suppression of the poppy cultivation in India._"

On the whole, then, we may conclude with Sir Evelyn Baring that without the revenue which she derives from opium India would be insolvent; that is, her expenditure would be permanently in excess of her income. India is by no means a rich country except in the language of poetry, and her inhabitants are perhaps the poorest in the world, the average income of the ryot being twenty-seven rupees a year! On the other hand, the financial prospects of India are not at present so gloomy as Mr. Fawcett and others would have us believe, but under a succession of able financiers, like Sir John Strachey and Sir Evelyn Baring, a wonderful improvement has been effected; but their efforts would have been crippled and their far-sighted policy paralyzed, if it had not been for the magnificent revenue derived from the sale of opium, which has indeed proved, as it has been called, "the sheet anchor" of Indian finance. And if this revenue _be_ badly acquired, there is no question but that it has been splendidly applied; and if the Chinese will have opium, as there is no doubt they will, the superfluity of their wealth cannot be better spent than in the amelioration of the lot of the Indian ryot. This is the very cla.s.s which would suffer most severely from any increase of taxation, and, as Sir Evelyn Baring says, "to tax India in order to provide a cure--which would almost certainly be ineffectual--for the vices of the Chinese would be wholly unjustifiable." In doing a little right to China, let us beware lest we do a great wrong to India.

As to the effects upon Indian commerce of a large diminution of the opium trade, India would lose her present large profits on a product of which she owns a natural monopoly. She would also be obliged to increase her exports largely, the value of which would consequently be depreciated; except that the Indian tea-trade would be benefited by a disturbance of the China trade. Further, India would be forced to reduce her imports, however necessary these may be. Lastly, there is a prospect of a fall in the rate of exchange, and a further depreciation of silver, which would increase her liabilities and imperil her financial position.

Such, then, are the difficulties which are inseparably connected with any sudden cessation of the opium trade; but it remains for us still to notice one proposal emanating from the supporters of the anti-opium policy, which is remarkable for its navete. It recommends that England should demand from China other privileges as an equivalent for the renunciation of a formal right, and as an indemnification of a great loss sustained. This equivalent would no doubt take the shape of commercial concessions, such as the opening up of the interior of China to foreign intercourse, the working of the mines in China, which are numerous and valuable, and the construction and working of railways by English engineers. There is no doubt that China offers a large and virgin field to the commercial activity of England, and the result that followed the opening of ports after our two wars with China are sufficiently remarkable. By the first treaty we gained a trade of 2,000,000; by the second of 3,500,000 annually. In our commercial dealings with the Chinese we have to deal not only with "the obstructive policy of the mandarins, but also the pa.s.sive and unconscious resistance of a people of stagnant ideas, of very limited enterprise, and possessing only primitive means of inter-communication."[132] For a further development of our commercial intercourse, Medhurst goes on to say, two things are wanting:--1st, access to new markets by having new ports opened and by procuring a right to navigate inland waters, and to improve the means of communication; 2nd, a full and frank acknowledgment by the Chinese at all the ports of the right of foreign goods to be covered and protected from inland dues by transit pa.s.ses. Some such concessions the anti-opiumists would have us demand; but these benevolent protestors against forcing the Chinese forget that concessions of this kind, wrung from an unwilling people, would be far more galling than any importation of opium, which it is quite clear, even to them, that they need not buy if they do not wish it. Moreover, the important point seems to have been overlooked, that _India_ would lose her revenue, while the gain from increased intercourse would be wholly on the side of _England_. As it is, the native community in India can hardly believe that there is not a selfish motive at the bottom of this agitation in England, and, should this last proposal be carried out, we could hardly blame them if they pointed to this as a proof that their suspicions were well founded.

We may here briefly notice[133] Li Hung Chang's latest proposal, that he should farm or purchase the monopoly of all the Indian opium; with the intention, he would no doubt himself say, of getting the control of the trade into his own hands, and limiting the import, just as on a previous occasion, in a communication to the Anglo-Opium Society, he a.s.serted that the only object of the Chinese authorities in taxing opium was in the past, as it would be in the future, the desire to repress the traffic.

Considering, then, the sudden abolition of the opium traffic as practically out of the question, and leaving out of sight the undoubtedly possible, though not likely, gradual cessation of the trade between India and China owing to the compet.i.tion of the native drug, it only remains for us to propose some practical solution of the difficulty, some less heroic method of removing this rock of offence that has so divided the current of English feeling. If we reject the total suppression theory, there are, as it seems, two alternatives, and two only, left to us. We may on the one hand follow the sensible and statesman-like recommendation of Sir Rutherford Alc.o.c.k in 1869. With a view to test the sincerity of the Chinese Government, and their power to prohibit the growth of the poppy in their own dominions, that experienced Minister proposed, in a Convention which the Chinese seem disposed to ratify, that they should receive an increased duty on opium imported, "and moreover be allowed to test their power and will to limit or diminish the hitherto unchecked production of opium in their own provinces by an understanding with the Indian Government during a certain period not to extend the production in India; and if the Chinese Government kept faith and showed the power greatly to diminish, and more or less rapidly stop, the culture of the poppy altogether, the Indian Government would then, _pari pa.s.su_, consider how far they could further co-operate by diminis.h.i.+ng their own area of culture, having time to subst.i.tute other crops and industries to take its place."

The effects of this arrangement, if carried out, would be clearly the same as those arising from a gradual cessation of the trade through compet.i.tion with native opium. The cultivation in India would have time to change without serious injury to the growers of the poppy, and trade would by degrees adapt itself to the altered conditions; but the same results would follow, as in the other case, though not to anything like the same extent. The loss of revenue would still be great, but the general growth of other branches of income would be more likely, if any sudden displacement of industry or capital were avoided. But we can hardly escape the conviction that the Chinese would show themselves as unable or as unwilling to stop the cultivation in China, no less than the import from India, as they have ever been. In fact, the lofty utterance of Taou Kw.a.n.g notwithstanding, the Chinese authorities are very glad to draw a revenue even from the vices of their people, and they would be very reluctant, not to say quite averse, to sacrifice a revenue now amounting to more than two millions. What they _do_ want is to obtain a larger share in the profits arising from the sale of the Indian drug. Let those who believe in the "child-like simplicity"[134] of the Chinese pin their faith to such a.s.sertions as that of Li Hung Chang quoted above, that the only aim of the Chinese Government in taxing opium is to limit the import, and that their only object in allowing and even encouraging the native growth is to drive out the foreign drug, and, when they have in this way obtained the command of the market, to suppress the cultivation altogether. This air of injured innocence is remarkably effective with some people; but the exquisite plausibility and adroitness of these and other similar pleas must not blind us to their inherent falsity. Li Hung Chang can no more prevent the Chinese from consuming opium than we can prevent our countrymen from drinking wine and spirits and smoking tobacco by mere legislative enactments, and it would be considered a remarkable method for attaining this desirable end if the distillation of spirits were made as free and unrestrained as the brewing of beer.

Lastly--and this would have the advantage of satisfying the only just plea urged by the "Society,"--we might proclaim to China in unmistakeable terms that she was free to carry out her own fiscal policy as suited her best, with regard to opium as well as all other imports. Not that we are disposed to allow that this is an international _duty_, unless it be an international duty also to free China from _all_ the conditions we have forced upon her: unless we are ready, for example, to cede Hongkong, to let the Chinese close their ports if they feel inclined, to give up our missionaries to the tender mercies of Chinese fanaticism, or forbid them to set foot within the Celestial Empire.

The ratification of the Chefoo Convention would be a step in this direction, and may well be tried as a temporary measure, though it is manifestly unfair to say that we are guilty of any breach of faith in regard to this convention.[135]

We have now to consider what would be the result of such a policy to India. China would no doubt take advantage of her freedom, and tax Indian opium as heavily as it would bear, and in this way transfer to herself some of the profits which now go to India; but, on the other hand, she would be unwilling to place a prohibitive tariff upon it, knowing, as she well does, that none the less would it enter China by being smuggled in, and the revenue which should go into the imperial coffers would be paid, as before, to the officials in the shape of bribes. India would certainly not lose _all_ its revenue; for a considerable part, one-seventh at least, goes to the Straits Settlements and the neighbouring islands, to the Netherlands of India, to Hongkong for export to the islands of the Pacific, and to California. Moreover, Indian opium has a monopoly value, and is, besides, superior in flavour to all other opium--holds, in fact, that place among the various kinds of the drug which champagne holds among wines. So that, on the whole, this policy, which would strike at the very root of the anti-opium agitation, would not, as it seems, have any very alarming effects upon India.

And now we have done. We have tried to point out the fallacy of the princ.i.p.al arguments urged by the Anti-Opium Society against the traffic, and the injustice and dangers involved in the remedies which they propose.

But we have not hesitated to acknowlege it when their objections seemed well-founded. Their opinions, it need not be said, have undergone considerable modification since the days of Earl Shaftesbury's memorial; and it is by no means clear yet what the actual policy advocated by a majority of their supporters is. "Some shout one thing and some another, and the greater part know not wherefore they have been called together."

And though we have condemned their measures, we must not be thought to be condemning the men. They, we freely admit, are actuated by the highest and n.o.blest motives of benevolence and philanthropy; but in their sensibility to the sufferings of others, they are apt to disregard the justice due to their own countrymen. If one half of the allegations of the missionaries and their supporters could be accepted as true, and brought home to the intelligence of the nation, there would not be a voice raised for the traffic. The cry would not indeed be "Perish India," but "Perish the opium revenue," at whatever cost to England. The very rejection of these extreme opinions by a large majority of those who, from their position and experience, are best qualified to form a judgment on the question, is in itself a strong argument against their truth; and if not true, how pernicious must be the effect of their dissemination! Here is what an Englishman of ability and experience, for many years resident in Hongkong, says: "I say that the missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society, in the course of their agitation for the abolition of the Indo-Chinese opium trade, are vilifying their countrymen and blackening their country in the eyes of the whole world, so that the foreigner can convict us out of our own mouths, and gibe at us for hypocrisy and turpitude, which we are wholly innocent of, and for crimes we have never committed."

But making every allowance for the loftiness of their motives and the sincerity of their opinions, we must take grievous exception to some of their methods of propagandism. Among the numerous pamphlets and tracts published by the society is one called _Poppies: a Talk with Boys and Girls_, of which the reviewer in the _Friend of China_[136] says himself: "To acknowledge our sins and the sins of our fathers to ourselves, and in the face of the world, is painful and humiliating enough; but to tell our children that England is not the brave, generous, Christian country, foremost of the nations in the cause of liberty and religion all the world over, which we should like them to think her, but, on the contrary, capable of the _meanness_, _hypocrisy_, _greed_, and _cruelty_ of our treatment of China, is a bitter task." Bitter, indeed! and what if it be wholly unjustifiable? There is no high-minded Englishman but will utterly resent and protest against this poisoning of the minds of our children with delusive and exaggerated statements, and thus prejudicing them on a subject which they are not yet of an age to form a fair judgment about.

As to the meanness, hypocrisy, and the rest, we need not say more than we have already said, but may notice in pa.s.sing that unlimited abuse of England's foreign policy seems, curiously enough, to be a guarantee with some people of the speaker or writer's having the real interests of England at heart; and a man needs only to stigmatize the national policy with the added acrimony of alliteration as "cruel, cowardly, and criminal,"[137] for him to pa.s.s for the purest of patriots.

And now, in conclusion, we are content to leave the issue of this controversy to the judgment of our countrymen, feeling sure that, if justice and right are on the side of the agitators, they will succeed; if not, that the agitation will inevitably die a natural death: ever withal remembering the maxim--

_Magna est veritas et prevalebit._

Footnotes:

[1] April 2, 1883.

[2] The insinuations of Mr. Lock in the _Contemporary_ are simply beneath contempt.

[3] Soo Sung, a poet of the eleventh century, says the poppy was grown everywhere.

[4] Com. East Indian Finance 1870, Qu. 5865.

[5] _Ibid._, Qu. 5855.

[6] A.D. 25-220.