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  THE TRUTH ABOUT OPIUM.


  BEING A

  _REFUTATION OF THE FALLACIES
  OF THE ANTI-OPIUM SOCIETY AND A DEFENCE
  OF THE INDO-CHINA OPIUM TRADE_.


  BY WILLIAM H. BRERETON,
  LATE OF HONG KONG.


  "_Let truth and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse
  in a free and open encounter?_"--JOHN MILTON.


  _SECOND EDITION._


  LONDON:
  W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE.
  PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE.

  1883.

  (_All rights reserved._)




  LONDON:
  PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


In the preface to my first edition I expressed a hope that these lectures,
however imperfect, would prove in some degree instrumental towards
breaking up the Anti-Opium confederacy, and I have the satisfaction of
knowing that my anticipations have not been altogether disappointed. The
lectures were well received by the public and the press, and struck the
Anti-Opium Society and its versatile Secretary, the Rev. Mr. Storrs
Turner, with such consternation that, in the language of people in
difficulties, "business was discontinued until further notice." Mr. Storrs
Turner,--the motive power which kept the Anti-Opium machine working,--who
had hitherto been so active, aggressive, and demonstrative--a very
Mercutio in volubility and fertility of resource,--became suddenly silent,
mute as the harp on Tara's walls. He who once was resonant as the lion,
like Bottom the Weaver, moderated his tone, and roared from thenceforth
"gently as any sucking dove." Until the delivery of my lectures, no lark
at early morn was half so lively or jubilant. Letters to the newspapers,
articles in magazines, improvised lectures and speeches, flew from him
like chaff from the winnowing-machine. Heaven help the unlucky individual
who had the temerity to differ from him on the opium question, for Mr.
Storrs Turner would, as the phrase goes, "come down upon him sharp."

This kind of light skirmishing suited him exactly; it kept alive public
interest in the Anti-Opium delusion, and no doubt brought grist to the
mill, without committing him to anything in particular, or calling for any
extraordinary draft upon his imagination or resources. He had only to
reiterate loud enough the cuckoo cry that his deluded followers had so
long recognised as the paean of victory. But when my lectures were
delivered, and it was announced that they would be published, "a change
came o'er the spirit of his dream." Having for so many years had
practically all the field to himself, it had never occurred to him that
another and more competent witness from China, where all these imaginary
evils from opium smoking were alleged to be taking place,--who had had
better opportunities of learning the truth about opium than he could
possibly have had, and who had turned those opportunities to good
account,--should appear and refute his fallacies. This was a _denouement_
that neither he nor his Society was prepared for, and dismay and silence
prevailed in consequence in the enemy's camp.

  And the tents were all silent,--the banners unflown,--
  The lances unlifted,--the trumpet unblown.

My lectures were delivered in February, 1882. The Rev. Mr. Storrs Turner
attended them and corresponded with me upon the subject. In those lectures
I criticized his book and pointed out its misleading features and
inaccuracies; but, recognizing the force of Sir John Falstaff's maxim,
that "the better part of valour is discretion," he never attempted to
controvert my case, nor justify himself or the Anti-Opium Society, who for
so many years had made such noise in the world. It was only in October,
1882,--eight months after my lectures had been delivered,--after an
article appeared in the _London and China Telegraph_, commenting on the
collapse of the Anti-Opium Society,--that Mr. Storrs Turner, like
Munchausen's remarkable hunting-horn, gave utterance to a few feeble
notes, to the effect that his Society was still alive; for he well knew
that all that I had stated in those lectures I could prove to the
hilt,--aye, ten times over.

But if Mr. Storrs Turner has declined the contest, an acolyte of his, Mr.
B. Broomhall,--who appears to be the Secretary of the Inland China
Mission, and one of the "Executive Committee" of the Anti-Opium
Society,--comes upon the scene like King Hamlet's ghost, declaring that he
"could a tale unfold, whose lightest breath would harrow up your souls,
freeze the hot blood, and make each particular hair to stand on end."
Plagiarising, if not pirating, my title, with a colourable addition of the
word "Smoking," he produces, in November 1882, a compilation entitled "The
Truth about Opium-_Smoking_," rather a thick pamphlet, made up of excerpts
from all the writings and speeches, good, bad, and indifferent, that have
been published and delivered within the last thirty years on the
Anti-Opium side of the question, with some critical matter of his own,
from all of which it appears most conclusively that he, Mr. B. Broomhall,
is perfectly innocent of the subject he undertakes to enlighten the world
upon. I think I see through this gentleman and his objects pretty well.
With respect to the authors of these writings and speeches, I may say at
once that I hold them in as much respect as Mr. B. Broomhall does himself.
Some of them are very eminent men, who, apart from this opium delusion,
are ornaments to their country, and all, I have no doubt, are men of
spotless honour and integrity; but what, after all, does that prove? Why,
simply the _bona fides_ of these gentlemen, which no one ever questioned,
and nothing more;--that in writing those pamphlets and articles they
honestly believed they were giving utterance to facts and recording
circumstances which were true, and which it was for the good of society
should be widely known. The good and just man is as liable to be deceived
as he who is less perfect,--indeed, more so, for his very amiability and
guilelessness of heart allay suspicion and make him an easier prey to the
designing and unscrupulous. Not one of those gentlemen, save Sir
Rutherford Alcock, and one or two others, whose opinions are coincident,
in fact, with my own, have had any actual personal knowledge of the facts
they write about, and such a statement as the following might well be
printed in the front of each of their books or writings, viz.: "I have
read certain books and articles in newspapers, and heard speeches upon the
opium question, which I believe to be true, and on such assumption the
following pages are my views upon the subject." To prove to my readers the
utterly unreliable and deceptive character of Mr. Broomhall's compilation,
it is only necessary to refer to one passage, which will be found at page
122, where it is gravely put forward THAT THE INDIAN MUTINY WAS BROUGHT
ABOUT BY THE INDO-CHINA OPIUM TRADE! After that, Tenterden Steeple and the
Goodwin Sands will hardly seem so disconnected as has been hitherto
commonly supposed. But then the book is illustrated; there are the
pictures copied from the _Graphic_. There is the poppy, and there is the
opium pipe. Of course Mr. B. Broomhall knows all about opium smoking,--or
the illustrations would not be there. Mr. Crummles, with his "splendid tub
and real pump," could not have done better.

As to Mr. B. Broomhall's remarks respecting my book I have very little to
say; there is nothing in them. Like Mr. Storrs Turner, he has found it a
poser, and has said very little respecting it. When your opponent gets the
worst of an argument, if he does not honestly acknowledge his
discomfiture, he generally follows one of two courses--either he loses his
temper and takes to scolding, or he suddenly discovers something
wonderfully funny in your arguments which no one else was able to detect.
Mr. B. Broomhall eschews the former, but adopts the latter course. He
selects a paragraph or two, and says, "That is ludicrous," but he never
condescends to enlighten his readers as to where the fun lies, or in what
the drollery consists.

But, although Mr. B. Broomhall makes light of my book, he has thought
proper to imitate its title. He evidently thought there was nothing
ludicrous in _that_. This was very "smart," but smartness is a quality not
much appreciated on this side of the Atlantic. As my book had dealt a
heavy blow to the Anti-Opium Society, and a cheap edition might prove
still more damaging, an opposition book, with a similar title, might so
confuse the public as to be mistaken for mine. Imitation has been said to
be the sincerest flattery, but I dislike adulation even when administered
by the Anti-Opium Society. This gentleman and his compilation bring very
forcibly to my mind the profound Mr. Pott, of the _Eatanswill Gazette_,
who, having written a series of recondite articles on _Chinese
Metaphysics_, brought his lucubrations to the notice of his friend, Mr.
Pickwick. That gentleman ventured to remark that the subject seemed an
abstruse one. "Very true," returned Mr. Pott, with a smile of intellectual
superiority, "but I crammed for it--I read up the subject in the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_. I looked for metaphysics under the letter M,
and for China under the letter C, and combined the information." This
seems to be the sort of process by which Mr. B. Broomhall has arrived at
his knowledge on the opium question, and with similar results. I do not
wish to be too hard upon this gentleman, who, after all, may have been
only a cat's-paw in the matter--for it must not be forgotten that there is
Mr. Storrs Turner in the background; but he himself, on reflection, must,
I think, admit that it was going a little too far to introduce into his
compilation a parody--which some might call a vulgar parody--on one of the
verses of Bishop Heber's very beautiful and world-renowned Missionary
Hymn. I will not give my readers the "elegant extract," but they can find
it for themselves at page 117.

I have in this edition amplified the matter and given extracts from the
Reports of Mr. William Donald Spence, Her Majesty's Consul at Ichang, and
Mr. E. Colborne Baber's _Travels and Researches in Western China_, which
throw a flood of light upon the opium question. I have also quoted from a
very valuable work of Don Sinibaldo de Mas, an accomplished Chinese
scholar, formerly Spanish Minister to the Court of Peking, published in
Paris in 1858, which in itself is a complete vindication of the opium
policy of Her Majesty's Government in India and China, and an able
refutation of the unfounded views of the Anti-Opium Society; and I believe
this edition of _The Truth about Opium_ will be found a very complete
defence of the Indo-China opium trade.

_30th January 1883._




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.


The following lectures were given in pursuance of a determination I came
to some six years ago in Hong Kong, viz. that if I lived to return to
England I should take some steps, either by public lectures or by the
publication of a book, to expose the mischievous fallacies disseminated by
the "Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade." About
that time nearly every mail brought out newspapers to China containing
reports of meetings held in England condemnatory of the Indo-China opium
trade, at which resolutions were made containing the grossest
mis-statements and exaggerations as to opium-smoking, and also the most
unfounded charges against all parties engaged in the opium trade, showing
clearly, to my mind, that not one of the speakers at those meetings really
understood the subject he spoke about so fluently. I have now, happily,
been able to carry out my intention. Unfortunately, I was deprived of the
opportunity of delivering these lectures in Exeter Hall, which was not
only more central than St. James's Hall, but where I could have selected a
more convenient hour for the purpose than the only time the Secretary of
the latter Company could place at my disposal, the reason being that the
Committee of Exeter Hall refused to allow me its use for the purpose of
refuting the false and untenable allegations of the Anti-Opium Society, an
act of intolerance which I think I am justified in exposing. I trust,
however, that any drawback on this account will be compensated for by the
publication of the lectures. I am well aware that this volume has many
imperfections, but there is one respect in which I cannot reproach myself
with having erred, and that is, in having overstepped the bounds of truth.
I have the satisfaction of knowing that all I have stated in the lectures
is substantially true and correct, and with such a consciousness I
entertain a confident hope that they will prove in a humble way
instrumental towards breaking up the Anti-Opium confederacy, the objects
of which are as undeserving of support as they have proved mischievous in
their tendency.




CONTENTS.


LECTURE I.

Objects of the Lectures.--Lectures based upon principle and not upon
grounds of expediency.--Lecturer's knowledge of the Opium question derived
from actual acquaintance with the facts, acquired during nearly fifteen
years' residence in Hong Kong.--Opium smoking as practised by the Chinese
perfectly innocuous, beneficial rather than injurious.--Opinion of Dr.
Ayres.--Charges made by the Anti-Opium Society and its supporters false
and unfounded.--Alleged knowledge of the members and supporters of the
Anti-Opium Society founded on hearsay evidence of the worst and most
untrustworthy character.--Lecturer not acting in the interests of the
British merchants in China, nor of any other party or person.--Has no
personal interest in the Opium question, and is actuated only by a desire
to dispel the false and mischievous delusions spread abroad in England by
the Anti-Opium Society.--British and other foreign residents in China hold
opposite views to those disseminated by the Anti-Opium people.--British
merchants as a body have no interest in the trade.--China a great Empire
as large as Europe, with a much greater population.--Country and people of
China described.--Impossible to demoralize and debase such a people.--Opium
smoking a general custom throughout the eighteen provinces of China.--
Reasons for the prolonged existence of the Anti-Opium Society.--False
charges of the Anti-Opium Society respecting the Indo-China Opium trade
more fully formulated.--Petition to the House of Commons of the Protestant
Missionaries at Peking.--Refusal to sign it of the Rev. F. Galpin.--If
half those charges were true the British residents in China would be the
first to raise their voices against the Opium trade.--Official Yellow
Book published by Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of Chinese
Customs, negatives the allegations of the members of the Anti-Opium
Society and the Protestant Missionaries.--Roman Catholic Missionaries make
no complaint against the Indo-China Opium trade.--Allegations of the
Anti-Opium Society that British trade with China has suffered from the
alleged forcing of Opium upon China untrue.--Friendly relations between
the British merchants in China and the Chinese people.--Englishmen more
esteemed by the Chinese than any other nation.--Hong Kong described.--
Government of China described.--Hong Kong the head-quarters of the
Indo-China Opium trade, Chinese residing there have better means of
procuring the drug than elsewhere--no sufferers from Opium smoking found
there.--Exposure by Dr. Ayres, the Colonial Surgeon of Hong Kong, of the
fallacy that Opium smoking, although indulged in for years, cannot be
dropped without injury to the system.--Fallacy of comparing the Chinese
with the savages of Central Africa by the Secretary of the Anti-Opium
Society exposed.--Archdeacon Gray, a resident for twenty years at Canton,
silent, in his recent work on China and her people, as to the alleged
iniquity of the Indo-China Opium trade.--Character of the Chinese as
described by various authors.--Chinese a frugal and abstemious people.--
Opium smoking less injurious than beer or tobacco.--Charges of the
Anti-Opium Society based upon fallacies; those fallacies detailed.--
Alleged objections of the Chinese to receive the Gospel on account of the
Indo-China Opium trade the merest subterfuge, and utterly absurd and
untenable.--The opinion of the late John Crawfurd, Esq., F.R.S., formerly
Governor of the Straits Settlements.--His Dictionary of the Indian Islands
and Adjacent countries.

  Pages 1-49


LECTURE II.

Hearsay testimony upon which charges of the Anti-Opium Society founded
explained.--Chinese a polite people and treat Missionaries courteously,
but despise Christianity, and will not tell Missionaries the truth about
Opium.--Respectable Chinese would become an object of scorn and disgrace
to their fellow-countrymen if they embraced Christianity.--Professing
Chinese Christians in most cases impostors.--Heathen Chinese as a rule
more trustworthy than so-called Christian converts.--Missionary clergymen
in China have not the confidence of the Chinese people, and draw their
information as to Opium smoking from polluted sources.--Difference between
Missionary clergymen in China and the clergymen of all denominations in
England as regards knowledge of the people they live amongst.--Missionaries
in China wholly responsible for the imposture prevailing in England as to
Opium smoking in China.--Although the Chinese are a spirit-drinking
people, they never drink to excess.--Drunkenness unknown amongst
Chinese.--Chinese-American treaty a sham as regards Opium.--Sir J. H.
Pease, M.P., duped by the "bogus" clause as to Opium.--His speech on the
Opium question in 1881.--Chinese smoke Opium wherever they go.--As much
Opium imported into China now as before the sham treaty.--Opium a luxury
which only the well-to-do can freely indulge in.--Explanation of the means
by which unfounded statements respecting Opium are propagated.--Apologue
by way of example.--Proof of the state of things explained by the apologue
furnished by the Rev. Storrs Turner and Dr. Ayres.--First fallacy, that
the poppy is not indigenous to China, but has been recently introduced
there, presumably by British agency, and the second fallacy, that Opium
smoking in China is now and always has been confined to a small
per-centage of the population, but which, owing to the importation into
the country of Indian Opium, is rapidly increasing, refuted and the truth
fully stated.--Testimony of Mr. W. Donald Spence and Mr. E. Colborne
Baber, and Sir Rutherford Alcock.

  Pages 50-100


LECTURE III.

Third and fifth fallacies upon which the members of the Anti-Opium Society
and its supporters are misled.--Opium eating and Opium smoking contrasted
with spirit drinking.--Valuable curative properties of Opium.--Spirit
drinking produces organic and incurable diseases, is a fruitful cause of
insanity, and leads to ruin and destruction.--The like effects admittedly
not due to Opium.--Opium eating and Opium smoking totally distinct.--
Whatever the effects of Opium eating, Opium smoking perfectly innocuous.--
Anti-Opium advocates cunningly try to mix the two together.--Disingenuous
conduct in this respect of the Rev. Storrs Turner--Mr. Turner so great an
enthusiast as not to be able to see the difference.--Testimony of Dr.
Eatwell as to the use of Opium.--Difference between Opium eating and
Opium smoking explained in the case of tobacco smoking.--Tobacco taken
internally a deadly poison, harmless when smoked.--Medical testimony as to
the poisonous quality of tobacco and its alkaloid, nicotine.--Opium a
valuable medicine, without any known substitute.--Anti-Tobacco Smoking
Society, once formed the same as the Anti-Opium Society, put down by the
common sense of the community, the like fate awaits the Anti-Opium
Society.--Testimony of Dr. Sir George Birdwood, Surgeon-General Moore, Sir
Benjamin Brodie, Dr. Ayres, and W. Brend, M.R.C.S., as to Opium.--Small
quantity of Indian Opium imported into China.--Enormous amount of spirits
consumed in the United Kingdom.--Anti-Opium Society blind to the latter,
energetic as to the former a purely sentimental grievance.--Fallacy of
Anti-Opium Society that supply creates demand refuted and exposed.--
Remaining fallacies refuted.--Effects of suppression of Indo-China Opium
trade.--Missionaries detested in China.--Indian Opium welcomed.--Saying of
Prince Kung.--Treaty of Tientsin explained and defended.--Erroneous
notions of the Protestant Missionaries as to that treaty.--Abused by
Missionaries, yet the treaty the Missionaries only charter.--Testimony of
H. N. Lay and Lawrence Olyphant.--Spurious copy of De Quincey's
"Confessions of an Opium Eater," published by Anti-Opium people.--
Testimony of Don Sinibaldo de Mas, formerly Spanish Minister in China, a
powerful defence of the Indo-China Opium trade.--Policy of the Indian
Government as regards Opium wisest and best.--Alleged proposal of Lord
Lawrence to alter that policy.--Fallacy involved in such proposal
exposed.--Abrogation of Indo-Opium trade injurious if not destructive to
the spread of the Gospel in China.--False charge of smuggling by British
merchants in China exposed and refuted.--Un-English policy of the
Anti-Opium Society exposed.--Recapitulation.--Benevolence of the British
public.--Necessity for seeing that it is not diverted into worthless
channels.--Anti-Opium Society, mischievous, presenting a melancholy record
of energies wasted, talents misapplied, wealth uselessly squandered,
charity perverted, and philanthropy run mad.--Society should be dissolved
and its funds transferred to Missionaries.--Missionaries should not mix up
Christianity and Opium.--Missionaries defended and encouraged.

  Pages 101-174


APPENDIX.

Official Letter of Francis Bulkeley Johnson, Esq., of the firm of Jardine,
Matheson & Co., of Hong Kong and China, Chairman of the Hong Kong Chamber
of Commerce, to Charles Magniac, Esq., M.P., the President of the London
Chamber of Commerce, respecting the charge of smuggling against the
British merchants in China, and giving particulars of the Indo-China Opium
trade.

  Pages 177-183




THE TRUTH ABOUT OPIUM.




LECTURE I.


The object of these lectures is to tell you what I know about opium
smoking in China--a very important subject, involving the retention or
loss of more than seven millions sterling to the revenue of India, and
what is far more precious, the character and reputation of this great
country. With respect to the former, I would simply observe that I do not
intend to deal with the question on mere grounds of expediency, strong as
such grounds unquestionably are, for, if I believed that one-half of what
is asserted by the "ANGLO-ORIENTAL SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE
OPIUM TRADE," as to the alleged baneful effects of opium smoking upon the
Chinese, were true, I should be the first to raise my humble voice against
the traffic, even though it involved the loss, not of seven millions
sterling, but of seventy times seven. But it is because I know that these
statements and all the grave charges made by the supporters of that
society, and repeated from day to day, against the Government of India and
the Government of this country, and also against the British merchants of
China, to be not only gross exaggerations but absolutely untrue--mere
shadowy figments, phantasies, and delusions--that I come forward to draw
aside the curtain, and show you that behind these charges there is no
substance. Were my knowledge of the opium question derived merely from
books and pamphlets, articles in the newspapers, and ordinary gossip, I
would not venture to trespass upon your time and attention, because in
that respect you have at your disposal the same means of information as I
have myself. But I come before you with considerable personal experience,
and special knowledge of the subject, having lived and practised as a
solicitor for nearly fifteen years in Hong Kong, where I had daily
experience, not only of the custom and effects of opium smoking, but also
of the trade in opium in both its crude and prepared state. I had there
the honour of being solicitor to the leading British and other foreign
firms, as well as to the Chinese, from the wealthy merchant to the humble
coolie; so that during the whole of that period down to the present time I
have had intimate relations in China with foreigners and natives,
especially with those engaged in the opium trade. Under these
circumstances I had daily intercourse with the people from whom the best
and most trustworthy information on the subject of opium and opium smoking
could be obtained, and my experience is that opium smoking, as practised
by the Chinese, is perfectly innocuous. This is a fact so patent that it
forces itself upon the attention of every intelligent resident in China
who has given ordinary attention to the subject. The whole question at
issue is involved in this one point, for if I show you that opium smoking
in China is as harmless, if, indeed, not more so, as beer drinking in
England, as I promise you I shall do most conclusively, then _cadit
quaestio_, there is nothing further in dispute; the Indo-Chinese opium
trade will then stand out--as I say it does--free from objection upon
moral, political, and social grounds, and the occupation of the Anti-Opium
agitators, like Othello's, will be gone. It is true that the opponents of
the Indo-Chinese opium trade interlard their case with political matters
wholly beside the question; this they do to make that question look a
bigger one than it really is, so as to throw dust in the eyes of the
public and impose upon weak minds. For instance, they drag in the
miscalled "Opium War" and ring the changes upon it. That war, whether
justifiable or not, cannot affect the points at issue. It is an
accomplished fact, and it is idle now to introduce it into the present
opium question. And though I shall be obliged to go pretty fully into the
whole controversy, I ask you to keep your minds steadily fixed upon the
real question, which is briefly this: Is opium smoking, as practised in
China, detrimental to health and morals, and if so, does the Indo-Chinese
opium trade contribute to these results?

I may now at the outset assure you that I do not give expression to my
views in the interests of the merchants of China, whether native or
foreign, or on behalf of any party whatsoever; nor do I come before you
with any personal object, because neither directly nor indirectly have I
any pecuniary or personal concern in the opium question, nor, indeed, in
any commercial matter in Hong Kong or China. I simply find that unfounded
delusions have taken possession of the public mind upon the subject, which
have had most mischievous consequences, and are still working much evil.
These I wish to dispel, if I can. Furthermore, I have delivered and
published these lectures at my own cost, unaided by any other person, so,
I think, under these circumstances, that I have some right to be regarded
as an impartial witness.

I am aware of no subject, involving only simple matters of fact, and
outside the region of party politics, upon which so much discussion has
been expended, and about which such widely different opinions are
prevalent, as this opium question. On the one side, it is said that, for
selfish purposes, we have forced and are still forcing opium upon the
people of China; that the Indian Government, with the acquiescence and
support of the Imperial Government, cultivates the drug for the purpose of
adding seven or eight millions sterling to its revenue, and, with full
knowledge of its alleged baneful consequences to the natives of China,
exports it to that country. A further charge, moreover, is brought against
the British merchants, that they participate in this trade for gain, or,
as it is put by the Rev. Mr. Storrs Turner, formerly a missionary
clergyman at Hong Kong, but now and for many years the active and
energetic Secretary of the Anti-Opium Society, to enable them to make
"princely fortunes." That is the favourite expression of Mr. Turner, who
finds, no doubt, that it takes with certain small sections of the public,
readier to believe evil of their own countrymen than of the people of
other countries, under the belief, perhaps, that in doing so they best
display the purity and disinterestedness of their conduct.

The Anti-Opium Society and its supporters assert as an incontestable fact
that opium smoking is fatal, not only to the body but to the soul;
meaning, I suppose, that the custom is destructive to the physical, and
demoralising to the moral nature of its votaries, and that the opium
traffic is regarded by the people of China with such horror that it
prevents the natives from receiving the Gospel from those who help to
supply them with this drug, viz., the British people. It is alleged that
the use of opium demoralises the Chinese, that it ruins and saps the
manhood of the whole nation, with a host of concomitant evils, to which I
shall by and by refer more particularly, the whole involving the utmost
turpitude, the greatest guilt and the worst depravity on the part of
England and the English Government, and still more especially on that of
the Indian Government and the British merchants in China. Here I may
observe, in passing, that if the objection to opium on the part of the
Chinese is so strong, it is rather remarkable that they should not only
greedily purchase all the Indian opium we can send them, but cultivate the
drug to an enormous extent in their own country. The Anti-Opium Society
and its supporters further say that opium culture and opium smoking are of
comparatively recent origin in China; and although they do not directly
allege that we have introduced those practices, there is throughout all
their writings and speeches "a fond desire, a pleasing hope" that the
readers or hearers of their books and speeches will form that opinion for
themselves. I should tell you that those who hold directly contrary views
consist of all the British residents in China, with the exception of some
of the Protestant missionaries (of whom I desire to speak with respect),
comprising the British merchants, their numerous assistants (an educated
and most intelligent body), professional men, traders of all classes, and
also all the other foreign merchants and residents in the country--German,
American, and others, for there are many nationalities to be met with in
China, who with the British form one harmonious community.

Take all these men, differing in nationality and religious persuasions as
they do, and I venture to say that you will not find one per cent. of them
who will not tell you that the views put forward by these missionaries and
the Anti-Opium Society are utterly preposterous, false, and unreal--who
will not declare that opium smoking in China is a harmless if not an
absolutely beneficial practice; that it produces no decadence in mind or
body, and that the allegations as to its demoralising effects are simply
untrue. Those who have taken a special interest in the subject know that
the poppy is indigenous to China, as it is to the rest of Asia, that opium
smoking is and has been a universal custom throughout China, probably for
more than a thousand years; that this custom is not confined to a few, but
is general amongst the adult male population; limited only, in fact, by
the means of procuring the drug. That is my experience also; it is
corroborated by others, and therefore I may assert it as a fact. I have
used the adjective "Protestant" because, although there are a great number
of Roman Catholic and some Greek missionaries in China, no complaint
against the opium trade has ever to my knowledge been made by one of these
missionaries.

Now, why is this belief so prevalent? Because those foreign residents
daily mix with the Chinese, know their habits and customs, hear them talk,
sell to them, and buy from them, and being aware, as they all are, of the
controversy going on here about opium, and the strenuous efforts that are
being made in this country to prevent the Indian Government from allowing
opium to be imported into China, they take a greater interest in the
subject, and examine the question more carefully than they otherwise
might. They, I say, being on the ground and knowing the very people who
smoke opium and who have smoked it for years, without injury or decay to
their bodily or mental health, have irresistibly come to the same
conclusion as I have. For myself, I may say that I have taken a very great
interest in the subject, particularly during the past five or six years. I
have tried in vain to find out those pitiable victims of opium smoking who
have been so much spoken of in books, in newspapers, and on public
platforms. Day after day I have gone through the most populous parts of
Hong Kong, which is a large city, having about one hundred and fifty
thousand Chinese inhabitants--in both the wealthiest and poorest quarters.
I have daily had in my office Chinese of all classes, seeing them,
speaking to them, interrogating them upon different subjects, and I have
never found amongst them any of these miserable victims to opium smoking.
On the contrary, more acute, knowing, and intelligent people than these
very opium smokers I have rarely met with.

Now, Hong Kong may be said to be, and is, in fact, the headquarters in
China of the opium trade. It is there that all the opium coming from India
and Persia is first brought. It is, in fact, the entrepot or depot from
which all other parts of China are supplied with the drug. Furthermore, it
is the port whence "prepared opium," the condition in which the drug is
smoked, is mostly manufactured and exported to the Chinese in all other
parts of the world, for wherever he goes, the Chinaman, if he can afford
it, must have his opium-pipe. Moreover, the Chinese of Hong Kong get much
better wages and make larger profits in their trades and businesses than
they could obtain in their own country; and can, therefore, better afford
to enjoy the luxury of the pipe than their own countrymen in China. So
that if opium smoking produced the evil consequences alleged, Hong Kong is
unquestionably the place where those consequences would be found in their
fullest force. They are not to be found there in the slightest degree. One
fact is worth a thousand theories, and this I give you as one which I
challenge Mr. Storrs Turner or any other advocate of the Anti-Opium
Society to disprove. I will now show you how I am corroborated. I have a
witness on the subject whose testimony is simply irrefragable. Dr. Philip
B. C. Ayres, the learned and efficient Colonial Surgeon, and Inspector of
Hospitals of Hong Kong, confirms my statement in the strongest possible
manner. That gentleman has held the important office I have mentioned for
about ten years. Previous to taking up his appointment at Hong Kong he had
been on the Medical Staff of India, where he had made opium and opium
eating--for the drug is not smoked in India--a special study. In Hong Kong
he has had abundant opportunities of studying the effects of opium smoking
and making himself thoroughly acquainted with the wonderful drug, such
opportunities, indeed, as few other medical men have ever had. It is part
of his daily duties to inspect the Civil Hospital of Hong Kong,--a
splendid institution open to all nationalities, and conducted by able
medical men,--the Gaol, the Chinese Hospital, called the Tung Wah, which
is under exclusive Chinese management, and all other medical institutions
in the Colony. Thus a wide field of observation is presented to him. I may
add here that Dr. Ayres is the only European physician who has succeeded
in removing the prejudice among the better class of the Chinese against
European doctors and in obtaining a large native practice. This fact
speaks volumes as to his general abilities as well as to his professional
attainments and his means of acquainting himself with the social life of
the Chinese. In his annual Report presented to the Government of Hong Kong
for the year 1881, a copy of which, I believe, is now, or ought to be, in
the pigeon-holes of the Colonial Office in Downing Street, there is the
following passage:--

    I have come to the conclusion that opium smoking _is a luxury of a
    very harmless description_, and that the only trouble arising from its
    indulgence is a waste of money that should be applied to necessaries.
    Eight mace is equivalent to an ounce and twenty-nine grains, a
    quantity of opium sufficient to poison a hundred men, smoked by one
    man in a day, and this he has been doing for twenty years: that is to
    say, he has consumed in smoke in that time about one thousand pounds
    sterling, and for this indulgence he has to deny himself and his
    family many absolute necessaries. The list of admissions contains
    thirty-five opium smokers, and the amount smoked between them daily
    was eighty-four mace and a half, or seven dollars worth of opium. The
    result of my observations this year is only to confirm all I said on
    the subject of opium smoking in my report for 1880.

Again, Dr. Ayres has published from time to time in the "_Friend of
China_," the organ of the Anti-Opium Society, various interesting papers
on medical subjects. This is what he says in an article which will be
found at length at p. 217 of vol. 3 of that journal:--

    My opinion of it is that it [opium smoking] may become a habit, _but
    that that habit is not necessarily an increasing one_. Nine out of
    twelve men smoke a certain number of pipes a day, just as a tobacco
    smoker would, or as a wine or beer drinker might drink his two or
    three glasses a day, without desiring more. _I think the excessive
    opium smoker is in a greater minority than the excessive spirit
    drinker or tobacco smoker._ In my experience, the habit does no
    physical harm in moderation.... I do not wish to defend the practice
    of opium smoking, but in the face of the rash opinions and exaggerated
    statements in respect of this vice, it is only right to record that no
    China resident believes in the terrible frequency of the dull,
    sodden-witted, debilitated opium smoker met with in print, nor have I
    found many Europeans who believe they ever get the better of their
    opium-smoking compradores in matters of business.

Let Mr. Storrs Turner refute this, if he can. If he cannot, what becomes
of his book[1] published in 1876, which may be called the gospel of the
Anti-Opium Society, with which I shall make you better acquainted by and
by. And what should become of the Anti-Opium Society itself, which has
wasted on its chimerical projects hundreds of thousands of pounds--the
contributions of the benevolent British public, which might have been
spent in alleviating the misery and distress in this vast metropolis, or
been otherwise usefully applied.

The Government of Hong Kong, for the purposes of revenue, has farmed out
the privilege or monopoly of preparing this opium and selling it within
the colony, and I dare say you will be surprised to hear that the amount
paid by the present opium monopolist for the privilege amounts to about
forty thousand pounds sterling a year. To elucidate this, I should tell
you, that opium as imported from India, Persia, and other places is in a
crude or unprepared state. In this condition it is made up in hard round
balls, each about the size of a Dutch cheese, but darker in colour. To
render it fit for smoking it has to be stripped of its outer covering,
shredded, and boiled with water until it becomes a semi-fluid glutinous
substance resembling treacle in colour and consistence. In this state it
is known as "prepared opium." As such it is put up into small tins or
canisters, hermetically sealed, so that it can be exported to any part of
the world. Now, I have been the professional adviser of the opium farmer
for at least ten years, and from him and his assistants I have had
excellent opportunities of learning the truth about opium. I have thus
been able to get behind the scenes, and so have had such opportunities of
acquainting myself with the subject as few other Europeans have possessed.
I knew the late opium farmer, whom I might call a personal friend,
intimately from the time of my first arrival in China. When I call him the
opium farmer I mean the ostensible one, for the opium monopoly has always,
in fact, been held by a syndicate. My friend was the principal in whose
name the license was made out, and who dealt with the wholesale merchants,
carried on all arrangements with the Government of the Colony, and
chiefly managed the prepared opium business. I knew him so intimately and
had so many professional dealings with him, irrespective of opium, that I
had constant opportunities of becoming acquainted with all the mysteries
of the opium trade. Now the conclusion to which my own personal experience
has led me I have told you of before, and I have never met anyone who has
lived in China, save the missionaries, whose experience differed from
mine. I have tried to find the victims of the so-called dreadful drug, but
I have never yet succeeded.

Many people in this country, I dare say, owing to the false and
exaggerated stories which have been disseminated by the advocates of the
Anti-Opium Society, think that if they went to Hong Kong they would see
swarms of wretched creatures, wan and wasted, leaning upon crutches, the
victims of opium smoking. If they went to the colony they would be greatly
disappointed, for no such people are to be met with. On the contrary, all
the Chinese they would see there are strong, healthy, intelligent-looking
people, and, mark my words, well able to take care of themselves. I don't
suppose there were five per cent. of my Chinese clients who did not, to a
greater or less extent, smoke opium. I have known numbers, certainly not
less than five or six hundred persons in all, who have smoked opium from
their earliest days--young men, middle-aged men, and men of advanced
years, who have been opium smokers all their lives, some of them probably
excessive smokers, but I have never observed any symptoms of decay in one
of them. I recall to mind one old man in particular, whom I remember for
more than fifteen years; he is now alive and well; when I last saw him,
about two years ago, he was looking as healthy and strong as he was ten
years before. He is not only in good bodily health, but of most
extraordinary intellectual vigour, one of the most crafty old gentlemen,
indeed, that I have ever met; no keener man of business you could find, or
one who would try harder to get the better of you if he could. The only
signs of opium smoking about him are his discoloured teeth, by which an
excessive smoker can always be detected, for immoderate opium smoking has
the same effect, though in a less degree, as the similar use of tobacco,
the excessive smoking of which, as I shall by and by show you, is the more
injurious practice of the two. The Chinese, as a rule, have extremely
white teeth--the effect, perhaps, of their simple diet, and their
generally abstemious habits. They are proud of their teeth, which they
brush two or three times a day, so that there is no difficulty in
distinguishing heavy smokers from those who smoke in moderation. It is
easy to compare the one with the other, and I may state that although the
former be not often met with, he will be found to be not a whit inferior
to the other in wit or sharpness. The old gentleman I have referred to,
like many others of his countrymen, will settle himself down of an
evening, when the business of the day is over, and enjoy his opium pipe
for two or three hours at a stretch, yet, notwithstanding this terrible
excess, as the Anti-Opium people would say, he continues strong and well.
Nay, more, he has two sons of middle age, healthy, active men, who indulge
in the pipe quite as regularly as their aged father. I have known many
others like these men, but have never seen or heard of any weakness or
decay arising from the practice.

Now, I have told you that the British merchants in China hold the same
views as I do upon the opium question. But it may be said that the
merchants are interested persons, and in point of fact Mr. Storrs Turner
says as much in his book. And, of course, he would have it inferred that
what _they_ allege or think on the subject should not have any weight,
because they are the very persons in whose interest this so-called
iniquitous traffic is being carried on, and that, therefore, they would
not say anything likely to dry up their fountain of profit. I only wish
for the sake of my fellow-countrymen that all these declarations about
princely fortunes were true. Hills look green afar off, but when you
approach them they are often found as arid as the desert; and,
unfortunately, like Macbeth's air-drawn dagger, these splendid visions are
not "sensible to feeling as to sight," but simply _princely fortunes_ of
the mind "proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain." Mr. Turner mentions
in his book one eminent firm in particular, the oldest and probably the
greatest in China or the far East, a firm respected throughout the whole
mercantile world, whose public spirit, boundless charity, and general
benevolence are proverbial, whom he stigmatizes as "opium merchants," and
who are, of course, making the imaginary "princely fortune" by opium. Now
if that gentleman had taken the least trouble to inquire before he
launched his book upon the world, he would have found that the firm he
refers to in such terms had had little or nothing to do with opium for at
least twenty years. That is not, perhaps, a matter of much importance. If
he had taken the trouble to make further inquiry, he could have had no
difficulty in ascertaining, what I tell him now as a fact, and one within
my own personal knowledge, that the only merchants in China who are making
large profits out of opium are just two or three firms, who, by the
undulations and fluctuations inseparable from commerce, have got the bulk
of the trade into their hands, and that all the other British merchants
throughout China, and all the foreign merchants, Germans, Americans, and
others, have really little or nothing to do with the opium trade at all.
Of course, merchants now and then will have to execute orders for opium
for a constituent who may require a chest or two of the drug, but that is
only in the course of business, and is not attended with any profit to
speak of. And I am perfectly sure that if it were possible to put a stop
to this opium traffic, which is said to be the source of so much profit to
many, that, saving the two or three firms I have mentioned, the
suppression of the trade would make no difference to the other firms. This
gross blunder of Mr. Storrs Turner is characteristic of the general
inaccuracy of his book. Before casting odium upon an eminent firm common
decency, if not prudence, to say nothing of good taste, should have
induced him to make careful inquiries upon the subject. This, it is clear,
he has not done, and, as if to make matters worse, although his book
appeared so long ago as 1876, in an article published in the "Nineteenth
Century" for February 1882, he has again gratuitously referred to this
firm in terms as unjustifiable as they are absolutely unfounded. He
couples the firm with another house now dissolved, and says, "they were
legally smugglers, but the sin sat lightly upon their consciences." Very
pretty this for a minister of the Gospel and the Secretary of the
Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade. The
statement, even if true, was wholly unnecessary for the professed object
of the writer, and why he made it is best known to himself. This is the
gentleman by whose persistent efforts those fallacious and mischievous
views upon the opium question have during the past eight years been
mainly forced upon the public, and to whom the prolonged existence of that
most mischievous organization, the Anti-Opium Society, is due. He is the
Frankenstein who has created the monster that has deceived and scared so
many excellent people. I will show you that this monster is but a poor
bogey after all, with just as much form and substance as that with which
Mrs. Shelley affrights her readers in her clever romance. On the other
hand, do not let it be thought, as I believe has been said by some
enthusiasts, that it is owing to the British merchants in China having
discovered that opium is an unclean thing, and to their having washed
their hands of all participation in the traffic, that the trade has fallen
into the hands of a few, who of course would, by parity of reasoning, be
set down as very unscrupulous people. That is a fallacy, and, what is
more, it is an untruth. I do not believe there is a British firm, or a
firm of any other nationality, in China, which would not, if the
opportunity presented itself, become to-morrow "opium merchants," as Mr.
Turner expresses it, if they thought the trade would prove a source of
profit, because they hold, with me, that the opium traffic is a perfectly
proper and legitimate one, quite as much so as traffic in tobacco, wine,
or beer; and a thousand times less objectionable than the trade in ardent
spirits.

Before proceeding further, it is important that I should bring to your
notice some particulars about China and its people. It is actually
necessary to do so, to enable you to grasp the facts and see your way well
before you. Although the opium question ought to be a simple one, yet,
owing to the sophistries and misrepresentations of the Anti-Opium Society,
and in particular of its Secretary and living spirit, Mr. Storrs Turner, a
wide field is opened to us across which it will be necessary to lead you
to chase the phantom off the plain. The public here are very apt to think
of China as if it were a country like Italy, France, or England. They
never dream for a moment of the immense empire which China actually is.
Perhaps if they did, and could take in the whole situation, they would be
slower to believe the extraordinary stories which are spread about our
_forcing_ opium upon the Chinese, and, by doing so, demoralizing the
nation. We forget, as we grow old, much that we have learned in our youth,
especially geography, and I daresay many a schoolboy could enlighten
myself and others upon that particular branch of education. China, it
must be remembered, is a country which cannot be compared with France,
Spain, or England, for it is a vast empire, as large as Europe, with a
population some fifty or sixty millions greater. Now, what a stupendous
feat to be able to storm, as it were, that enormous empire, and for a
handful of British merchants to succeed in forcing opium upon, and, by
doing so, debasing the whole of this wonderful people. Yet this is what is
alleged by the anti-opium philanthropists and by Mr. Storrs Turner, who is
their priest and prophet, and so his enthusiastic disciples believe, to
whom I would merely say,--"Great is thy faith." These plain facts are not
brought forward by the Anti-opium people. The public are addressed and
pleas are put forward for their support on the ground that we are dealing
with a country of the like extent as our own, inhabited by a primitive
semi-civilized people. No greater fallacy, no more downright untruth could
be put forward. The Chinese are not only a civilized but an educated
people. Until quite recently there were more people in the British
Islands, in proportion to their population, who could neither read nor
write than in China.

It must be borne in mind that the empire of China comprises eighteen
provinces, quite large enough to form eighteen separate kingdoms. I am
speaking now of China Proper, and am leaving out Thibet, Mongolia, and
Manchuria, immense countries to the West, North-West, and North of China,
and also the vast possessions of China in Central Asia, all forming part
of that great empire. Many of these eighteen provinces are larger than
Great Britain; one of them is equal in extent to France. Although there is
in one sense a language common to the whole country, yet not only has each
province a dialect of its own, different from that of the others, but it
has, so to speak, innumerable sub-dialects. Dialect, perhaps, is hardly
the correct word; it is more than a dialect, for not only each province,
but each district or county, has a dialect, differing so essentially from
each other that the people of one province, or one district, can, in most
instances, no more make themselves colloquially understood by those of
another than a Frenchman could make himself intelligible to an Englishman,
if neither knew the language of the other. You will often find people
living in villages not more than fifteen or twenty miles apart who cannot
converse with one another. I have seen in my own office a man belonging to
the province of Kwang-tung, in the south of China, unable to speak in
Chinese to a native of the adjoining province of Fuh-kien. In this case
the native villages of these two were not more than ten miles apart, and
the only medium of conversation was the barbarous jargon in which
Europeans and Chinese carry on their dealings, called "pidgin English"--a
species of broken English of the most ridiculous kind. Now, when you take
into account that each province differs in language from each other--for
that is really what the case practically comes to--that they have separate
dialects in each province, and also, to a certain extent, different
customs and certain prejudices, I ask you, does it not appear a gigantic,
if not an impossible, task for England, a small and distant country, to be
able to demoralize, debase, and corrupt the people of each of these
eighteen provinces? Yet that is really the allegation of the Anti-Opium
Society against their own country, this small and distant England!

I have said that there are customs peculiar to each of these provinces,
but there are others common to all; one of them is opium smoking; another,
I am sorry to say, is hatred and contempt of foreigners. They one and all
agree in regarding foreigners as an inferior race, whose customs,
language, and religion they despise. Among the common people every
foreigner, of whatsoever nationality, is called "Fan-Qui," or "foreign
devil." The designation of foreigners amongst the better classes of people
is "outer barbarian." No better instance could I give you than this to
show the strong prejudice held by the whole nation against foreigners.
"Fan-Qui" is still the term used by the lower orders to denote foreigners,
even in the British colony of Hong Kong. To remedy this state of things,
at the time of the making of the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 (which is the
existing treaty between the two nations), Lord Elgin, the author of the
treaty, had very properly a stipulation inserted that the term "outer
barbarian" should no longer be applied to British subjects. Now, when you
take into account that not only are these three hundred and sixty millions
of people spread over an enormous empire, having a prejudice common to all
parts alike against foreigners, as well as their own prejudices against
each other, forming eighteen separate provinces or kingdoms, speaking
different languages, is it reasonable to suppose that they would, so to
speak, simultaneously adopt the practice of opium smoking when introduced
by the despised foreigner? If these people still despise our customs, as
they do our religion, as they do everything, in fact, belonging to us, how
can it be said that we are forcing this foreign drug upon them to their
destruction?

I have already mentioned that the custom of opium smoking is common to all
the people of these eighteen provinces. Whether they live in the valleys
or on the hills they smoke opium. Now Mr. Turner is a great enemy of opium
smoking; he is its determined opponent, and I do not think I wrong him--I
certainly do not mean to do so--when I describe him as a person strongly
prejudiced against the practice. The best, the wisest, and ablest among us
have prejudices, and it is casting no stigma upon that gentleman to say
that he has his. When I make you better acquainted with his book, which I
shall soon do, you will, I think, agree with me on this point. When people
have those strong prepossessions they are prone not to judge facts fairly;
they see things, in short, through a false medium. That which to an
ordinary person appears plain and clear enough, to one under the influence
of prejudice stands out in different colours, and is passed over as untrue
or misleading; sometimes, however, the plain truth will leak out, in spite
of prejudice. It is laid down by legal text writers that truth is natural
to the human mind, that the first impulse of a man if interrogated upon a
point is to tell the truth, and that it is only when he has had time to
consider, that he is inclined to swerve from it. Now in this book of Mr.
Turner's, at p. 13, he confirms my statement. This is what he says. I need
not read to you the previous part, because the context does not alter the
sense of my quotation. He is arguing against the allegation of pro-opium
people that opium has a beneficial result in counteracting the effects of
malaria and ague, and he says:--

    These curious arguments are two. First, that the universal
    predilection of the Chinese for opium is owing to the malarious
    character of the country; secondly, that the use of opium is a
    wholesome corrective to the unwholesome, even putrid, food which the
    Chinese consume. The reply to the first is that the country over which
    opium is smoked is in area about the size of Europe, and includes,
    perhaps, an equal variety of sites, soils, and climates, great plains
    level as our own fen district, and mountainous regions like the
    Highlands of Scotland. Ague is almost unknown in many of the
    provinces--_yet everywhere, in all climates and all soils, in every
    variety of condition and circumstance throughout that vast empire, the
    Chinese smoke opium_.

Now that is the testimony of the Rev. Storrs Turner, the most strenuous
and, as I believe, the ablest advocate against the Indo-China opium trade.
But then he adds:--

    But nowhere do they all smoke opium. The smokers are but a per-centage
    greater or smaller in any place.

Well, nobody ever said they all did smoke opium. Females, as a rule, do
not smoke, and children don't smoke. It is only the grown men, and those
who can afford to buy the drug, who smoke it. China, for its extent and
its vast and industrious population, is still a poor country. Although its
natural resources are considerable, the great bulk of the people are in
poor circumstances. It is only those above the very poor who can afford to
smoke opium occasionally, and only well-to-do people who are able to do so
habitually. Opium smoking is, in fact, a luxury in which, every Chinaman
who can afford it indulges more or less, just as English people who have
sufficient means drink tea, wine, and beer, or smoke tobacco. The effects
of opium smoking are no more injurious than are those articles, in daily
use in England, nor is its use more enslaving. On the contrary, from my
own observation, I feel persuaded that those who habitually drink wine or
spirits are far more liable to abuse and become enslaved to the habit than
the smoker of opium. This, as you are now aware, is confirmed by the great
authority of Dr. Ayres. Yet Mr. Storrs Turner, in the face of that most
damaging admission, and his disciples would have the British public
believe that by supplying the Chinese with a small quantity of opium,
which is used and grown largely in almost every province, district, and
village of China, we are demoralizing and degrading the whole people. Now,
if this practice of opium smoking has existed, and does exist, throughout
these eighteen provinces, over this large and mighty empire, as Mr. Storrs
Turner admits, can it be urged for a moment that England has had anything
to do with it more than that Englishmen, in common with other foreigners,
have imported for the last forty or forty-five years a quantity of the
drug very much less than that actually grown in China itself? I say she
has not. I say that opium smoking has existed for a thousand years or
more, and that its use by the natives of China is simply limited by the
extent of their purchasing power. But how is it that such divergent
opinions can exist between Englishmen living in China and certain
Englishmen here at home? My answer is, that the former, the English
residents in China, derive their knowledge on the subject from actual
experience formed from personal intercourse with the natives, from seeing
with their own eyes, and hearing with their own ears; whilst people in
England obtain their information from hearsay only. Hearsay testimony is
their sole guide; and, as I shall show you by and by, this hearsay
evidence is of the worst and most unreliable kind. But still the question
remains why this should be so; why is it that among the educated and
intelligent people of England, in an age when newspapers are universal,
and books of travel cheap and plentiful, that such an extraordinary
difference of opinion should exist? I will now give you the explanation of
these opposite views.

The first is this:--China is ten thousand miles away. If that country were
as near to us as the Continent of Europe, to which it is equal in extent,
the people of England, including all these Anti-Opium advocates, would be
of the same mind as their countrymen in China. The field of the imposture
would then be so close to us that the delusion could no longer be
sustained--if, indeed, under such circumstances it could ever have
existence--it would be seen through at once. If it were sought to prove
that we were corrupting and demoralizing the whole of the natives of the
Continent by selling them spirits, beer, or opium, and if the persons who
did so were to pity, patronize, and caress those people as if they were an
inferior race, and but semi-civilized, as the anti-opium people do with
the Chinese,--the persons who attempted to act in such an extraordinary
manner would be scoffed at as visionaries, if not downright fools; yet the
parallel is complete. Indeed, taking into account the existing prejudices
of the Chinese against foreigners, the sound sense of the people of China
and their frugal and abstemious habits, there should be less difficulty in
effecting such wonderful results in Europe than in China. Perhaps,
however, the best illustration of this is that afforded by the present
agitation here in England, under the leadership of Sir Wilfrid Lawson
against the liquor traffic. The evils of intemperance, unlike those
alleged against opium smoking, are real evils, and are admitted to be so
by all. Everyone is agreed upon this point; yet a large portion of our
revenue, amounting to some twenty-six millions sterling, is derived from
taxes upon spirits, wine, and beer, the abuse of which produces these
evils. Sir Wilfrid Lawson is as determined a foe to the Indo-China opium
trade as he is to the liquor traffic. Why does he not apply the same rule
to the one as to the other? Why does he ask the Government to forego the
eight millions derived from opium in India, and not demand the abrogation
of these spirit, wine, and beer duties which are derived from so wicked a
source here in England? He and his Anti-Opium friends would, if they
could, prohibit the cultivation and exportation of opium in India, why do
not he and his fellow teetotallers call upon the country to prohibit the
manufacture of alcoholic liquors? Some few months ago an Anti-Opium
meeting took place at, I think, Newcastle, attended by Sir Wilfrid Lawson.
In the course of a facetious speech the Honourable Baronet, becoming
serious, made quite light of this ridiculously small sum of eight millions
sterling derived from the opium trade, and declared that he who did not
believe that a substitute for it could be found was a "moral
atheist"--whatever that may mean. Why does he not call upon the Government
to forego the sum of twenty-six millions derived from alcohol, which is
not more to England, if indeed so much, as the eight millions are to
India, and declare that any person who said we could not find a substitute
was a "moral atheist"? I answer thus: because the one concerns matters
here at home with which he and the rest of the public are well acquainted,
whilst the other relates to affairs ten thousand miles away, about which
he and they know little or nothing. Sir Wilfrid and his followers very
well know that if they advocated the abolition of the duties on spirits,
wine, and beer, they would be simply scoffed at by the public as fools and
visionaries, and that, on the other hand, if they required all our
distilleries and breweries and all public-houses to be closed, they would
be treated as downright lunatics; but it is quite different as regards
India and China. With matters in those countries these enthusiastic
gentlemen can and do disport themselves very much as they please,
oblivious to the plainest facts.

The second is this:--There is, here in England, that powerful association,
"_The Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade_,"
whose sole object is to attain the end which its name imports, the
abolition of the Indo-China opium trade, on the alleged ground that it is
demoralizing and ruining the natives of China. That Society, I deeply
regret to say, is supported by some of the most influential people in
England--noblemen, archbishops, and other dignitaries of the Church,
clergymen of all denominations, people justly and deservedly commanding
the respect of their fellows--but who, on this opium question, simply know
little or nothing, who implicitly believe all that is told to them by the
agents of that Society, but otherwise have no knowledge of the facts. When
it is taken into account that this body has immense funds at its command,
that it has the support of a large part of what is known as the "religious
world," and that the Society has branches and agencies ramified throughout
the whole country, the reader will not fail to perceive how this
extraordinary hallucination, these false and unfounded delusions
respecting opium smoking, have got possession of the public mind. In
former times we have had associations formed for the purpose of carrying
out great public objects and of disseminating knowledge necessary for the
country to comprehend those objects; but you will find that for the most
part these societies have dealt with acknowledged and existing facts. For
instance, there was the "Anti-Corn Law League." The purposes of that
league were understood by everyone; the main facts were admitted because
they existed here in England and were patent to all. It was only a matter
of opinion between two great political parties whether they should be
dealt with in one particular way or not. That league was formed for a
great national object; but the Anti-Opium Society of which I am speaking
has been got up to carry out the opinions of a few individuals, most
respectable, I admit, but at the same time most enthusiastic--I may say,
indeed, fanatical--holding views the most incorrect and delusive upon a
subject with which they are most imperfectly acquainted.

Meantime, this Society, through its ubiquitous and indefatigable
Secretary, who may be called the "Head Centre" of the confederacy, and its
other agents, is for ever on the alert. Let any gentleman who has bad
experience of opium smoking, whether in India or China, write to the
newspapers; let him read a paper at a meeting of any of our scientific
bodies disputing the alleged facts of the opium-phobists, and he is marked
out as a prey. Sir Rutherford Alcock, whose high character, thorough
knowledge of China, and great abilities are well known, with a view of
putting the opium question before the public in a correct and proper
light, published an able and, indeed, unanswerable article in the
"Nineteenth Century" for December 1881 ("Opium and Common Sense"), when
Mr. Storrs Turner plunged into print with a counter article in the number
for February 1882 of the same Review ("Opium and England's Duty"), to
which I have already alluded. This article purports to be an answer to the
former one, but it is nothing of the kind, for it is a mere _rechauffe_ of
his book, and wholly fails in its alleged purpose. Again Sir Rutherford
Alcock, with the same laudable object, early in 1882, read an able and
interesting paper on the opium question before the Society of Arts. It was
listened to by many scientific gentlemen and others. Sir Rutherford knows
the truth about opium, and he told it in his paper. The Rev. Storrs Turner
was there; he knew the damaging revelations which Sir Rutherford Alcock
had made, and so much afraid was he of the effects of the fusillade, that
to rally his dismayed followers he improvised a meeting of his most
devoted disciples two or three days afterwards at the Aquarium. I venture
to say there was not a pro-opium advocate present at his meeting I do not
think the meeting was ever advertised--I certainly saw no advertisement of
it in the newspapers--and Mr. Turner, on that occasion, exhorted his
followers to hold fast to the true faith, refuting in the way, no doubt
most satisfactory to himself and his audience, the facts, figures, and
arguments of Sir Rutherford. So it is with articles and letters in the
newspapers. Many gentlemen well-informed upon the opium question have
published letters dealing with this question on the pro-opium side;
whereupon Mr. Turner and other anti-opium advocates at once pounce down
upon them, and repeat the same old stale exploded stories about
demoralization and what not. But latterly, and since the first edition of
these lectures was published, Mr. Turner has preferred to carry on the
anti-opium agitation more quietly, for I think I have thrown cold water
upon the zeal of him and his friends. His plan now is to get together in
private conclave a few medical gentlemen and others whose opinions he has
first made sure of; certain resolutions are then produced ready cut and
dry, which are passed with acclamation and inserted in the newspapers.
This sort of thing deceives nobody but the infatuated dupes of the
Anti-Opium Society, for whose edification they are principally intended;
just as the American orator, though speaking to empty benches in Congress,
made what his constituents at Bunkum considered a capital speech.

All these anti-opium articles, speeches, and resolutions are based upon
the same model. They assume certain statements as existing and
acknowledged facts which have never been proved to be such, and then
proceed to draw deductions from those alleged facts. This style of
argument can scarcely be praised for its fairness; it certainly places
those who hold contrary views, and who object to employing similar
tactics, at a disadvantage. This is especially remarkable in Mr. Storrs
Turner's article in the "Nineteenth Century." There the writer, taking all
his facts for granted, plunges at once _in medias res_, and proceeds to
enlighten his readers with all the confidence of the pedagogue who, strong
in his axioms and postulates, explains to his admiring pupils the
mysteries of the "Asses' Bridge." The English people have hitherto had
little or no knowledge of the opium question, save what they hear through
the Anti-Opium Society, in whose teaching some of them put faith, if only
for the reason that they are mostly clergymen and others of high
character. And here I may observe that, supposing the pro-opium advocates,
or perhaps I should more correctly say the general public, had a counter
society to disseminate their opinions, that they had organised a committee
with command of ample funds, and had officers to carry out their views,
this Anglo-Oriental Society would be strangled in three months; for
fiction, however speciously represented, cannot hold its own against fact.
There is an old saying that "what is everybody's business is nobody's
business," and so it has been with the pro-opium side of the question. The
foreign merchants in China, as a body, have no interest in the Indo-China
opium trade. They would not care if the trade were to be suppressed
to-morrow, and therefore they take no active part in opposing the
Anti-Opium Society. The general public also take little or no interest in
the matter, and it is really only those who are actuated by a sense of
duty, or who, like myself, have followed the question, and who, from
practical acquaintance and a thorough research into all its bearings, take
more than ordinary interest in the subject, who think of refuting the
monstrous misrepresentations of the anti-opium people. Therefore it is
that the other side have had practically the whole field to themselves.
Upon the like conditions any imposture could for a time be successfully
carried on. The days of the anti-opium agitation are, however, happily
drawing to a close. A flood of light from various sources has within the
past year been thrown upon the subject. The unwholesome mists of
ignorance, prejudice, and fanaticism are clearing away, and the truth
about opium is becoming visible at last. And here I would observe that in
using the word "imposture" I do not mean to impugn the motives of any of
the good and benevolent people who support this Society. I speak of the
thing, not of those who have created or are supporting it.

I have before slightly touched upon the charges brought against the
British Government and the British nation respecting opium. I will
formulate them more particularly now; as the subject cannot, I think, be
thoroughly understood unless I do so. I have read Mr. Storrs Turner's book
and his reply to Sir R. Alcock, very carefully; I have read anti-opium
speeches delivered in London, Manchester, Leeds, and London upon the
subject; they all come to the same thing--one is a repetition of the
other. As I understand the matter, this is what the charges of the
Anti-Opium Society amount to. It is alleged that opium smoking, once
commenced, cannot be laid aside, that it poisons the blood, reduces the
nervous and muscular powers, so that strong men under the use of opium
speedily become debilitated and unfit for labour; that opium smoking
paralyses the mind as well as the body, and produces imbecility, or at
least mental weakness; that it so demoralises the people using it, that it
converts honest and industrious men from being useful members of society
into lazy, dishonest scoundrels; that it saps the manhood and preys like a
cankerworm upon the vitals of the Chinese people, injuring the
commonwealth and threatening even the existence of the nation if the
custom of opium smoking be not stopped, which, it is alleged, can be
effected only by the supply of opium from India being discontinued. It is
urged, in fact, that the sale of Indian opium to the Chinese is a crime
not only against the people of China but against humanity; that much, if
not all, of the misery and crime prevalent throughout China are due,
either directly or indirectly, to the use of opium; and for all these
fearful results England is held responsible. It is further said, that the
sale of British opium to the Chinese interferes with legitimate commerce,
creating, it is alleged, so much bitterness in the native mind against the
English nation, that the Chinese refuse to buy our goods. And, above all,
it is contended that the Indo-China opium trade impedes the progress of
Christianity, the Chinese refusing to accept the Gospel from a people who
have such terrible crimes to answer for as the introduction of Indian
opium into China. Since the days of Judge Jeffereys never was there such a
terrible indictment, nor one so utterly unfounded as happily it is. In
fact, all the objections that in old times were made against <DW64> slavery
have been brought forward against this harmless and perfectly justifiable
Indo-China opium trade. Indeed Mr. Storrs Turner, in his article in the
"Nineteenth Century," coolly places the two in the same category, and
modestly proposes that the revenue from opium should be discontinued, and
that England should compensate the Indian Government for the loss, just as
she did the slave owners. It is astonishing how liberal your political
philanthropist can be in the disposal of other people's money. Well, I had
always thought that the Government of India, for the past sixty years at
least, had been actuated by one great and prominent object--the
amelioration, the happiness, and prosperity of the teaming millions
committed to its care, and I think so still. I have always believed that
the Imperial Government, no matter which party was from time to time in
power, had the prosperity, honour, and dignity of their country at heart,
and were influenced by a sincere desire towards all the world to be just
and fear not, and to diffuse as much happiness as possible amongst our own
people, and all other nations and races with whom we became associated all
over the world, and I remain of that opinion still. Some fifty years ago
we washed the stain of slavery from our hands, performing that great act
of justice from a pure sense of duty, without any outside pressure, and
also without shedding a drop of blood. This act was unique, for at the
time slavery existed in every country, and had so existed for thousands of
years. We know that, thirty years later, a similar achievement cost a
kindred nation a long and bloody war, and an aggregate money expenditure
far exceeding our own national debt--the growth of centuries. That feat of
ours showed what the mind and heart of this great nation then were, and I
do not believe that we have since degenerated. Since then we have spent
many millions of money in sweeping slavery from the seas and in
endeavouring to put an end to that accursed evil throughout the world. In
doing this our pecuniary loss has been the least of our sacrifices. We
have spent more than money. We have lost in the struggle the lives of some
of the best and noblest of England's sons. These are acts worthy of a
great nation; compared with them the objects of the Anti-Opium Society
sink into utter insignificance. The sublime and the ridiculous could not
be brought more vividly face to face.

For the last fifty years there has been one feeling predominant in the
minds of the people of England, and that is a manly, generous anxiety to
protect the weak against the strong all over the world. Yet these foul and
untenable charges against England are now spread broadcast by this
Society, whose only warrant for doing so are the statements made to them
by a handful of fanatical missionary clergymen, whose unfounded and
fantastic views are accepted as so much dogma which it would be heresy to
doubt. Why, if we were guilty of but half the wickedness attributed to us,
it would not require this Anti-Opium Society to cry it down; the nation
would rise as one man to crush it for ever. There is not a British
merchant in China who would not raise his voice against it, aye, though he
was making that princely fortune which Mr. Turner refers to in his book;
for let me assure you that your fellow-countrymen in China, who are but
sojourners in that land, as they all hope to end their days at home, have
as warm a love for their country and as keen a sense of their country's
honour and dignity as any set of Englishmen residing here at home, however
high their station and great their wealth.

To prove to you, if indeed further proof is necessary, that I have not
overstated the case as regards the extreme views of the missionaries and
the Anti-Opium Society, I will give you their latest production. It comes
from the fountain-head, and takes the form of a petition of "the Ministers
of the Gospel in China" to the House of Commons. This petition was
prepared by the Missionaries of Peking, and is a gem in its way. It would
never do to put the reader off with a mere extract, so I give it _in
extenso_. It was drawn up and sent round for signature during the past
summer, and appeared in the Shanghai and Hong Kong newspapers. This is the
document:--

    _To the Honourable_
      THE BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS.

    The petition of the undersigned Missionaries of the Gospel in China
    humbly sheweth:

    That the opium traffic is a great evil to China, and that the baneful
    effects of opium smoking cannot be easily overrated. It enslaves its
    victim, squanders his substance, destroys his health, weakens his
    mental powers, lessens his self-esteem, deadens his conscience, unfits
    him for his duties, and leads to his steady descent, morally,
    socially, and physically.

    That by the insertion in the British Treaty with China of the clause
    legalizing the trade in opium, and also by the direct connection of
    the British Government in India with the production of opium for the
    market, Great Britain is in no small degree rendered responsible for
    the dire evil opium is working in this country.

    That the use of the drug is spreading rapidly in China, and that,
    therefore, the possibility of coping successfully with the evil is
    becoming more hopeless every day. In 1834 the foreign import was
    twelve thousand chests; in 1850 it was thirty-four thousand chests; in
    1870 it was ninety-five thousand chests; in 1880 it was ninety-seven
    thousand chests. _To this must be added the native growth, which, in
    the last decade, has increased enormously, and now at least equals,
    and according to some authorities doubles, the foreign import._

    That while the clause legalizing the opium traffic remains in the
    British Treaty, the Chinese Government do not feel free to deal with
    the evil with the energy and thoroughness the case demands, and
    declare their inability to check it effectively.

    That the opium traffic is the source of much misunderstanding,
    suspicion, and dislike on the part of the Chinese towards foreigners,
    and especially towards the English.

    That the opium trade, by the ill name it has given to foreign
    commerce, and by the heavy drain of silver it occasions, amounting, at
    present, to about thirteen million pounds sterling annually, has
    greatly retarded trade in foreign manufactures, and general commerce
    must continue to suffer while the traffic lasts.

    That the connection of the British Government with the trade in this
    pernicious drug excites a prejudice against us as Christian
    missionaries, and seriously hinders our work. It strikes the people as
    a glaring inconsistency, that while the British nation offers them
    the beneficent teaching of the Gospel, it should at the same time
    bring to their shores, in enormous quantities, a drug which degrades
    and ruins them.

    That the traffic in opium is wholly indefensible on moral grounds, and
    that the direct connection of a Christian Government with such a trade
    is deeply to be deplored.

    That any doubt as to whether China is able to put a stop to opium
    production, and the practice of opium smoking in and throughout her
    dominions should not prevent your Honourable House from performing
    what is plainly a moral duty.

    Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that your Honourable House
    will early consider this question with the utmost care, take measures
    to remove from the British Treaty with China the clause legalizing the
    opium trade, and restrict the growth of the poppy in India within the
    narrowest possible limits.

    Your Honourable House will thus leave China free to deal with the
    gigantic evil which is eating out her strength, and creates hindrance
    to legitimate commerce and the spread of the Christian religion in
    this country.

    We also implore your Honourable House so to legislate as to prevent
    opium from becoming as great a scourge to the native races of India
    and Burmah as it is to the Chinese; for our knowledge of the evil done
    to the Chinese leads us to feel the most justifiable alarm at the
    thought that other races should be brought to suffer like them from
    the curse of opium.

    We believe that, in so doing, your Honourable House will receive the
    blessing of those that are ready to perish, the praise of all good
    men, and the approval of Almighty God.

    And your petitioners will ever pray.

The thoughts that occurred to me after reading this petition were
these:--First it struck me that the missionaries, like the unfortunate
Bourbons, "had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing." I thought next of
the wonderful solicitude shown by these missionaries for the mercantile
interest. "By the ill name the opium trade has given to foreign commerce,"
they say, "the trade in foreign manufactures and general commerce has been
retarded, and must continue to suffer while the opium traffic lasts."
Well, it is remarkable that this complaint is not made by the people whose
interests are alleged to have so suffered, but by missionary clergymen,
who ought to know little or nothing upon the subject; they are not
merchants, and associate very little with mercantile men, either native or
foreign, and certainly, if they minded their own business, could not
possibly have that knowledge of mercantile affairs with which they appear
to be so familiar. The persons who ought to know whether foreign
manufactures or foreign trade have fallen off owing to the opium traffic,
are the foreign merchants resident in China, whose especial duty it is to
look after those interests, yet these gentlemen, strange to say, have made
no complaint of the kind. Those merchants are directly concerned in
foreign manufactures and general commerce either as principals or as
agents for absent principals in England and elsewhere; they, in fact,
exclusively manage foreign trade in China. There is a chamber of commerce
in Hong Kong and another in Shanghai, whose members are all keen men of
business, actively alive to their own and their constituents' interests,
and in constant communication with similar mercantile bodies at home;
moreover, there are excellent daily papers published in both these places,
where such grievances, if they existed, could be freely ventilated; yet
the missionaries of the Gospel in Peking would have the House of Commons
and the world believe that the foreign merchants in China, who are always
wide-awake, are blind to their own interests and slumbering at their
posts. Now why have not these merchants ever complained that commerce has
suffered from the opium traffic? Why, simply because there is no
foundation in fact for such complaint. I am afraid that with the
missionaries who make this most unfounded statement the "wish was father
to the thought." Every man ought to know his own business best, and you
will generally find that when a stranger professes great interest in your
affairs, and presses upon you gratuitous advice upon the subject, he is
not really actuated by a desire to promote your interests, but has some
other and totally different object in view. So it is with these missionary
gentlemen at Peking. There is just one other point connected with this
remarkable Petition to which I would call attention. Evidently feeling the
ground slipping from under their feet, the framers, adding another string
to their bow, extend their sympathies beyond China, and take British
Burmah under their patronage. Indeed, it seems to me that these missionary
clergymen of Peking would, if they could, not only supersede the Viceroy
of India in his management of the Indian Empire, but even Her Majesty the
Queen and her immediate Government.

I should here, however, in justice to the entire missionary body, say,
that _all_ of them are not so deluded as their brethren at Peking. There
is one bright, particular star, at least, which shines through the
Egyptian darkness that enshrouds the rest. The Reverend F. Galpin, of the
English Methodist Free Church, is a respected missionary clergyman at
Ningpo, an important port on the east coast of China. He, unlike most of
his brethren at other places in that country, when asked to sign this
curious petition, very properly declined to do so. All honour to Mr.
Galpin. He was not afflicted with the midsummer madness of his brethren at
Peking. Were all the Protestant missionaries in China like him, we should
not have heard of these absurd and monstrous stories respecting the
Indo-China opium trade, and there would, perhaps, be larger and better
results from the missionary's labours. This is the manly, sensible, and
dignified reply of Mr. Galpin:--

    The REV. J. EDKINS and others, Peking.

    SIR,--I beg to acknowledge receipt of a copy of your circular, dated
    June 24th, with form of petition to the British House of Commons
    against the importation of Indian opium, and also to express my
    sympathy with the spirit and motives that have suggested the petition;
    but, at the same time, I must also express disapproval of the proposed
    petition, and disbelief of many of the statements contained therein.

    Looking at Christianity in the broad and true sense, as a great
    regenerating force breathing its beneficent spirit upon and promoting
    the welfare of all, of course the excessive use or abuse of opium, and
    every other thing, is a serious hindrance to its happy progress. _But
    this is a very different position from that of supposing that the
    present apparent slow progress of mission-work in China is to be
    attributed to the importation of Indian opium._ China is a world in
    itself, and the influence of Christian missions has hitherto reached
    but a handful of the people, for there are many serious obstacles to
    its progress besides opium.

    Then, again, I beg to express my hearty dissent from the idea
    presented in the petition, that the Chinese people or Government are
    really anxious to remove the abuse of opium. The remedy has always
    been, as it is now, in their own hands.

    Neither do I believe that if the importation of Indian opium ceased at
    once, the Chinese Government would set about destroying a very
    fruitful means of revenue. On the contrary, I feel sure that the
    growth of Chinese opium would be increased forthwith.

    I therefore beg to return the petition in its present form, with the
    suggestion that Christian missionaries had better direct their
    attention to, and use their influence upon, Chinese.

        Yours truly,
          F. GALPIN,
            _English Methodist Free Church_.

    Ningpo, 15th July.

No doubt these most estimable and respectable but infatuated gentlemen
suppose that their petition will have some weight with the Legislature. I
believe and hope it will, but not exactly of the kind expected; for I
shall be surprised indeed, if it be not treated as it deserves, _i.e._ as
a downright contempt of the House of Commons; for it seems to me to be an
insult to the common sense not only of the House in its collective
capacity, but of every individual member. In saying this I am far from
attributing to these missionary clergymen a wilful intention to state what
they knew to be untrue, nor to insult or mislead the Legislature, for I am
assured that one and all of them would be incapable of so doing. I am sure
they thoroughly believe every word they have stated to be true; but then
it must be remembered that the effect upon the public mind and the injury
done to society by the publication of fallacious and untrue statements,
are in no way lessened because their authors suppose those statements to
be, in fact, true and correct.

I have shown you that Mr. Turner admits that opium smoking is common all
over China. But, he says, the Chinese do not all smoke. In his book he
affirms that it is only in recent years that opium has been grown in
China. This is the passage, it occurs at page 2:--"Indigenous in Asia, the
first abode of the human species, the poppy has long been cultivated in
Egypt, Turkey, Persia, and _recently_ in China and Manchuria. It is well
known in our gardens, grows wild in some parts of England, and is
cultivated in Surrey for the supply of poppy heads to the London market.
From the time of Hippocrates to the present day _it has been the
physician's invaluable ally in his struggles against disease and death_."

This is about the most remarkable statement I have ever read. The greater
includes the less, and if the poppy is indigenous to Asia it is, of
course, indigenous also to China and Manchuria, which with the other
dominions of China comprise fully one-fourth of the entire Asiatic
continent. This, indeed, Mr. Storrs Turner does not deny in terms, but it
is plain he wished his readers to believe that the poppy was _not_
indigenous to those countries, and was only recently introduced there. The
passage involves that sort of fallacy which Lord Palmerston termed "a
distinction without a difference." As to the poppy being indigenous to the
whole of Asia and notably to the most fertile parts of it, _e.g._ China
and Manchuria, there can be no doubt, and therefore no difference, but
the distinction is that it is only of late years that it has been
_cultivated_ in those countries. The poppy may grow wild over a continent,
but be cultivated only in a part. I will show you by-and-by, upon
excellent authority and by the strongest grounds for inference, that the
poppy is not only indigenous to China, but has been cultivated there for
various purposes other than for medical ones and for smoking, certainly
for two thousand, and probably for four or five thousand years. An
ordinary reader, especially one not familiar with the geography of Asia,
would conclude from this passage in Mr. Turner's book that China and
Manchuria were not in Asia at all, but that of late years the poppy had
been introduced into those countries from that continent. Thus much for
the Gospel of the Anti-opiumists.

I now confront Mr. Storrs Turner with another book, which everyone must
admit is of greater authority than his. It is a book published towards the
close of 1881 by a high official of the Chinese Government, then Mr. but
now Sir Robert Hart, G.C.M.G., the Inspector-General of Chinese Customs, a
man who knows China and the Chinese better, perhaps, than any living
European. That gentleman tells a very different tale about opium to what
the Anti-Opium Society has hitherto regaled the world with. This book is
an official one, issued from the Statistical Department of the
Inspector-General of Chinese Customs at Shanghai for the use and guidance
of the Chinese Government. It stands upon a very different footing to the
volume published by Mr. Turner, the paid secretary and strenuous advocate
of the Anti-Opium Society. Sir Robert Hart has entire control over the
revenue of China as far as regards foreign trade. At every treaty port
open to foreign vessels there is a foreign Commissioner of Customs, and
Sir Robert Hart is the supreme head of these commissioners. He is a man
deservedly trusted and respected by the Chinese Government; a man of
learning and talents, and I need hardly add of the very highest character,
and, I believe, he is one of the most accomplished Chinese scholars that
could be found. He says that opium has been grown in China from a remote
period, and was smoked there before a particle of foreign opium ever came
into the country. This is the passage from his--the now famous
yellow-book:--

    In addition to the foreign drug there is also the native product.
    Reliable statistics cannot be obtained respecting the total quantity
    produced. Ichang, the port nearest to Szechwan, the province which is
    generally believed to be the chief producer and chief consumer of
    native opium, estimates the total production of native opium at
    twenty-five thousand chests annually; while another port, Ningpo, far
    away on the coast, estimates it at two hundred and sixty-five
    thousand. Treating all such replies as merely so many guesses, there
    are, it is to be remarked, two statements which may be taken as facts
    in this connection: the one is that, so far as we know to-day, the
    native opium produced does not exceed the foreign import in quantity;
    _and the other that native opium was known, produced, and used long
    before any Europeans began the sale of the foreign drug along the
    coast_.

So much for Mr. Storrs Turner's bold assertion that it is only recently
that opium has been cultivated in China; the obvious inference which he
wished the reader to draw from it being that it was the importation of the
Indian drug into China that induced the natives to plant opium there. Now,
with respect to that most unfounded charge of the Chinese disliking the
English for introducing opium into their country, and British commerce
declining in consequence, I assure you that all that is simply moonshine.
These statements are not merely false assumptions, they are simply untrue.
No one who has had any experience of China and its people, does not know
perfectly well, that of the whole foreign trade with China the British do
at least four-fifths; not only have we the lion's share of the trade, but
it is an unquestionable fact that of all the nations who have made
treaties and had dealings with China, the British are and have been for
many years the most respected by the Chinese people. It is, I say, an
indisputable fact, that notwithstanding all our past troubles about
smuggling and our wars with China, which Mr. Turner is so fond of dilating
upon, that at this day, by high and low, rich and poor, from the mandarin
to the humble coolie, England is held in higher regard than any other
nation. If trade with China has in any way declined, the fact is traceable
to other and different causes, which it is not my province to enter upon.

Now, why are England and Englishmen thought so well of by the Chinese? It
is simply because the British merchants and British people in China have
acted towards the Chinese, with whom they have been brought into contact,
with honour and rectitude--because in their intercourse with the natives
they have been kind, considerate, and obliging--because, instead of
resenting the old rude and overbearing manners of the Chinese officials
and others, they have returned good for evil, and shown by their
conciliatory bearing, and gentlemanly and straightforward conduct, that
the British people are not the barbarians they had been taught to believe.
By such means the British residents in China have gone far to break down
the barrier of prejudice towards foreigners behind which the people of
that country had hedged themselves, thus preparing the way for the labours
of the missionaries and making, in fact, missionary work possible. If
further proof were wanting that the British are held in high estimation by
the people and the Government of China, it will be found in the fact, that
our own countryman, Sir Robert Hart, who before entering the service of
the Chinese Government had been in the diplomatic service of his own
country, now occupies the high and honourable position of
Inspector-General of Chinese Customs, and is, I may add, the trusted
counsellor of the Government of China.

It is not very long since the Governor of Canton paid a visit to the
Governor of Hong Kong; such an act of courtesy to Her Majesty's
representative on the part of so great a Chinese magnate was until then, I
believe, unprecedented. The constant exclamation of the great mandarin as
he was being driven through the streets of Hong Kong was--"What a
wonderful place! What a wonderful place!" in allusion to the fine
buildings, the wide and clean streets,--a strong contrast to those of
Canton--and the dense and busy population around him. And yet more
recently, that is during the summer of 1882, a greater personage still
paid an official visit to the Hon. W. H. Marsh, who during the absence of
Sir George Bowen, the Governor, worthily administers the affairs of the
colony--I refer to the present viceroy of the provinces of Kwantung and
Kwangsi, commonly called the "two Kwangs," an official only next in
importance to His Excellency Li Hung Chang, the Governor of Petchili. Do
you think we should have such a state of things if we were demoralizing
and ruining the people of China, as is alleged by the Anti-Opium Society,
or if, indeed, the Chinese people or Government had any real grievance
against us.

Upon this point I cannot refrain from mentioning an incident that occurred
soon after I arrived in China. A respectable Chinaman asked me to prepare
his will. He gave me for the purpose, written instructions in Chinese
characters, which I had translated. On reading the translation I found his
instructions very clearly drawn up, but what was gratifying to me, and
what is pertinent to my subject, was the following passage, with which he
commenced them:--"Having," said he, "under the just and merciful laws
administered by the English Government of Hong Kong, amassed in commerce
considerable wealth, I now, feeling myself in failing health, wish to make
a distribution of the same." There are thousands like that Chinaman in
Hong Kong, and also in Shanghai, and in all the treaty ports of China. In
speaking as this man did, he was only giving expression to the feelings of
all his countrymen who have had dealings with the English in China. Are
such feelings on the part of these Chinese consistent with the
consciousness that we are enriching ourselves by ruining the health and
morals of their countrymen, as is most wrongfully put forward by the
Anti-Opium Society and its allies the Protestant missionaries? No; they
bespeak perfect confidence, respect, and gratitude towards us; for
oppressed and plundered as the Chinese have been by their own officials,
there is no other people on the face of the earth who more thoroughly
appreciate justice and equity in the administration of public affairs;
thus it is that they respect the British rule, which they have found by
experience to be the embodiment of both.

There are very few, perhaps, in this country who know what Hong Kong
really is. It is now a flourishing and beautiful city, standing upon a
site which, but the other day, was a barren rock. Commerce with its
civilising influence has transformed it into a "thing of beauty," "an
emerald gem of the _eastern_ world." Forty years ago, the English
Government sent out a commissioner to report upon the capabilities of the
place for a town or settlement. He sent home word that there was just room
there for _one_ house. He little dreamt that upon that barren inhospitable
spot within a few years would be realised the poet's dream when he
wrote:--

  Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own
  In a blue summer ocean far off alone,
  Where a leaf never dies, midst the still blooming bowers,
  And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers.

He little thought that on that very site there would soon be many
thousands of houses, some of them palatial buildings, including many
Christian churches and some heathen temples, for liberty of conscience
reigns there supreme; with a Chinese population of over one hundred and
fifty thousand. These people are all doing well. Some of them are wealthy
merchants; many of them are shop-keepers; others are artificers; and a
very large number of them are labourers or coolies. There is no pauperism
in the colony. The people there are all well-to-do, or able to live
comfortably, and, what is more, they are all happy and contented. A
comparatively small body of police preserves the peace of the colony; for,
thanks to a succession of wise and able governors, local crime has been
reduced to a minimum; serious offences are very rare amongst the regular
inhabitants. It is the criminal classes from the mainland which really
give trouble, for Hong Kong labours under the disadvantage of being close
to two large cities on the Pearl River--Canton and Fatchan, notorious for
piratical and other criminal classes. You might send a child from one end
of the town to the other without fear of molestation. Indeed, the natives
themselves are the very best police; for, take the Chinese all round, they
are the most orderly and law-abiding people in the world. They respect the
British Government as much as the British people do themselves. They bring
their families to Hong Kong, settle down there, and make themselves
perfectly at home, finding more security and happiness there than they
ever could attain in their own country; because in Hong Kong there is and
has always been perfect equality before the law for every man,
irrespective of race, colour, or nationality. The life and property of
every man there is secure. This is not the case in China.

These are the fruits of commerce which brings peace and plenty in its
train, which sweeps aside the dust of ignorance, fanaticism, and
superstition--which has reclaimed the deserts of Australia and North
America, and spread flourishing cities there, where law and order, truth
and justice, peace and happiness, religion and piety are established.
These are the achievements of British merchants who have won for our
Sovereign the Imperial diadem she wears, and made their country the
mistress of the world. These are the people who have done all this, and
better still, made the name of England honoured and respected throughout
the whole world, and sent the Gospel into every land. Yet those very men
Mr. Storrs Turner and other anti-opium fanatics would cover with obloquy,
because, forsooth, some British merchants have been concerned in this
perfectly justifiable Indo-Chinese opium trade.

Mr. Turner in his book speaks of the Chinese Government as a paternal
Government, which, the moment it finds any practices on foot injurious to
the people, at once takes steps to put them down. I tell you, as a fact,
that a more corrupt Government,[2] so far at least as the Judges and high
Mandarins downwards are concerned, never existed in the whole world. There
is no such thing as justice to be had without paying for it; if it is not
a misnomer to say so, for this so-called justice is bought and sold every
day. Corruption pervades the whole official class. I could detail facts as
to the punishment of the innocent and the escape of the guilty, which came
under my own observation, that would make one's flesh creep. This is why
the Chinese of Hong Kong respect so much the British Government, whose
rule is just and equitable.

Now there is another point which I wish more particularly to impress upon
you, it is this: Anyone hearing of the alleged dreadful effects upon the
Chinese of opium smoking, and our wicked conduct in forcing the drug upon
them, and making them buy it whether they wish to do so or not, would
think that these Chinese were a simple, unsophisticated people, something
like the natives of Madagascar,--a people lately rescued from barbarism by
missionaries; that they were a weak race, without mental stamina or
strength of mind--a soft simple, easily-persuaded race. These are some
more of the erroneous views which the Anti-Opium Society tries to impress
upon the public mind, and which its Secretary, Mr. Storrs Turner, in
particular, artfully endeavours to inculcate. To prove that this is so, I
have only to read you a passage from his work. But before doing so, let me
assure you that there is not a more astute, active-minded, and knowing
race of people under the sun than the Chinese. For craft and subtlety I
will back one of them against any European. At page 3 you will read:--

    More opium is consumed in China than in all the rest of the world, and
    nearly the whole of the opium imported into China is shipped from
    Calcutta and Bombay. The East and the West, England, India, and China,
    act and re-act upon each other through the medium of poppy-juice.
    Simple mention of the relations which these three great countries bear
    to the drug is enough to show that a very grave question is involved
    in the trade. England is the grower, manufacturer, and seller; India
    furnishes the farm and the factory; China is buyer and consumer. The
    question which obviously arises is this, Is it morally justifiable and
    politically expedient for the English nation to continue the
    production and sale of a drug so deleterious to its consumers? Before,
    however, we enter upon a consideration of this question, we must
    explain how it has come to pass that the British nation has got into
    this unseemly position. Otherwise, the fact that the British
    Government is actually implicated in such a trade may well appear
    incredible. If, for instance, any minister could be shameless enough
    to suggest that England should embark on a vast scale into the
    business of distillers, and with national funds, by servants of
    Government, under inspection and control of Parliament, _produce and
    export annually ten or twenty millions' worth of gin and whisky to
    intoxicate the populous tribes of Central Africa, he would be greeted
    by a general outcry of indignation. Yet the very thing which we scout
    as an imagination, we consent to as a reality._ We are maintaining our
    Indian Empire by our profits as wholesale dealers in an article which,
    to say the best of it, is as bad as gin.

Now, is that a fair parallel? Is it honest or just to place the civilized,
wise, and educated Chinese in the same category with the barbarous natives
of Central Africa? This, I assure you is but a fair specimen of the
misleading character of Mr. Turner's book and an example of the teaching
by which people are made the dupes of the Anti-Opium Society. This is the
language which Mr. Storrs Turner applies to his country and countrymen to
gratify himself and his fanatical followers. China, though a heathen, is a
civilized nation. The civilization of the Chinese does not date from
yesterday. When England was inhabited by painted savages, China was a
civilized and flourishing Empire. When ancient Greece was struggling into
existence, China was a settled nation, with a religion and with laws and
literature dating back to a period lost in the mist of ages. When
Alexander, miscalled the Great, fancied he had conquered the world, and
sighed that there was no other country to subdue, the mighty Empire of
China, with its teeming millions, and a civilization far superior, taken
altogether, to any that he had yet known, was a flourishing nation, and
happily far away from the assaults of him and his conquering force. Five
thousand years ago, as the Rev. Dr. Legge, the Professor of Chinese at
Oxford, tells us, the Chinese believed in one God and had, in fact, a
theology and a system of ethics known now as Confucianism, certainly
superior to that of Greece or Rome. They had then and still have a written
language of their own, in which the works of their sages and philosophers
are recorded. There are books extant in that language for more than three
thousand years ago. In a learned and very interesting book, written by Dr.
Legge, entitled "The Religions of China," it is shown that the Chinese,
not only of to-day, but of five thousand years ago, were a great nation.
Was it then, I again ask, honest or fair of the Rev. Storrs Turner, who is
himself no mean Chinese scholar, to mislead his readers by making use of
so forced and inapplicable a comparison? Can there, in fact, be any
analogy whatever between the Indo-China opium trade, even supposing that
the smoking of the drug were as deleterious to the system as is alleged,
and sending whisky from England to the savages of Central Africa? No man
could have known better than Mr. Turner that his simile was false and
misleading, for he has lived in China for many years. An ordinary person
reading that gentleman's book would swallow this simile as one precisely
in point, and end by feeling horrified at the iniquities we were
perpetrating in China, which is, no doubt, the exact result that he looked
for. I recently met a lady with whom I had been in correspondence for some
time on professional business. In the course of conversation we happened
to speak about opium, and the moment the subject was mentioned she turned
up her eyes in horror and declared that she was ashamed of her country for
the wrong it was inflicting upon the natives of China. Mr. Turner's
wonderful parallel between the civilized Chinese and the African savages
had plainly produced its desired effect upon her. I very soon, however,
undeceived her on the point, as I have since had the pleasure of doing
with many others labouring under the like delusions. I am sorry to say
that it is with the gentler sex that our Anti-Opium fanatics make their
most profitable converts. I honour those ladies for their fond delusion,
which shows that their hearts are better than their heads; that their good
intentions run in advance of them, and make them ready victims. Well,
well, I trust their charity will soon be diverted into worthier channels.
Unfortunately, the minds of many in England have become imbued with the
same erroneous belief, which is entirely owing to the mischievous teaching
of the Anti-Opium Society, and to the powerful machinery that this Society
has available for disseminating its doctrines. I am sorry, indeed, to have
to allude thus to Mr. Storrs Turner and his book, for I respect him as a
clergyman, a scholar, and a gentleman; but I cannot avoid doing so, for
certain it is that if you mean to refute Mahomedanism you cannot spare
Mahomed or the Alkoran.

I have already told you something as to the character of the Chinese
generally. I will now mention from authority some more specific
characteristics of these people, because it is really important that you
should thoroughly understand what manner of men these Chinese are, for
that is a matter going to the root of the whole question. If I show you,
as I believe I shall be able to do most conclusively, that the Chinese are
as intelligent and as well able to take care of themselves as we are, with
far more craft and subtlety than we possess, you will, I think, be slow to
believe that they are silly enough to allow us to poison them with opium,
as it is alleged we are doing. A stranger mixture of good and evil could
hardly be met with than you will find in the Chinese--crafty,
over-reaching, mendacious beyond belief, double-dealing, distrustful, and
suspicious even of their own relations and personal friends;
self-opinionated, vain, conceited, arrogant, hypocritical, and deceitful.
That is the character that I give you of them; but it is the worst side of
their nature, for they have many redeeming qualities. I will now place
before you their character from another and a more competent authority.
The Venble. John Gray, D.D., was, until recently, for about twenty-five
years, Archdeacon of Hong Kong, but during the greater part, if not the
whole of that time, he was the respected and faithful incumbent of the
English Church at Canton, where he resided. Now Dr. Gray, who is still in
the prime of life, is a learned and able man; a keen observer of human
nature; a sound, solid, sensible Churchman, and so highly esteemed for his
excellent qualities, that I do not think any Englishman who ever lived in
China has left a more honoured name behind him than he has. He mixed a
great deal amongst the Chinese as well as amongst his own countrymen. He
also travelled much in China, and there really could not be found a more
competent authority as to the character of the Chinese people; and indeed
as to all matters connected with China. In 1878 he published a valuable
and trustworthy book.[3] It is not the production of a person who has
merely made a flying visit to China; but it is the work of an old and
sagacious English resident in that country, a profound thinker and
observer, of a man who has studied deeply and made himself thoroughly
acquainted with his subject. He says, at p. 15, vol. i.:--

    Of the moral character of the people, who have multiplied until they
    are "as the sands upon the sea-shore," it is very difficult to speak
    justly. The moral character of the Chinese is a book written in
    strange letters, which are more complex and difficult for one of
    another race, religion, and language to decipher than their own
    singularly compounded word-symbols. In the same individual virtues and
    vices apparently incompatible are placed side by side--meekness,
    gentleness, docility, industry, contentment, cheerfulness, obedience
    to superiors, dutifulness to parents, and reverence to the aged, are,
    in one and the same person, the companions of insincerity, lying,
    flattery, treachery, cruelty, jealousy, ingratitude, and distrust of
    others.

This is the character which an English clergyman and scholar gives of the
Chinese. Dr. Gray was not a missionary, and it is to the missionary
clergymen generally that the extraordinary and delusive statements
respecting opium which I am combating are due; the reason for which I
shall by and by give you. I hold these missionary gentlemen in the very
highest respect. In their missionary labours they have my complete
sympathy, and no person can possibly value them as such more than I do,
nor be more ready than I am to bear testimony to the ability, piety,
industry, and energy which they have always displayed. But they are not
infallible, and when they forsake or neglect their sacred functions, and
enter the arena of politics; when they cast aside the surplice and enter
the lists as political gladiators, they are liable to meet with opponents
who will accept their challenge and controvert their views, and have no
right to complain if they now and then receive hard knocks in the
encounter. They are enthusiastic in their sacred calling; but that fact,
whilst it does them honour, shows that their extraordinary assertions as
to the opium trade should be received with caution, if not distrust. They
are the men who are responsible for the unfounded views which have got
abroad on this question.

Now, is it not significant that Dr. Gray, whom the people of Canton
esteemed and respected more than any European who has lived amongst them,
except, perhaps, the late Sir Brooke Robertson (who was more Chinese than
the Chinese themselves), should have said nothing against opium in that
valuable and exhaustive work of his? Is it not passing strange that this
shrewd observer of men and manners, this intelligent English clergyman,
who has passed all these years at Canton, which, next to Hong Kong is the
great emporium of opium in the south of China, should be silent upon the
alleged iniquities that his countrymen are committing in that country? Dr.
Gray is a patriotic English gentleman. Can you suppose for a moment, that
if we were demoralizing and ruining the people of the great city of
Canton, and above all, that we were impeding the progress of the Gospel in
China, that his voice would not be heard thundering against the iniquity?
Dr. Gray is an earnest and eloquent preacher as well as an accomplished
writer; yet his voice has been silent on this alleged national crime. Is
it to be thought that, if there were any truth in the outcry spread abroad
by Mr. Storrs Turner and the Anti-Opium Society, he would have omitted to
have enlarged upon the wickedness of the opium trade when writing this
book upon China and the manners and customs of the Chinese? Is it not
remarkable that he has said not a word about that wickedness, and that all
these alleged evils arising from the trade are only conspicuous in his
book by their absence? And here I would ask, is not the silence of Dr.
Gray on this important opium question, under all the circumstances, just
as eloquent a protest against the anti-opium agitation, as if he had given
a whole chapter in his book denouncing the imposture?

But to return to the character of the Chinese. Dr. Wells Williams, a
missionary clergyman of the highest character, who, being a missionary, I
need hardly say, does not hold the views that I do, has written another
admirable book upon China.[4] In it he has described the Chinese character
very fully. He first tells us, at page 2 of the second volume, what one,
Tien Kishi--a popular essayist--thinks of foreigners.

    "I felicitate myself," he says, "that I was born in China, and
    constantly think how different it would have been with me if I had
    been born beyond the seas in some remote part of the earth, where the
    people, far removed from the converting maxims of the ancient kings
    and ignorant of the domestic relations, are clothed with the leaves of
    plants, eat wood, dwell in the wilderness, and live in the holes of
    the earth. Though born in the world in such a condition, I should not
    have been different from the beasts of the field. But now, happily, I
    have been born in the 'Middle Kingdom.' I have a house to live in,
    have food and drink and elegant furniture, have clothing and caps and
    infinite blessings--truly the highest felicity is mine."

That is still the opinion of every Chinaman respecting foreigners, save
those at Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the other treaty ports of China who,
having intermixed with foreigners, have found that their preconceived
notions respecting them were untrue, but they are but a handful, a drop in
the ocean; yet these are the people who, it is said, at our bidding and
instigation, are ruining their prospects and their health by smoking our
opium. Dr. Williams further says of them, at page 96 of the same volume:--

    More ineradicable than the sins of the flesh is the falsity of the
    Chinese and its attendant sin of base ingratitude. Their disregard of
    truth has, perhaps, done more to lower their character in the eyes of
    Christendom than any other fault. They feel no shame at being detected
    in a lie, though they have not gone quite so far as to know when they
    do lie, nor do they fear any punishment from the gods for it. Every
    resident among them and all travellers declaim against their
    mendacity.

I shall give you by-and-by instances--actual facts known to myself, to
prove that every word Dr. Williams has said is true; and further, that the
Chinese will indulge in falsehood, not merely for gain or to carry out
some corrupt purpose, but for the mere pleasure of romancing, or to
gratify and oblige a friend. Dr. Williams then goes on to moralize, and
admits that the Chinese have a great many virtues as well as a great many
very foul vices. Unquestionably they have a great many virtues, aye, and
virtues of sterling character, and amongst these are commercial honour and
probity. For commercial instincts and habits I place them next to the
British. In their affection for their parents, their attachment to the
family homestead, their veneration for the aged and the virtuous, they
surpass every other nation. These are not the class of men to allow
themselves to be befooled with opium. Another virtue they possess, and it
is one very pertinent to the subject of this lecture, is abstemiousness;
they are positively the most frugal, self-denying, and abstemious people
on the face of the earth.

Not only are the Chinese abstemious in their use of opium, but also as
regards alcoholic liquors. It is not, I think, generally known that there
is a species of spirit manufactured, and extensively used throughout
China, commonly called by foreigners "sam-shu." It is very cheap, and
there is no duty upon it in Hong Kong, nor is there any, I believe, in
their own country. I suppose a pint bottle of it can be bought for a
penny. It is a sort of whisky distilled from rice. The Chinese use it
habitually, especially after meals, and I do not think there is a single
foreign resident of Hong Kong, or any of the Treaty Ports, who does not
know this fact. The practice in China is, for the servants of Europeans to
go early to market each morning and bring home the provisions and other
household necessaries required for the day's use. I have seen, in the case
of my own servants, the bottle of sam-shu brought home morning after
morning as regularly as their ordinary daily food. Yet I never saw one of
my servants drunk or under the influence of liquor. What is more than
that, although sam-shu is so very cheap and plentiful, and is used
throughout the whole of Hong Kong, I never saw a Chinaman drunk, nor ever
knew of one being brought up before the magistrate for intemperance. I
cannot say the same thing of my own countrymen. Does not that form the
strongest possible evidence that the Chinese are an extremely steady and
abstemious race? Yet these are the people whom Mr. Storrs Turner would put
in the same category as the savages of Africa? Well, then, is it likely
that a people so abstemious in respect of spirit drinking would indulge
to excess in opium, especially if the drug has the intoxicating and
destructive qualities ascribed to it by the missionaries?

The Chinese, I have also said, are a very frugal people. Six dollars, or
about twenty-four shillings of our money, per month are considered
splendid wages by a coolie. On two dollars a month he can live
comfortably. He sends, perhaps, every month, one or two dollars to his
parents or wife in his native village; for generally a Chinaman, be he
never so poor, has a wife, it being there a duty, if not an article of
religion, for the males, to marry young. The remainder they hoard for a
rainy day. Now, I say again, if the Chinese are such abstemious and frugal
people, and that they are so is unquestionable, does not the same rule
apply to opium as to spirits? The truth of the matter is, that it is a
very inconsiderable number of those who smoke opium who indulge in it to
any considerable extent--probably about one in five thousand. When a
Chinaman's day's work is over, and he feels fatigued or weary, he will, if
he can afford it, take a whiff or two of the opium pipe, seldom more. If a
friend drops in he will offer him a pipe, just as we would invite a friend
to have a glass of sherry or a cigar. This use of the opium pipe does good
rather than harm. Those who indulge in it take their meals and sleep none
the worse. The use of the pipe, indeed, wiles them from spirit drinking
and other vicious habits. My own belief is that opium smoking exercises a
beneficial influence upon those who habitually practise it, far more so
than the indulgence in tobacco, which is simply a poisonous weed, having
no curative properties whatever. I have seen here in England many a youth
tremble and become completely unhinged by excessive smoking, so terrible
is the effect of the unwholesome narcotic on the nervous system when it is
indulged in to excess; indeed I have heard it often said that excessive
indulgence in tobacco frequently produces softening of the brain: such a
result has never proceeded from opium smoking.

I have stated in my programme of these lectures that the views put forward
by the "Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade"
were based upon fallacies and false assumptions, which account for the
many converts the advocates of that Society have made. I have now to tell
you what these fallacies and false assumptions are. In fact, these explain
pretty clearly how it has come to pass that so many otherwise sensible,
good, and benevolent people have been led astray on the opium question.

The first of these fallacies is, _that the poppy is not indigenous to
China, but has been recently introduced there, presumably by British
agency_. The truth being that the poppy is indigenous to China, as it
admittedly is to Asia generally, and has been used in China for various
purposes for thousands of years.

The second is, _that opium smoking in China is now and always has been
confined to a small per-centage of the population, but which, owing to the
introduction into the country of Indian opium, is rapidly increasing_. The
fact being that the custom is, and for many centuries has been, general
among the male adults throughout China, its use being limited only by the
ability to procure the drug.

The third is, _that opium smoking is injurious to the system, more so than
spirit drinking_. The truth being that the former is not only harmless but
beneficial to the system, unless when practised to an inordinate extent,
which is wholly exceptional; whilst spirit drinking ruins the health,
degrades the character, incites its victims to acts of violence, and
destroys the prospects of everyone who indulges to excess in the practice.

The fourth is, _that the supply of opium regulates the demand, and not the
demand the supply_. When I come to consider this in detail, I think I
shall rather surprise you by the statements in support of this
extraordinary theory put forward by Mr. Storrs Turner in this wonderful
book of his. The use of so utterly untenable a proposition shows to what
extremes fanatical enthusiasts will resort in support of the hobby they
are riding to death; how desperate men, when advocating a hopeless cause,
will grasp at shadows to support their theories. When such persons wish a
certain state of things to be true and existing, they never stop to
scrutinize the arguments they use in support of them. If Mr. Storrs Turner
had not opium on the brain to an alarming extent, and was writing by the
light of reason and common sense, he would no more dream of putting
forward such a theory than he would entertain the faintest hope of finding
any person silly enough to believe in the doctrine.

The fifth fallacy is, _that opium smoking and opium eating are equally
hurtful_. The fact being that there is the widest difference in the world
between the two practices, as I shall hereafter conclusively prove to you.
Upon this point, I may tell you, that Mr. Storrs Turner, in the appendix
to his book, gives numerous extracts from evidence taken on various
occasions as to opium _eating_, which has no relevancy to opium smoking;
not that I am even disposed to admit that even opium eating in moderation
is a baneful practice, the medical evidence on the subject being at
present very conflicting. And here I may appropriately say, that although
an overdose of opium may cause death, the mere _smoking_ of the drug in
any quantity will not do so. No case of poisoning by opium smoking has
ever been reported or heard of; such a thing, in fact, is a physical
impossibility. I daresay this may surprise some people, but it is,
nevertheless, an irrefragable fact.

The sixth is, _that all, or nearly all, who smoke opium are either
inordinate smokers or are necessarily in the way of becoming so, and that
once the custom has been commenced it cannot be dropped; but the victim to
it is compelled to go on smoking the drug to his ultimate destruction_.
That, I shall show you, upon the best evidence, is altogether untrue,
thousands of Chinese having been to my knowledge habitual and occasional
opium smokers, who showed no ill effects whatever from the practice,
which, by the way, is far more easily discontinued than the use of
alcoholic liquors.

The seventh is, _that the Chinese Government is, or ever was, anxious to
put a stop to the custom, or even to check the use, of opium amongst the
people of China_. This is one of the most ridiculous and unfounded notions
that ever entered the mind of man. There is a saying that "none are so
blind as those who will not see," and here, I shall show you, is the
strongest proof of the adage.

The eighth is, _that the British merchants in China are making large
fortunes by opium_. The fact being that the Indo-China trade is profitable
to a very few merchants only, whilst the British merchants as a body have
no interest in the trade whatever. This is a pet fallacy of Mr. Storrs
Turner, and he has shown throughout his book, and notably in his article
in the "Nineteenth Century," a determination to make the most of it. He
has evidently persuaded himself that some large English firms have made
enormous fortunes by the drug, and he seems to have made up his mind never
to forgive the enormity.

The ninth is, _that the discontinuance of the supply of opium from British
India would stop, or effectually check, the practice of opium smoking in
China_. The fact being that the suppression of the present Indo-China
opium trade, if indeed it were possible to suppress it, would have
precisely the contrary effect. I shall prove to you clearly, that if the
Indo-China opium trade, as at present carried on, were put an end to, such
an impetus would be given to the importation of opium into China as would
enormously add to the consumption of the drug, and that then British and
other merchants who have now no dealings in opium, would in such case
become largely engaged in the trade; whilst opium smuggling, the cause of
so much strife and unpleasantness in past times, would again become
general upon the coast of China.

The tenth is, _that the opposition of Chinese officials to the
introduction of opium into China arose from moral causes_. The fact being,
as every sane man acquainted with China knows, that the true reason for
such opposition was a desire to protect and promote the culture of native
opium to keep out the foreign drug, and thus prevent the bullion payable
for the latter from leaving the country.

Last, but by no means least, is the fallacy and fond delusion, _that the
introduction of Indian opium into China has arrested and is impeding the
progress of Christianity in that country, and that if the trade were
discontinued, the Chinese, or large numbers of them, would embrace the
Gospel_. The fact being, that opium smoking has had nothing whatever to do
with the propagation of Christianity in China, any more than rice or
Manchester goods, as I confidently undertake to show you when I come to
deal more fully with this outrageous fallacy. I will only now observe that
it is a remarkable fact, that while China is covered with a network of
Roman Catholic missionaries, some of whom I had the pleasure of knowing
quite intimately, I have never heard of a similar complaint having been
made by any of them, but, on the contrary, have always known them to speak
triumphantly of their great success in their missionary labours; but then
it must be remembered that these Roman Catholic missionaries, greatly to
their credit, throw their whole soul into their work, and devote their
whole time to their missionary labours, never mixing in politics or
interfering with matters of State. These are the figments which have got
hold of the Anti-Opium mind, from which has sprung the monstrosity put
forward by the Anti-Opium Society. I shall, in future lectures, return to
these fallacies, and dispose of each in turn.

I will close this lecture by giving you the testimony of a very high and
entirely impartial authority as to the innocuous effects of opium, which
strongly confirms all that I have already stated. The late John Crawfurd,
F.R.S., was a _savant_ of high reputation in England, throughout the East,
and, I believe, in Europe. He was the contemporary and intimate friend of
the late Sir Benjamin Brodie, the eminent surgeon. Mr. Crawfurd had,
previous to 1856, been Governor of the three settlements of Singapore,
Penang, and Malacca. He resided for a great number of years in the far
East, studying there the country and people; he visited Siam, Java,
Borneo, and the Phillipine Islands, making himself thoroughly acquainted
with those places, the Malay peninsula, and various other countries in the
Indian Ocean and China Sea. In 1820 he published, in London, "A History of
the Indian Archipelago" (then comparatively but seldom visited by, and
less known to, Europeans), a work, I understand, of considerable merit.
Thirty-six years afterwards, that is, in the year 1856, having during the
interval spent seven years in travelling through India and otherwise
making himself perfectly acquainted with his subject, he published "A
Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent Countries." The book was
brought out in London by the well-known firm of Bradbury and Evans, and I
have it now before me. It was lent to me by a friend since the first
edition of these lectures was published. It is an interesting and valuable
volume, affording abundant evidence of the learning, research, vast
information and talents, and the studious and energetic character of the
writer. The book was published many years before this wonderful
confederation "The Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium
Trade" sprang into existence, and, indeed, before there was any
considerable controversy upon the opium question. The opinions of this
eminent man on the subject of opium should, therefore, be viewed as wholly
unbiassed, for it is certain that he had no selfish ends to gratify.
Turning to the word "Opium" at page 313, we find the following:--

    Opium is at present largely consumed in the Malayan Islands, in China,
    in the Indo-Chinese countries, and in a few parts of Hindustan, much
    in the same way in which wine, ardent spirits, malt liquor, and cider
    are consumed in Europe. Its deleterious character has been much
    insisted on, but generally, by parties _who have had no experience of
    its effects_. Like any other narcotic or stimulant, the habitual use
    of it is amenable to abuse, and as being more seductive than other
    stimulants, perhaps more so; but this is certainly the utmost that can
    be safely charged to it. Thousands consume it without any pernicious
    result, as thousands do wine and spirits, without any evil
    consequence. I know of no person of long experience and competent
    judgment who has not come to this common-sense conclusion. Dr. Oxley,
    a physician and a naturalist of eminence, and who has had a longer
    experience than any other man of Singapore, where there is the highest
    rate of consumption of the drug, gives the following opinion:--"The
    inordinate use, or rather abuse, of the drug most decidedly does bring
    on early decrepitude, loss of appetite, and a morbid state of all the
    secretions; but I have seen a man who had used the drug for fifty
    years in moderation, without any evil effects; and one man I recollect
    in Malacca who had so used it was upwards of eighty. Several in the
    habit of smoking it have assured me that, in moderation, it neither
    impaired the functions nor shortened life; at the same time fully
    admitting the deleterious effects of too much." There is not a word of
    this that would not be equally true of the use and abuse of ardent
    spirit, wine, and, perhaps, even tobacco. The historian of Sumatra,
    whose experience and good sense cannot be questioned, came early to
    the very same conclusion. The superior curative virtues of opium over
    any other stimulant are undeniable, and the question of its
    superiority over ardent spirits appears to me to have been for ever
    set at rest by the high authority of my friend Sir Benjamin Brodie.
    "The effect of opium, when taken into the stomach," says this
    distinguished philosopher, "is not to stimulate but to soothe the
    nervous system. It may be otherwise in some instances, but these are
    rare exceptions to the general rule. The opium eater is, in a passive
    state, satisfied with his own dreamy condition while under the
    influence of the drug. He is useless but not mischievous. It is quite
    otherwise with alcoholic liquors."--"Psychological Inquiries," p. 248.

    It may be worth while to show what is really the relative consumption
    in those countries in which its use is alleged to be most pernicious.
    In the British Settlement of Singapore, owing to the high rate of
    wages, and the prevalence of a Chinese population, the consumption is
    at the rate of about three hundred and thirty grains, or adult doses,
    a year for each person. In Java, where the Chinese do not compose
    above one in a hundred of the population, and where wages are
    comparatively low, it does not exceed forty grains. Even in China
    itself, where the consumption is supposed to be so large, it is no
    more than one hundred and forty grains, chiefly _owing to the poverty
    of the people, to whom it is for the most part inaccessible_. It must
    not be forgotten, that some of the deleterious qualities of opium are
    considerably abated, in all the countries in question, by the manner
    in which it is prepared for use, _which consists in reducing it to a
    kind of morphine and inhaling its fumes in this state_. Moreover,
    everywhere consumption is restricted by heavy taxation. The opium of
    India pays, in the first instance, a tax which amounts to three
    millions sterling. The same opium in Singapore, with a population of
    sixty thousand, pays another impost of thirty thousand pounds; and, in
    Java, with a population of ten millions, one of eight hundred thousand
    pounds. _Not the use, then, but the abuse, of opium is prejudicial to
    health_; but in this respect it does not materially differ from wine,
    distilled spirits, malt liquor, or hemp juice. There may be shades of
    difference in the abuse of all these commodities, but they are not
    easily determined, and, perhaps, hardly worth attempting to
    appreciate. There is nothing mysterious about the intoxication
    produced by ordinary stimulants, because we are familiar with it; but
    it is otherwise with that resulting from opium, to which we are
    strangers. We have generally only our imaginations to guide us with
    the last, and we associate it with deeds of desperation and murder;
    _the disposition to commit which, were the drug ever had recourse to
    on such occasions, which it never is, it would surely allay and not
    stimulate_.




LECTURE II.


I closed my first lecture with a list of fallacies, upon which the
objections to the Indo-China opium trade, and the charges brought against
England in relation to that trade, are founded, stating that I should
return to them and dispose of each separately. I also said in the earlier
part of my lecture, that the extraordinary hallucinations which had taken
hold of the public mind, with respect to opium smoking in China, arose,
amongst other causes, from the fact that the public had formed their
opinions from hearsay evidence, and that of the very worst and most
untrustworthy kind. I say untrustworthy because hearsay evidence, although
in general inadmissible in our law courts, may be in some cases very good
and reliable evidence. As this point goes to the root of all these
fallacies and false assertions, and the delusions based upon them, I wish
to show you why hearsay evidence is, in this case, of the worst and most
unreliable kind. In the first instance, I would refer you to the general
character of the Chinese for mendacity and deceit, admitted by all writers
upon the subject of China and the Chinese, and supported by the general
opinion of Europeans who have dwelt amongst them. Now, I am far from
saying that every Chinaman is necessarily a liar, or habitually tells
untruths for corrupt purposes. The point is, rather, that the Chinese do
not understand truth in the sense that we do. The evidence of Chinese
witnesses in courts of justice is notorious for its untrustworthy
character. The judges are not generally contented with the direct and
cross-examination to which witnesses are ordinarily subjected by counsel,
but frequently themselves put them under a searching examination, and
generally require more evidence in the case of Chinese than they would
if Europeans were alone concerned.

From my acquaintance of the Chinese I can say that they are a very
good-natured people, especially when good-nature does not cost them much;
but they are also a very vindictive people, as, I suppose, most heathen
nations are. I have known cases where, to gratify private malice, or to
obtain some object, the reason for which would be hard for us to
appreciate, a Chinaman has got up a charge without foundation in fact, but
supported by false witnesses, who were so well drilled and had so
thoroughly rehearsed their parts that it was hard to doubt, and almost
impossible to disprove, the accusation. By such means innocent men have
been condemned and sentenced to severe punishments, or been unjustly
compelled to pay large sums of money. I have, on the other hand, known
cases which, according to the evidence brought before me, appeared
perfectly clear and good in law; but on taking each witness quietly into
my own office, and going through his evidence, the whole fabric would
tumble down like a pack of cards; so that, although my client's case might
still be intrinsically good, the witnesses he brought in support of it
knew nothing about it beyond what they had heard from others. It would
turn out that they had been told this by one person, that by another, and
so on, throughout the series of witnesses, not one of them would have any
actual knowledge of the alleged facts. In cases like these there would
probably be no corrupt motive whatever.

While upon this point I may allude to another peculiar phase in the
Chinese character. They are so addicted to falsehood that they will
embellish truth, even in cases where they have the facts on their own
side. On such occasions they like to add to their story a fringe of
falsehood, thinking, perhaps, that by doing so, they will make the truth
stand out in brighter colours and appear more favourable in the eyes of
the Court and the Jury. Another Chinese peculiarity is the following:--If
you put leading questions to a Chinaman upon any particular subject, that
is to say, if you interrogate him upon a point, and by your mode of doing
so induce him to think that you are desirous of getting one particular
kind of answer, he gives you that answer accordingly, out of mere
good-nature. In these instances his imagination is wonderfully fertile.
The moment he finds his replies afford pleasure, and that there is an
object in view, he will give his questioner as much information of this
kind as he likes. Not only is this the case with the common people,
corresponding to the working or the labouring classes here, but the habit
really pervades the highest ranks of Chinese society. It is mentioned in
Dr. Williams's work, how the Chinese as a people think it no shame in
being detected in a falsehood. It is very hard to understand, especially
for an Englishman, such moral obtuseness. We are so accustomed to consider
truth in the first place, and to look upon perjury and falsehood with
abhorrence, that it may seem almost like romancing to gravely assure you
of these facts.

If I relate a few short anecdotes which are absolutely true, and in which
I was personally concerned, I may put the matter more clearly before you.
A Chinese merchant, now in Hong Kong, once instructed me to prosecute a
claim against a ship-master for short delivery of cargo, and from the
documents he gave me, and the witnesses he produced, I had no hesitation
in pronouncing his case a good one, although I knew the man was
untruthful. When we came into court, knowing my client's proclivities, my
only fear was that he would not be content with simply telling the truth,
but would so embellish it with falsehood that the judge would not believe
his story. I therefore not only cautioned him myself in "pidgin English,"
but instructed my Chinese clerk and interpreter to do so also. My last
words to him on going into court were, "Now mind you talkee true. Suppose
you talkee true you win your case. Suppose you talkee lie you losee." The
man went into the witness-box, and I am bound to say that on that occasion
he did tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, but I could plainly see
by his manner and bearing that the task was a most irksome one. When he
left the box, after cross-examination, I felt greatly relieved. The
defendant, who, I am glad to say, was not an Englishman, although he
commanded a British ship, told falsehood after falsehood. There could be
no doubt about this, and the judge, Mr. Snowden, the present Puisne Judge
of Hong Kong, at last ordered him to leave the box, and gave judgment for
my client. Notwithstanding this satisfactory result, I saw that the
plaintiff was still dissatisfied. I left the court and he followed me
out. He still seemed discontented, and had the air of an injured man. When
we got clear of the court he actually assailed me for having closed his
mouth and deprived him of the luxury of telling untruths. "What for," said
he, "you say my no talkee lie? that man have talkee plenty lie." I
replied, "Oh, that man have losee; you have won." But with anger in his
countenance, he walked sullenly away.

Now I will tell you another--and a totally different case. The judge on
this occasion was the late Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of Hong Kong. It
was an action brought by a Chinese merchant, carrying on business in
Cochin China, against his agent in Hong Kong, a countryman of his, who had
not accounted for goods consigned to him for sale. The plaintiff put his
case in my hands. When it came into court the defendant was supported by
witnesses who seemed to have no connection whatever with the
subject-matter of the suit. They, however, swore most recklessly. In
cross-examination one of the witnesses completely broke down. The Chief
Justice then stopped the case, and characterized the defendant's conduct
"as the grossest attempt at fraud he had ever met with since he had come
to China," and, under the special powers he possessed, sent the false
witness to gaol for six weeks. The person so punished for perjury proved
to be what we would call a Master of Arts. He was, in fact, an expectant
mandarin, ranking very high in China. I should tell you that in that
country there is no regular hereditary nobility, nor any aristocracy save
the mandarin or official class. The fact is, and in view of Mr. Storrs
Turner's comparison of the Chinese with the savages of Central Africa, I
may here mention it, that in China--where these simple, innocent
"aborigines," as it suits the anti-opium advocates to treat them,
flourish--education is the sole criterion of rank and precedence. They
have a competitive system there, which is undoubtedly the oldest in the
world. This man, as I said, was a Master of Arts, and would, in regular
course, have been appointed to an important official post and taken rank
as a mandarin. He was, I believe, at the time of his sentence, one of the
regular examiners at the competitive examinations of young men seeking for
employment in the Civil Service of the Empire. When the case ended, I
dismissed it from my mind. But, to my great surprise, six or seven of the
leading Chinamen of Hong Kong waited upon me on the following day, and
implored of me to get this man out of gaol. They declared that the whole
Chinese community of Hong Kong felt degraded at having one of their
superior order, a learned Master of Arts, consigned to a foreign prison.
They assured me that this was the greatest indignity that could have been
offered to the Chinese people. I replied that the fact of the prisoner
being a man of education only aggravated his offence, that he had
deliberately perjured himself in order to cheat my client, and that the
foreign community considered his punishment far too lenient, for had he
been a foreigner he would have got a far more severe punishment. But they
could not see the matter in that light, and went away dissatisfied. They
afterwards presented a petition to the Governor, praying for the man's
release, but without success. My object in narrating this to you is to
show the utter contempt which the Chinese, not only of the lower orders,
but of the better class, have for the truth. I could supplement these
cases by many others, all showing that the Chinese do not regard the
difference between truth and falsehood in the sense that we do.

To illustrate more clearly what I have told you, I will read to you a
short passage from a leading article in the "China Mail," a daily
newspaper published in Hong Kong. The date of the paper is the 3rd of
October 1881. The editor is a gentleman who has been out there for twenty
years; he is a man of considerable ability and knows the Chinese character
perfectly, and I may also mention that he is a near relative of Mr. Storrs
Turner. This is what he says:--

    The question of the reliability of Chinese witnesses is one which is
    continually presenting itself to all who have anything to do with
    judicial proceedings in this colony, and as jurors are usually saddled
    with the responsibility of deciding how far such evidence is to be
    credited in most serious cases, the subject is one which appeals to a
    large body of residents. An eminent local authority, some time since,
    gave it as his opinion that he did not think a Chinese witness could
    give accurate evidence, even if the precise truth would best suit his
    purpose. This is doubtless true to some extent, and it bears directly
    on one phase of the discussion, viz. that of reliableness, so far as
    strict accuracy of detail is concerned. But a witness may be regarded
    as the witness of truth although he fails in that extremely precise or
    accurate narration of facts and details which goes so far to
    strengthen truthful testimony. What is meant here by reliability of
    witnesses, however, is their desire to tell what they _believe_ to be
    the truth. It has been somewhere said, by one of authority on Chinese
    matters, that it is not particularly surprising that the Chinese, as a
    people, are so widely known as economisers of the truth, when their
    system of government is carefully considered. For a Chinaman, life
    assumes so many phases, in which a good round lie becomes a valuable
    commodity, that the only surprise remaining is, that he is ever known
    to tell the truth.

That is exactly what I have already said. It would occupy too much time to
read the rest of the article, which is ably written, but the portion I
have quoted tends to show the unreliability of Chinese witnesses, even in
a solemn Court of Justice.

Now, I think, I have shown you that our Celestial friends present rather
an unpromising raw material from which to extract the truth. Yet these are
the men from whom the missionaries derive their information as to those
wonderful consequences from opium smoking which, the more greedily
swallowed, are the more liberally supplied, thus affording an illustration
of Mr. Storrs Turner's extraordinary theory of supply and demand, of which
I shall have to speak more by and by. Having exhibited to you the well of
truth from which credible evidence is sought to be obtained, I have now to
turn to the other side of the question and describe the character and
competence of those who draw their facts from that source, and from whom
the general public have mainly derived their knowledge of opium and opium
smoking.

As regards the missionaries, I have stated already that I hold them in the
very highest respect, and they are well deserving of it, and, indeed, of
the consideration of the whole community. Were I to state anything to
their prejudice or disadvantage, further than what I assert as to their
fallacious views and unjustifiable conduct on the opium question, I should
certainly be speaking without warrant; for a more respectable,
hard-working, or conscientious body of gentlemen it would be difficult to
find. Perhaps they are the hardest worked and worst paid class of any
foreigners in China. They have a work to perform, the difficulty of which
is but partially understood in this country; that is, the task of
converting to Christianity these heathen people, who think Confucianism
and the other religions engrafted upon it which they follow, and which
seem to suit their temperament, immeasurably superior to ours; who point
to our prophets and sages as men of yesterday, and look with comparative
contempt upon our literature, laws, and customs. The real difficulty of
the situation lies in these facts; believe me, that it is as absurd as it
is untrue to say that opium has had anything to do with the slow progress
of Christianity in China. Missionary clergymen in China are really not the
best men to get at the facts of the opium question. If a foreigner, here
in England, were to ask me in which quarter he would be likely to obtain
the best information regarding the manners and customs of the English
people, I should certainly advise him to get introductions to some of our
working clergy of all denominations, because they are the people's trusted
friends and advisers, sharing in their joys and sympathizing in their
sorrows, their wants and necessities. They are educated and matter-of-fact
men, just the class of persons to afford sound and accurate information as
to the country and people. This, I believe, will be generally admitted.
The same rule would not apply to our missionary clergymen in China; for
they, unlike our clergy at home, are not the trusted friends and advisers
of the Chinese people, and, knowing really very little of the inner life
of the people, cannot be said to sympathize in their wants and
necessities. No doubt there have been some admirable books written on
China by missionary clergymen, such as the "Middle Kingdom," from which I
have already quoted, and Dr. Doolittle's work; but everyone who has lived
long in China takes all their statements on every point affecting their
missionary labours, and upon many other matters also, _cum grano_. So far
as the manners and customs of the Chinese can be understood from their
outdoor life, literature, and laws, they are competent judges enough; but
as they are not admitted into Chinese society, and do not possess the
confidence of the people, they cannot be accepted as authorities on the
inner social life of the natives, so far as regards opium-smoking. They
have not at all the same status as regards the Chinese that English
clergymen have in respect to their own countrymen here in England; and if
a friend were to put such a question to me respecting China and the
Chinese, the last people I would refer him to for information would be the
missionary clergymen. These missionary gentlemen, if they were at home in
England, would, no doubt, have their livings and vicarages, and would take
their place with the regular clergy of the country. But in China things
are totally different. There the people not only despise them, but laugh
at the creed they are trying to teach. The simplicity of the Gospel is too
cold for them. Teeming with the marvellous as their own religions do, no
other creed seems acceptable to them that does not deal in startling
miracles and offer a continuous supply of supernatural feats. Anyone who
reads Dr. Legge's book, on the religions of China, will see this at once.
The Chinese have an accepted belief three or four thousand years older
than Christianity, and they are well aware of the fact. Despising
Europeans, as they do, and looking upon themselves as a superior race, it
is not likely that the Chinese will take missionary clergymen into their
confidence, or afford them any trustworthy information about private or
personal matters. In short, there is no cordiality between the Chinese and
the missionaries.

Still our Chinese friends are a very polite people, and no doubt they are
and will continue to be outwardly very civil to missionaries, and,
although they may consider them impudent intruders, will give courteous
answers to their questions; but it does not follow that they will give
_true_ answers. A respectable Chinaman, such as a merchant, a shopkeeper,
or an artizan, would consider himself disgraced among his own community if
it were known that he had embraced Christianity, or even entertained the
thought of doing so. I do not think that, long as I was in China, I had a
single regular Chinese client who was a Christian. All my native
clients--merchants, shopkeepers, clerks, artizans, and coolies, and I have
had professional dealings with thousands of them--were heathens. In very
rare instances Chinese professing Christianity will be found holding
respectable positions; but, I regret to say, I do not believe that any of
such people are sincere. I had myself a clerk in my office for about
twelve years; he was a young man educated at St. Paul's College, in Hong
Kong. The College is now closed, but when in existence the pupils there
got an excellent education, and were also well clothed and fed. They were
not only taught Chinese, as is the case in Chinese schools, but also to
read and speak English well. When he went to the school he was not more
than seven or eight years old, and left it probably when he was fourteen
or fifteen. He was an excellent clerk, a highly intelligent young fellow,
and wrote and spoke English well. Now, if ever there were a case where a
lad might be expected to be a sincere convert this was the one. He had
been strictly brought up as a Christian, went to church, and read the
Bible regularly, and, indeed, was far more kindly treated in the College
than English lads are in many schools in this country. Even that boy was
not a sincere convert.

When about eighteen years of age he got married, as is the custom with the
youth of China. On informing me of his intention, he asked me to procure
from the Superintendent of Police the privilege of having "fire crackers"
at his wedding, a heathen custom, supposed to drive away evil spirits. I
reminded him that I had always believed him a Christian; when he said,
"Oh! it's a Chinese custom." However, I got him the privilege. But instead
of being solemnized in the church, which he had been in the habit of
attending when a pupil in St. Paul's College, according to the rites of
the Church of England, his marriage ceremony was celebrated in Chinese
fashion, a primitive proceeding, and certainly heathen in its form. He
never went near the church at all. A few days afterwards I remarked to him
that he had not been married in the church. He laughed, and said, "that as
he and his wife were Chinese they could only be married according to
Chinese custom."

Let me give another story in point. I knew a man in Hong Kong who, owing
to the difficulty of finding suitable natives who understood English, was
for a long time the only Chinese on the jury list. He spoke English fairly
well. He was educated at a school presided over by the late Rev. Dr.
Morrison, the learned sinologue, who had lived in Hong Kong before my
time. His school was an excellent one, and had turned out some very good
scholars. I have seen this man go into the jury-box, and often too, into
the witness-box, and take the Bible in his hand and kiss it
ostentatiously. I used to think he was a sincere Christian, and was glad
to see so respectable a Chinaman (for he held a responsible position in a
bank) acknowledge in public that he was a Christian. But that man, I
afterwards discovered from the best possible authority, was at heart a
heathen; he always had idols, or, as we call them, "Josses," in his house.
He also was a Christian in name, and nothing more.

There was another man educated in Dr. Morrison's school. Dr. Legge knew
him very well, and was a sort of patron of his. I suppose it is pretty
well known that polygamy is a custom in China, and that it is quite an
exception for a Chinese in any decent position there not to have three,
four, or more wives; the more he has the greater his consequence among his
countrymen. This man, as a matter of fact, had three wives, and when his
so-called first wife died, he was in a great fright lest Dr. Legge should
discover that he had two more wives, for it is customary that the other
wives should attend the funeral of the first as mourners. Now these are
the sort of converts, for the most part, to be met with in China. As a
rule, they are far less honest and more untruthful than their heathen
countrymen, and many Europeans in consequence will not take converts into
their service. In proof of this statement I will here give you an extract
from a very able article which appeared in the "Hong Kong Daily Press," an
old and well conducted newspaper, of the 31st October 1882. This is it:--

    They [the missionaries] secure some adherence to the Christian
    religion, no doubt, but what is the value of the Christianity? It
    possesses, so far as we have been able to judge, neither stamina nor
    backbone. Foreigners at Hong Kong, and at the Treaty Ports, fight shy
    of Christian servants, a very general impression existing that they
    are less reliable than their heathen fellows; and with regard to the
    Christians in their own villages and towns, there is always a
    suspicion of interested motives.

Are these Chinese converts the class of the Chinese from which truth is to
be gleaned? Is the testimony of such people of the slightest value? Yet
these are the persons from whom the missionaries derive their knowledge of
opium smoking and its alleged baneful effects. I venture to say that among
all the so-called Christian converts in China you will not find five per
cent. who are really sincere--all the rest profess Christianity to obtain
some personal advantage. These so-called converts are generally people
from the humblest classes, because, as I have mentioned, people of the
better class, such as merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen, not only
consider their own religion superior to the Christian's creed, but they
would be ashamed to adopt Christianity, as they would thus be disgraced
and make themselves appear ridiculous in the eyes of their neighbours;
and they are a people peculiarly sensitive to ridicule. I will not say
that there are not some true converts to be found among Chinese
congregations; if there are none, the missionary clergymen are certainly
not to blame, for they are indefatigable in their exertions to make
converts, proving also by their blameless lives the sincerity of their
professions. As I have said, the difficulty attending their efforts is
enormous. It must be remembered that in China we are not teaching
Christianity to the poor African, or the semi-civilised native of
Madagascar or the Fiji Islands; but that we are dealing with civilized
men, who consider their own country and literature, customs and religion,
far superior to those of England or of any other country in the world. The
Chinese are so convinced of this, that the very coolies in the streets
consider themselves the superiors of the foreign ladies and gentlemen that
pass, or whom, perhaps, they are carrying in their sedan chairs.

I hold the missionaries altogether responsible for the hallucination that
has taken possession of the public mind on the opium question. With the
Bible they revere in their hands, they think the Chinese should eagerly
embrace the doctrine it inculcates, and, unable to account for their
failure, they readily accept the subterfuge offered by certain Chinese for
not accepting Christianity or attending to their teaching. They feel that
it is, or may be, expected of them in this country, that they should have
large congregations of native proselytes, such as, I believe, the
missionaries have in Madagascar, and in like places, forgetting that no
parallel can be drawn between such races and the Chinese. The Protestant
missionary clergymen in China are, not unnaturally, anxious to account for
their supposed failure in that large and heathen country. They would not
be human if they were not. The better class of Chinese, as I have said,
will not listen to a missionary, or argue with him. They do not want to
hear lectures on Christianity, and grow impatient at any disparaging
remark about their own religion. They simply say, "We have a religion that
is better than yours, and we mean to stick to it." The missionaries,
however, think they ought to have better success. They are, no doubt,
indefatigable in their labours, and as they do not meet with the results
that ought, they consider, to follow from their labours, and as their
sanguine minds cling to any semblance of excuse for their shortcomings,
they accept the stale and miserable subterfuge, to the use of which their
converts are prompted by the Mandarins, that the Indo-China opium trade is
vicious, and that before Christianity is accepted by the country, the
trade in question must be abolished. This transparent evasion of the
Chinese appears to me to bear too strong a family likeness to the famous
"confidence trick," with which the police reports now and then make us
acquainted, to be entertained for a moment.

The Chinese, knowing the weakness of the missionaries, play upon it; and
one of the best instances I can give you that they are successful is
this:--They tell them that the Chinese Government objects to the opium
trade upon moral grounds; but it never occurs to the missionaries to
retort and say, "If so, why does your Government not prevent the
cultivation of opium throughout China? In the provinces of Yunnan and
Szechuen, and all over the Empire, indeed, enormous crops of opium are
raised every year; why does not your Government, knowing, as you say, that
the effects of opium are so fatal, put a stop to the growth of the
deleterious drug?" This question would prove rather a difficult one to
answer, though the Mandarins, skilful casuists as they are, would no doubt
invent some specious one which might impose upon their interrogators. The
mental vision of our missionary friends is so limited to one side only of
the question, that even here they might be taken in by the astute natives.
It is only of late that the Chinese Government has taken up the moral
objection, and the reason, I believe, it has done so is because it has
found out the weak side of the missionaries, probably through _The Friend
of China_, published at Shanghai.

When it is taken into account that of late years the average quantity of
Indian opium imported into China is about one hundred thousand chests,
each of which, for all practical purposes, may be called a hundredweight,
and that the price of each of these chests landed in China is about seven
hundred dollars, and that the whole works up to something like sixteen
millions sterling, the strong objection of the Mandarin classes to allow
such a large amount of specie to leave the country becomes intelligible.
Rapacious plunderers as they are, they see their prey escaping them before
their very eyes, and are powerless to snatch it back. These sixteen
millions, they think, would be all fair game for "squeezing" if we could
only keep them at home. For although China is an immense empire, with
great natural resources, it is still a poor country as regards the
precious metals. No doubt an economist would tell these Mandarins: "It is
true we sell you all this opium, but then we give you back again all the
money you pay for it, with a great deal more besides, for the purchase of
your tea and silk." But a Mandarin would only laugh at such an argument.
"Ah," he would say, "you must have tea and silk in any case; you can't do
without them. We want to get hold of your silver and give you none of ours
in return." That is the true cause, or one of the true causes, of the
objection of the Government of China to the importation into that country
of Indian opium.

The missionaries, or at all events the greater number of them, have
adopted the view, that if they could only put a stop to the importation of
Indian opium into China the evangelization of the country would be a
question of time only; and in one sense, indeed, this would be true; but
the time would not be near, but very distant. The Chinese have a keen
sense of humour, and if the British would allow themselves to be cajoled
by the specious arguments with which the religious world here is
constantly regaled about the opium question, so far as to put a stop to
the traffic, such a feeling of contempt for English common sense, and in
consequence for the religion of Englishmen, would ensue, that the spread
of the Gospel in China would be greatly retarded indeed. The truth about
opium is so clear to those who trust to the evidence of their senses, and
who look at facts from a plain common sense point of view, that they
cannot for a moment see that there is any connection whatever between
opium and Christianity. It seems to me that those gentlemen who adopt the
anti-opium doctrine, and scatter it abroad, are only comparable to the
monomaniac, who, sane upon every subject but one, is thoroughly daft upon
that. No better example of this can I give you than by referring to a
speech made by a gentleman deservedly respected by the community, whom I
have always considered as one of the hardest-headed men sitting in the
House of Commons, possessing sound common sense upon all subjects save
that of opium. I refer to Sir J. W. Pease, the Member for South Durham.
In the year 1881 the usual anti-opium debate came on in the House of
Commons. Sir J. W. Pease delivered a speech on the occasion denunciatory
of the Indo-China trade, in the course of which he referred to the treaty
recently made between China and America, one of the clauses of which
provides that American ships shall not import opium into China, and that
no Chinaman shall be allowed to import opium into America, where there is
a large Chinese population, especially in San Francisco. The treaty
relates to other matters, and this clause is, so to speak, interpolated
into it, for a purpose I shall now explain. It was intended to appear as a
sort of _quid pro quo_, for whilst America, in fact, gave up nothing,
though she affected to do so, she obtained some commercial advantages by
the treaty. This is the clause:--

    The Governments of China and of the United States mutually agree and
    undertake that Chinese subjects shall not be permitted to import opium
    into any of the ports of the United States; and citizens of the United
    States shall not be permitted to import opium into any of the open
    ports of China. This absolute prohibition, which extends to vessels
    owned by the citizens or subjects of either Power, to foreign vessels
    employed by them or to vessels owned by the citizens or subjects of
    either Power, and employed by other persons for transportation of
    opium, shall be enforced by appropriate legislation on the part of
    China and the United States, and the benefits of the favoured claims
    in existing treaties shall not be claimed by the citizens or subjects
    of either Power as against the provisions of this article.

I happened to be weather-bound in Rome when I first read, in a Hong Kong
paper, that amusing and deceptive treaty, which was made in 1880. Knowing
thoroughly the situation, and all the facts connected with the Indo-China
opium trade, I undertake to assure you that so far, at least, as regards
this opium clause, that treaty was simply a farce. With the single
exception of a line of mail packet steamers between Hong Kong and San
Francisco, America has few or no steamers trading in the China seas. She
has protected her mercantile marine so well that she has now very little
occasion for exercising her protection. She has no vessels trading between
India and China, and never has had any, and, as a matter of fact, no
American ships carry one ounce of opium between India or China, or to the
port of Hong Kong, or have carried it for many years, if, indeed, any
American vessel has ever done so. Nor is there, indeed, at present the
slightest probability that her ships will ever convey opium between India
and China. America, in fact, might, with as much self-denial, have
undertaken not to carry coals to Newcastle as Indian opium to China. There
are regular lines of British steamers plying between the ports of Bombay,
Calcutta, and Hong Kong, by which all Indian opium for the China trade is
carried direct to its destination.

I declare that anything more absurd, deceptive, and dishonest never formed
the subject of an international treaty. The whole affair was so utterly
false and misleading that the first thing I did after reading the treaty
was to cut it out from the newspaper and forward it, with an explanatory
letter, to the "Times," the usual refuge of the aggrieved Briton. This
deceptive clause was intended simply to mislead the simple, benevolent,
good-natured John Bull, already, as the framers of the treaty no doubt
supposed, half-crazed on the anti-opium movement. A better specimen of
American smartness and Chinese astuteness could hardly be conceived than
this crafty and fallacious clause. America has no opium to sell or import,
and can, therefore, afford to be extremely generous on the point. It is
just possible, however, that at a future day opium may be produced in the
South-Western States, in which case the American Government--I will not
say the American people, for I hold _them_ in great respect--will
endeavour to wriggle out of this precious treaty, just as they are now
trying to do as regards the Panama convention with this country, when the
possibility that gave rise to it is likely to become a reality. The
stipulation that Chinese subjects should not be permitted to import opium
into any of the ports of the United States is of course absolute nonsense.
If the American Government had really intended to prohibit opium from
being imported from China, or elsewhere, into their country they should
not have confined the prohibition to Chinese subjects, but have extended
it to all nationalities; in fact, to have made opium, save for medical
purposes, contraband. To explain this point more clearly, you will
remember what I have mentioned before, that the exclusive right to
manufacture crude opium into the form used for smoking, called in China
"prepared opium," is farmed out. The present farmer pays the Government of
Hong Kong two hundred and five thousand dollars, or forty thousand pounds
a year for the monopoly. The reason why he pays so large a sum for this
privilege is because of the facilities it affords him for exporting it to
other places, and not merely to get the exclusive right of preparing and
selling the drug in Hong Kong, for if that were all the benefit to be
derived from the monopoly he would not give so large a rent for it. The
greater source of profit arises from the circumstance that the Chinese
must have the beloved stimulant wherever they roam. If you go to
Australia, the Philippine Islands, the Straits, Borneo, or the town of
Saigon in French Cochin China, or wherever else dollars are to be made,
you will find Chinese in abundance. Go to the South Seas, go to the
Sandwich or the Fiji Islands, you will discover the Chinese happy and
prosperous, and you will always see in their houses the opium pipe. The
advantage of having the exclusive privilege in Hong Kong of preparing and
selling opium consists in this, that it is the terminus of an American
line of steamers which ply between that port and San Francisco. It is also
the port from which British lines of steamers run to Australia, Tasmania,
and New Zealand. These packets always take with them consignments of
prepared opium ready for smoking, because at these places there are large
and well-to-do Chinese communities who can afford to indulge in the
national luxury of opium smoking. I have already told you that I was for
about ten years solicitor for that opium firm, and I happen to know a
great deal about the prepared opium trade through that medium. The Chinese
in California, where there is an immense number of those people, do not
consume less, I should say, in the course of a year than one hundred
thousand pounds worth of prepared opium. As is the case in Hong Kong, the
Chinese have better means to buy the drug there than they would have at
home. They get high wages, keep shops, are excellent tradesmen, and can
live and make money where a European would starve. They are all, in fact,
well-to-do, and wherever a Chinaman has the money he must have his opium
pipe. Therefore the privilege of supplying the Chinese in California,
Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, and in the South Sea Islands, where
are large China colonies, is enjoyed by the opium farmer of Hong Kong,
because he has the means of shipping the drug by steamers direct to those
places, thus out-distancing all other competitors. This trade,
notwithstanding that wonderful treaty, is still going on, and not one
ounce of opium less than was shipped before its ratification is now being
carried to San Francisco, and in American bottoms too, for the treaty only
says that no _Chinaman_ shall import opium into America; there is no
prohibition against Americans or Europeans doing so. What the opium farmer
now does, if indeed he has not always done so, is to get an American or
other merchant in Hong Kong to ship the drug for him in his own name,
handing him, the opium farmer, the bill of lading. The opium is
accordingly shipped in the name of Brown, Jones, or Robinson, and on its
arrival at San Francisco the opium farmer's consignee takes possession of
it, and it is distributed by him among his countrymen in that flourishing
city.

If Sir J. W. Pease were not an enthusiast, ready to swallow without
hesitation everything which seems to tell against the opium traffic, and
to disbelieve everything said or written on the other side of the
question, he would have seen through all this as a matter of course. This
is what he said about the treaty in the speech I have referred to, having
first delivered a philippic on the enormities and terrible wickedness of
the traffic:--

    Only last year a treaty was entered into between the United States and
    China, and one of the articles of that treaty distinctly stated that
    the opium trade was forbidden, and that no American ship should become
    an opium trader--a fact which showed that the Chinese authorities were
    honest in their expressed desire to put an end to the trade.

Sir J. W. Pease is the most confiding of men; to my mind the treaty should
be construed in a very different sense. Sometimes, when we want to convey
our sentiments to another, we do so indirectly. There is a very well
understood method of attaining that object. Instead of opening your mind
to Mr. Jones, who is the object of your intended edification, you will in
Mr. Jones's presence address your remarks to Mr. Brown; but in reality,
although you are speaking to the latter, you are speaking at the former.
Now the whole object of this precious article of the treaty was to play a
similar piece of finesse. Both nations well understood what they were
about; they were simply trying to hoodwink and make fools of John Bull by
putting into the treaty this false and hypocritical clause, which, as
between themselves, each party well knew meant nothing to the other. Here
is Sir J. W. Pease, a sensible and astute man of business, with his eyes
open, yet, blinded by his good nature and anti-opium prejudice, falling
into the trap set for him, and allowing himself to be deceived by this
transparent piece of humbug, and quoting in the House of Commons this
"bogus" treaty as evidence that the Indo-China opium trade is so infamous
that the American Government intended, so far as they were concerned, to
put a stop to it, and that the Chinese Government wish to abolish it on
moral grounds. I give you this as an example of the lengths to which
otherwise sensible gentlemen will go when smitten with opium-phobia, and
how oblivious they become under such circumstances to actual facts.
Imagine how his Excellency Li Hung Chang, that very able Chinese
statesman, and those smart American diplomatists who have thus posed as
anti-opium philanthropists, must have enjoyed the fun of being able to so
completely bamboozle an English member of Sir J. W. Pease's reputation!

Now, although I have exposed this Americo-Chinese juggle, I am far from
meaning to cast the slightest imputation upon Sir J. W. Pease, whose
personal character I in common with the whole country hold in the very
highest respect. I am well assured that in bringing forward his motion in
the House of Commons he was actuated by a sense of duty, and the very
purest motives, and that in referring to the treaty in question he fully
believed in its _bona fides_; upon this point I am at one with his warmest
admirers. No one deservedly stands higher as a philanthropist and
Christian gentleman, and, save as regards this opium delusion, no man has
ever made a nobler use of an ample fortune than he.

I may speak in the same terms of the venerable and universally-respected
nobleman who is the president of the Anti-Opium Society, whose whole life
has been devoted to the welfare of his fellow men, especially those who
stood most in need of his help. I referred in the first edition of this
lecture to a Most Reverend Prelate, honoured and beloved both by his own
countrymen, and, I believe, the whole Christian world, who is also, I
deeply deplore, a believer in the anti-opium delusion, but in doing so
nothing was farther from my intentions than to lay aside for a moment the
respect that was due to him as a man and a high dignitary of the church. I
revere and honour him and admire his great and noble qualities as much as
any man living. Born and brought up as I have been in the Church of
England, and sincerely attached to its doctrine and teaching, having near
and dear relatives, too, ministers of that church, the last thing I would
be capable of doing is to harbour an unkind thought, or utter a
disrespectful word, against any of her clergy, much less one of her most
honoured prelates. These three good and upright men are, I am sorry to
say, but types of a great many other most estimable people, many of them
ornaments to their country, who through the purity and overflowing
goodness of their hearts, have been dragged into the vortex of delusion
set afloat by the Anti-Opium Society--who allow themselves to be cajoled
and victimised--led by the nose, in fact, by anti-opium fanatics, who,
cunning as the madman and perfectly regardless of the means they resort to
in the prosecution of what they consider right, bring to their aid the
zeal of the missionary and the power for mischief which superior education
and mis-directed talents confer. This is what rouses one's indignation and
compels me to pursue the unpleasant task of discrediting and otherwise
painfully referring to men whom, apart from this wretched opium delusion,
I honour and respect.

Upon this point I cannot refrain from referring to a gentleman of high
standing, who had formerly been in China, and really ought to have known
better. That gentleman went so far as to write a letter to the "Times," in
which he said that out of one hundred missionaries in China there was not
one who would receive a convert into his church until he had made a vow
against opium smoking. Bearing in mind that all these so-called converts
made by these one hundred missionaries belong for the most part to the
very poor, if not to the dregs of the people, I should think no missionary
clergyman would find much difficulty in obtaining such a pledge. He has
only to ask and to have. If a clergyman in a very poor neighbourhood in
the East End of London proposed to his congregation that they should
promise never to drink champagne, he would receive such a pledge without
difficulty from one and all; but if any kind person were afterwards to
give them a banquet of roast beef and plum-pudding, with plenty of
champagne to wash those good things down, I am afraid their vow would be
found to be very elastic.

So it is with the congregations of these missionary clergymen; there is
not an individual amongst them who would refuse to enjoy the opium pipe if
he got the chance, however much they might declaim against the practice to
please the missionary. Opium, as the missionaries must well know, is a
luxury that can only be indulged in by those who have the means of paying
for it. Now, while twopence or threepence may appear to us a very
insignificant sum, such will not be the opinion of a very poor person.
Threepence will purchase a loaf of bread. So it is with the Chinese,
especially those residing in their own territory. There is only one class
of coin current in China. It is known by Europeans as "cash." Ten should
equal a cent, or a halfpenny, but owing to the inferiority of the metal
they are made of, twelve or thirteen usually go to make one cent of
English money, so that ten cents, or fivepence of our money, would be
about one hundred and thirty cash. A poor Chinaman possessing that sum
would think that he had got hold of quite a pocketful of money, and so it
would prove, so far as regards a little rice or salt fish, which forms
part of most Chinamen's daily food; but were he so foolish as to indulge
in opium, a few whiffs of the pipe would soon swallow up the whole. And
then there arises the difficulty of getting the cash, so that it is really
only people having command of a fair amount of money who can afford to
indulge, habitually at all events, in the luxury of the pipe.

Now with respect to the alleged evil effects of opium smoking, you will
constantly hear stories from missionary sources of wretched people, the
slaves of the opium pipe, crawling to the medical officers of missionary
hospitals, who are to a certain extent missionaries themselves, and asking
to be cured of the terrible consequences of their indulgence in opium
smoking. The medical officer at each of these missionary institutions, a
victim himself, in most cases, to the delusions set afloat, accepts their
story, pities the men, and takes them into the hospital; and, believing
that if they do not get a moderate indulgence in opium smoking they will
pine away and die, the good, easy man, full of kindness and simplicity,
gives them a liberal allowance, which his patients are delighted to get.
Knowing the bent of mind of the confiding doctor, they fill him with all
kinds of falsehoods as to the evils attendant upon opium smoking in
general, which he swallows without a particle of doubt. The truth,
however, is that those men who go with such tales to the medical
missionary are in most, if not all, cases simply impostors, generally
broken-down thieves, sneaks, and scoundrels--the very scum of the people.
No longer having energy even to steal, they are driven off by their old
associates, to starve or die in a gaol. These men are the craftiest, the
meanest, and the most unscrupulous on the face of the globe. They well
know all that the missionaries think about opium smoking, and, like the
accommodating Mr. Jingle, they have a hundred stories of the same kind
ready to pour into the ears of their kind-hearted benefactors, who become
in turn their victims. Much merriment, I have no doubt, these scamps
indulge in amongst themselves at the good doctor's expense; for the
Chinese are not deficient in humour, and have a keen sense of the
ludicrous. These people crawl to one of the hospitals; the doctor is
delighted with their stories, for they confirm all he has written home or
published, perhaps in _The Friend of China_. He communicates with the
missionary; their stories are sent home, and the patients get for three or
four weeks excellent food and comforts, including plenty of opium, before
they are turned out as cured. The lepers have been cleansed and made
whole, but only to enable them to prey once more upon the industrious
community. I may here observe that there are no missionary hospitals in
Hong Kong, and so we never hear of those wonderful stories happening in
that place, yet, if such stories were true, it is there that the strongest
corroboration of them should be found, for, although there is no
missionary hospital in the colony, there is the large and well-managed
civil hospital, as also the Chinese Tung-Wah Hospital, both of which are
subject to the inspection of Dr. Ayres.

Such are the tales, and such the authors who have caused much of this
clamour about opium smoking. There is scarcely a particle of truth in any
one of those stories. No man can indulge in opium to such an extent as to
harm himself unless he possesses a fair income, and if such a person
became ill from over-indulgence, he would not go to a foreign hospital,
but would send for a doctor to treat him at his own house. It is only the
broken-down pauper, thief, or beggar, who, in his last extremity, seeks
admission to the hospital.

Dr. Ayres was the first to expose this imposture. On arriving at Hong Kong
he found it had been the custom there to allow such of the prisoners in
the gaol as were heavy smokers a modicum of prepared opium daily,--it
having been supposed by his predecessors that without it such prisoners
would pine away and die. Dr. Ayres, however, knew better; and he at once
put an end to the custom. He would not allow one grain of opium or other
stimulant to be given to any prisoner, however advanced a smoker he might
be. The result was that the hitherto pampered prisoners moaned and
groaned, pretending, no doubt, to be very ill; but after a little time
they got quite well. The Doctor has published his experiences on this
subject in the _Friend of China_.

These persons know what pleases the missionaries, and so they detail to
them all kinds of horrible stories respecting opium smoking, which, as I
have before stated, are pure inventions. Trust a Chinaman to invent a
plausible tale when it suits his purpose to do so. The missionaries do not
smoke opium themselves, and have, therefore, no means of refuting the
falsehoods thus related to them, or of testing their accuracy. They simply
believe all these stories, and send them on to head-quarters in London, to
be retailed by eloquent tongues at Exeter Hall and elsewhere. I have no
doubt that every mail brings home numbers of apparently highly
authenticated tales of this kind, every one of which is baseless. Thanks
to the modern excursion agents, and to the present facilities for
travelling, gentlemen can easily take a trip to China, and if any of them
happen to have opium on the brain, they will take letters of introduction
to missionary clergymen. On their arrival at Hong Kong they will perhaps
be shown over the Tung-Wah hospital, where they see a number of wretched
objects labouring under all kinds of diseases; they will go away fully
impressed with the belief that all the patients shown to them are victims
of opium smoking. They are then taken to an opium shop, or as the
missionaries like to call it, an "opium den"--though why an opium-smoking
shop should be so termed, and a dram shop in London called a "gin palace,"
I cannot understand--and are there shown half a dozen dirty-looking men,
mostly thieves and blackguards, all smoking opium, and as they are quiet
and motionless, they come to the conclusion that they are all in a dying
state, having but a few days more to live. If they knew the facts, they
would find perhaps that the very men they were commiserating were just
then quietly planning a burglary or some piratical expedition for that
very night. These kind of travellers go out to China with preconceived
notions, and are quite prepared to believe anything and everything,
however absurd or monstrous, about opium smoking. They will spend two days
at Hong Kong, three at Canton, two or three at Shanghai. They will take
copious notes at these places, omitting nothing, however incredible or
absurd, that is told them, and return home with a full conviction that
they have "done China," when in reality they have only done themselves,
and that, too, most completely. If they have the _cacoethes scribendi_
strong upon them, they will probably write a book upon the subject; and so
the miserable delusion is kept up.

  'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
  A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.

Mr. Turner, in his volume, gives what he calls "a little apologue," with
the object of showing how the Indian Government injures China by supplying
it with opium. If you will allow me, I will give you a short one, too. Let
us suppose a young gentleman, well brought up, and a member of that
excellent institution, the "Young Men's Christian Association," where he
has heard the most eloquent speeches on the wickedness of this country in
permitting the Indo-Chinese opium trade, and thus encouraging opium
smoking--for your anti-opium agitator thinks it the height of virtue and
propriety to drag his country through the mire on every occasion that
presents itself. Let us call him Mr. Howard; it is a good name, and was
once owned by a most benevolent man. He makes up his mind to go out to
China and to see for himself the whole iniquity; for, despite his strong
faith in his clerical mentors at Exeter Hall, he can hardly believe that
his own countrymen could really be the perpetrators of such dreadful
wickedness as he has been told. He takes a letter of introduction to a
missionary gentleman at Hong Kong, and another to a mercantile firm there.
He expects, on his arrival, to see the streets crowded with the
wretched-looking victims of the opium-pipe, crawling onwards towards their
graves, whilst the merchant who is making his princely fortune by this
terrible opium trade drives by in his curricle, looking complacently at
his victims, just as a slave-owner of old might be expected to have gazed
at his gangs of serfs wending their way to their scene of toil. Not seeing
any but active, healthy-looking people, he concludes that the miserable
creatures he is looking out for are in hospital, or lying up in their own
houses. He calls upon Messrs. Thompson and Co., the mercantile firm to
which he is accredited, and is well received by one of the partners, who
invites him to stop at his house during his stay in Hong Kong--for our
fellow-countrymen in China are the most hospitable people in the world.
Mr. Howard declines, as he intends putting up at Mr. Jenkins's, his
missionary friend. The great subject on his mind is opium, so he comes to
the point at once, and asks, "Is there much opium smoked in the colony?"
"Oh, plenty," answers Mr. Thompson; "two or three thousand chests arrive
here every week." "Do you sell much?" Mr. Howard asks. "No; we haven't
done anything in it these many years," is the response. "Do many people
smoke?" continues Howard, following up his subject. "Oh, yes: every
Chinaman smokes." "But where are all the people who are suffering from
opium smoking?" again asks the inquirer, determined to get at the facts.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughs Mr. Thompson, but that gentleman is writing letters
for the mail, and has not much time at his disposal. "Here, Compradore,"
he says, addressing a Chinese who has been settling an account with one of
the assistants, "this gentleman wants to know all about opium smoking."
The Compradore is the agent who conducts mercantile transactions between
the foreign firms and the Chinese; he resides on his master's premises,
and is usually an intelligent and keen man of business, and, I may also
add, an inveterate opium smoker. The two try to make themselves
understood. Mr. Howard repeats the same questions to the Compradore that
he had just put to Mr. Thompson, and receives similar replies.
Disappointed and surprised, Howard calls with his letter of introduction
upon the missionary, to whom he tells what he has heard from Messrs.
Thompson & Co. "Ah," says the missionary, "they wouldn't give you any
information there; they are in the opium trade themselves." But Mr. Howard
tells him that Thompson had assured him that they had not been in the
trade for years. "Ah," returns the missionary, "you must not believe what
_he_ says. His firm is making a princely fortune by opium." "But where are
the smokers?" asks Howard. "Oh, I will show them to you." He then calls
Achun his "boy." "This gentleman," he says to the latter, "wants to know
about opium smoking. Take him to the Tung-Wah and to an opium shop, you
savee?" "Yes, my savee" (meaning "I understand"), returns Achun, who is,
of course, a devout convert, but who, notwithstanding, often in private
indulges in the iniquity of the pipe. On they go to the Tung-Wah, which is
the Chinese hospital before referred to, where he is shown some
ghastly-looking men, all either smoking the "vile drug" or having opium
pipes beside them. Two or three are shivering with ague; another is in the
last stage of dropsy; another is in consumption, and so on. They are all
pitiable-looking objects, wasted, dirty, and ragged. Poor Mr. Howard
shrinks away in horror. "Are all these men dying from opium smoking?" he
asks of his guide. "Yes, ebely one; two, tlee more day dey all die. Oh!
velly bad! olla men dat smokee dat ting die," says the person questioned,
well knowing that what he has said is false, and that the poor creatures
before him are only honest, decent coolies in the last stages of disease,
who until they entered the hospital may never have had an opium pipe in
their mouths. "Their poverty and not their will consented." They had been
admitted but a few days before to the Tung-Wah, where the Chinese doctor
in charge had prescribed for them opium smoking as a remedy for their
sickness and a relief for their pains. Poor Mr. Howard leaves the hospital
bitterly reflecting upon the wickedness of the world and of his own
countrymen in particular. As for Mr. Thompson, he is set down for a false
deceitful man, a disgrace to his country, who should be made an example
of. He and his guide then proceed to the opium shop. I shall, however,
proceed there before them, and describe the place and its occupants.
Opposite to the entrance door are two well-dressed men, their clothes
quite new, their heads well shaven, and having attached to them long and
splendid queues. These men are lying on their sides, vis-a-vis, with their
heads slightly raised, smoking away. If it were not for their villainous
countenances they might pass for respectable shopkeepers. They are two
thieves, who have just committed a burglary in a European house, from
which they carried off three or four hundred pounds' worth of jewellery,
and they are now indulging in their favourite luxury on the proceeds. They
have also exchanged their rags for new clothes, got shaved and trimmed, as
Mr. Howard sees them. Now, wherever an extreme opium smoker is met, he
will in general be found to be one of the criminal classes. In this shop
there are three other men smoking. They are stalwart fellows, but
dirty-looking, as they have just finished coaling a steamer, and are
begrimed with coal dust. As the daily expenses of a steamer are
considerable, it is a great object with sea captains to get their vessels
coaled as quickly as possible, so that they may not be delayed in port.
The men employed upon this work are usually paid by the job, and probably
each will receive half-a-dollar for his share. They work with
extraordinary vigour, and by the time they have finished they are often
much distressed, and are inclined to lie down; their hearts, perhaps, are
beating irregularly, and their whole frame unhinged. Being flush of money,
for half-a-dollar, or two shillings, is quite a round sum for them, they
have decided to go to the opium shop, and, by having a quiet whiff or two,
bring the action of their hearts into rhythm, and restore themselves to
their ordinary state. These poor coolies are honest fellows enough. They
work hard, and are peaceful, unoffending creatures. Hundreds of them are
to be seen hard at work every day in Hong Kong.

The interior of the opium shop is as described when Mr. Howard enters with
the missionary's servant. The moment the two well-dressed thieves see
them, their guilty consciences make them conclude that the one is a
European, and the other a Chinese detective in search of them. They close
their eyes and pretend to be in profound slumber. They are really in
deadly fear of apprehension, for escape seems impossible. Mr. Howard asks
his guide who they are. "Oh, dese plaupa good men numba one; dey come dis
side to smokee. To-day dey smokee one pipe; to-mollow dey come and smokee
two, tlee pipe; next dey five, six; den dey get sik and die. Oh, opium
pipe veely bad; dat pipe kill plenty men." "You say they are good,
respectable men?" says Mr. Howard. "Yes, good plaupa men; numba one Chinee
genlman." "Oh, is not this a terrible thing?" says Mr. Howard, compressing
his lips, breathing heavily, and vowing to bear witness, on his return to
London, to all the villainy he fancies he has seen. The three men begrimed
with coal-dust, although they appear only to be semi-conscious, are in
reality taking the measure of Mr. Howard, and enjoying a quiet laugh at
his expense. One exclaims, referring to his chimney-pot hat, "Ah ya! what
a funny thing that Fan-Qui has got on his head!" The other replies, "It's
to keep the sun away." "How funny!" retorts the first speaker, "we wear
hats to keep our heads warm; they wear hats to keep their heads cool."
"Oh," returns the other speaker, "the Fan-Qui have such soft heads that if
they did not keep the sun off the little brains they have would melt away;
and they would die, or become idiots."[5] Mr. Howard, seeing them in their
dirty condition, concludes that they are some of the wretched victims of
opium smoking, in the last stage of disease, and leaves with his
conductor, pitying them from the depths of his heart; his pity, however,
is as nothing compared to the contempt with which these supposed victims
to the opium pipe regard him and his chimney-pot hat. As he leaves he asks
his guide, "Does the keeper of the opium shop expect a gratuity?" "Oh,"
returns the other, "supposee you pay him one dolla, he say, tankee you."
Mr. Howard accordingly gives a dollar to the man, who looks more surprised
than grateful, and he leaves the shop, satisfied that he has at last seen
the true effects of opium smoking in China. He returns to the missionary,
to whom he relates the horrors he has seen, makes copious notes of them,
and vows to enlighten his countrymen at home upon the subject. As for his
guide Achun, this person loses no time in returning to the opium shop,
where he compels the keeper of it to share with him the dollar he has just
received, and, having so easily earned two shillings, he quietly reclines
on one of the couches and takes a whiff or two of the pipe, the more
enjoyable because it is forbidden fruit. Thus the benevolent British
public is befooled by these ridiculous stories about opium.

Now as Achun is a representative character, many like him being in the
service of missionaries and other foreigners throughout China, I will give
you a further specimen of the way such persons cheat and delude their
masters. Achun, in whom Mr. Jenkins, the missionary, places implicit
confidence, has of late been much exercised as to his "vails," for Chinese
servants are quite as much alive to the perquisites of their office as
Jeames, John Thomas, or any others of our domestics here in England.
Indeed, I may safely lay it down as a rule that, like cabmen, domestic
servants will be found the same all over the world, "one touch of nature
makes the whole world kin," and no sooner have you engaged your Chinese
"boy" than his mind is at once set working as to the amount of drawbacks,
clippings, and parings over and above his wages he may safely count upon
in his new place. Achun is dissatisfied with the commission or drawback
allowed him by Chook Aloong, the shopkeeper or compradore, who supplies
Mr. Jenkins's family with provisions and other household necessaries; he
is allowed only ten per cent. of the monthly bill, and he considers that
in all fairness he should get double that amount. Thus impressed, he makes
energetic remonstrances on the subject to Chook Aloong, who is firm and
will give no more than ten per cent. Achun is equal to the occasion. Now
Mr. Jenkins and his family are simple and frugal in their dietary, but
there are some articles of food they insist upon having of the best kind,
in consequence of which their compradore sends them those articles and,
indeed, all others of unobjectionable quality. Eggs which are not
absolutely fresh, and meat, though it be game, if in the slightest degree
"up," they will have none of. Achun well knows all this, and he has
determined to have Chook Aloong displaced. Having himself a partiality for
eggs, he begins operations by daily appropriating to his own use some of
those fresh eggs and substituting stale ones in their stead. In the like
manner, instead of letting the family have the beef, mutton, and fowls
nice and fresh as they are delivered, he holds them over until the bloom
of freshness has departed. This state of affairs occasions some commotion
in the family circle. The boy is sent for and shown that the eggs are bad
and the meat "high"; he expresses great concern, and declares that he will
forthwith call upon the compradore and compel him to make good the damage
already done, and supply proper provisions in future. Mr. Jenkins, though
angry, is not implacable, and is willing to believe that some mishap has
occurred; for how could his old and trusted compradore treat him so badly?
His hopes are, however, disappointed, for again and yet again the meat is
bad, and, worse still, the eggs are--well, not fresh. The climax is
reached one morning when poor Mr. Jenkins, in breaking his egg, finds, not
the usual bright yellow yolk and spotless albumen within, but a young
chick almost fledged. Horror and disgust seize him, the old Adam
over-masters him for a moment, and, full of wrath, he roars for the boy.
Achun appears the very picture of innocence, when Mr. Jenkins, ashamed of
his outburst of wrath and now quite calm explains the _contretemps_. He
has even in the reaction regained some of his good humour. "Look here,
Achun," he says, showing the chick, "this is too bad, you know. Supposee I
wanchee egg,--can catchee him; supposee I wanchee chicken--can catchee
chicken. No wanchee egg and chicken alla same together." Achun perceives
the joke, and knowing his master's weakness, says, "Oh, ho, massa, velly
good, dat belong numba one. 'No wanchee egg and chicken alla same
togedda,'" continues the cunning rascal, repeating his master's words, "Oh
velly funny, velly good, massa, ho! ho! ho!" Mr. Jenkins is pleased at the
mild flattery of his boy, who has now advanced a step or two in his
estimation. "Oh, massa, dat man, Chook Aloong, velly bad man," continues
Achun when his merriment had subsided. "Him smokee too much opium pipe; he
no mind his pidgin plaupa, he smokee alla day." "Oh! ho! is that the way?"
asks the missionary, a new light dawning for the first time upon him. "And
so Chook Aloong is an opium smoker?" "Ye-s," replies Achun, prolonging the
word. "Too much opium, plenty opium. More betta you get anoda compado
sah--some good plaupa man dat no smokee." "Very well, Achun," says Mr.
Jenkins with a sigh. "It is plain I must get somebody else. Find me out
some other man, and, mind, he must not smoke opium." "Hab got, massa,"
returns the boy delighted with his success. "Hab got velly good man, him
numba one good compado"; and in walks the person indicated, who has been
listening outside all the time. "This belong Sam Afoong, him do all ting
plaupa," the fact being that this very Sam Afoong is the greatest cheat in
the whole market. "Oh, you're the man," says Mr. Jenkins. "I hope you
don't use opium." "Oh no, sah," returns the other, who is in fact an
inveterate smoker, "my neba smokee; dat opium pipe velly bad. It hab kill
my fadda, my six bludda, my----." But here he is stopped by a signal from
Achun, who saw that his friend, in familiar parlance, was "laying it on
too thickly." Sam Afoong vows to supply the best of good things, and does
so, and the Jenkins family are no longer troubled with bad provisions; but
had the lady of the establishment gone through the formality of weighing
every joint of meat that her new compradore supplied, she would have found
that every pound was short of two or three ounces, for thus Sam Afoong
recouped himself for the large per-centage bestowed on Achun.

To prove that the missionaries are deceived in the way I have described I
will refer you to a passage in Mr. Storrs Turner's own book, where even he
admits that one of his own converts, who had assured him that he never
smoked, and no doubt had pledged himself never to do so, was found
regaling himself with the iniquity. At p. 32 Mr. Turner says, "I have
caught a man smoking who had only half an hour before denied to me that he
was a smoker, and condemned the habit." Yet such are the men from whom the
missionaries derive their information about opium smoking. For further
proof of this I will quote again from Dr. Ayres' article, in _The Friend
of China_. This is what he says:--

    At the Tung Wah Hospital the stranger may at any time see the most
    dreadful and ghastly-looking objects in the last stages of scrofula
    and phthisis smoking opium, who had never previously in all their
    lives been able to afford the expense of a pipe a day, yet the
    European visitor leaves the establishment attributing to the abuse of
    opium effects which further inquiry would have satisfied him were due
    to the diseases for which the patients were in hospital. From what I
    have seen there, there is no doubt that the advanced consumptive
    patient does experience considerable temporary relief to his difficult
    breathing by smoking a pipe of opium, though it is a very poor quality
    of drug that is given to patients at the Tung Wah Hospital.

Thus, as I have shown, it has come to pass that whilst the missionary
clergymen, owing to their sacred calling and their unquestionably high
character, are accepted in England as the most reliable witnesses and
entitled to the greatest credit, they are really the men who are the very
worst informed upon the opium question which they profess to understand so
thoroughly. They are, in fact, the victims of their own delusions. But
saddest fact of all, these missionary gentlemen, with the best intentions
and in the devout belief that by carrying on this anti-opium agitation
they are helping to remove an obstacle to the dissemination of the Gospel
in China, are of necessity by so doing obliged to neglect more or less the
very Gospel work they are really so desirous to spread, leaving the
missionary field open to their Roman Catholic rivals.

The information placed before the public here in England upon the opium
question, tainted as it is at the very fountain head, is sent forward from
hand to hand, meeting in its filtrations from China to this country with
impurity after impurity, until it reaches the form of the miserable trash
retailed at Exeter Hall, or by the agents of the Anti-Opium Society. It is
an accepted adage that "a story loses nothing by the carriage." The maxim
becomes, more strongly pointed when it is remembered that the opium tales
partake so much of the marvellous, and that the various transmitters of
those accounts are, in almost every instance, fanatical believers in the
supposed wickedness of the Indo-Chinese opium trade. I am quite sure that
out of every thousand people who believe in the anti-opium delusion, you
will not find two who have ever set their foot in China, or know anything
with respect to the alleged evils they denounce, except from the
unreliable sources I have mentioned. Such people, as a rule, are by far
the most violent and uncompromising opponents of the Indo-Chinese opium
trade. The people I describe generally speak with such an air of authority
on the question, that an ordinary person would suppose they had personally
witnessed all the evils they describe. If you ask one of them in what part
of China he has lived, or when and where he has seen the horrors he speaks
of, he will jauntily tell you, "Oh, I have heard Mr. A. or the Rev. Mr. B.
explain the whole villainy at Exeter Hall." Another will say he has read
Mr. Storrs Turner's great work upon opium smoking, with which I have
already made you somewhat acquainted. When General Choke rebuked Martin
Chuzzlewit for denying that the Queen lived in the Tower of London when
she was at the Court of St. James, Martin inquired if the speaker had ever
lived in England. "In writing I have, not otherwise," responded the
General, adding, "We air a reading people here, Sir; you will meet with
much information among us that will surprise you Sir." Just so. These
anti-opium enthusiasts have been in China in writing, and understand the
opium question upon paper only--a few months in Hong Kong or Canton, freed
from missionary influence, would soon disillusionize them. I remember
hearing a story once of a most estimable gentleman who had the misfortune
to be the defendant in an action for breach of promise. The plaintiff's
counsel, who had a fluent tongue and a fertile imagination, painted him in
such dreadful colours, and so belaboured him for his alleged heartless
conduct towards the lady that the gentleman so denounced, persuaded for
the moment that he was really guilty, rushed out of court, exclaiming, "I
never thought I was so terrible a villain before." That is just the kind
of feeling that first comes over one upon hearing of those opium-smoking
horrors; for it must not be forgotten that the indictment of the
Anti-Opium Society, and of its secretary Mr. Storrs Turner in particular,
not only includes the Imperial Government, and the Government of India,
during the past forty years, but all the British merchants connected with
the Chinese trade, and, indeed, the entire British nation.

Before proceeding to deal with the fallacies I have enumerated, it is
necessary that I should again address a few words to you on the subject of
evidence, so as to enable you to discriminate between the value of the
various witnesses who have attempted to enlighten public opinion on the
subject before us. I dislike very much to trouble the reader with dry
professional matters, but, under the circumstances, I cannot avoid doing
so. It is a rule of law which will, I think, commend itself to the common
sense of everybody, that the evidence to be adduced on a trial should be
the best that the nature of the case is susceptible of, rather than
evidence of a subsidiary or secondary nature, unless, indeed, no better be
forthcoming. In determining matters of fact, the best witnesses would be
held to be those who have become acquainted with those facts in the course
of their ordinary employment, or in the performance of their professional
duties, rather than mere amateurs or volunteers, whose knowledge is
derived from accident or casual observation only. For illustration, let us
suppose the case of a collision at sea between two steamers, A and
B,--that previous to and at the time of the collision, besides the usual
officers and seamen in charge of A, there were on deck the steward of the
vessel and a passenger. Now, the best witnesses on board of A as to the
catastrophe would not be the two latter, although they saw the whole
occurrence, but the men who were in actual charge of the navigation of the
ship, viz. the look-out man in the bows--whose duty it would be to watch
for rocks or shoals, or any ship or vessel ahead, and to give immediate
notice to the officer of the watch and the man at the wheel of the
presence of such object;--the officer of the watch, usually stationed on
the bridge;--and the man at the wheel. Why? Because, it being the peculiar
duty of the first two men to look out for and avoid striking on rocks or
shoals, or coming into collision with any other vessel, and the duty of
the third man not only to keep a look out but to steer as directed by the
officer on the bridge, they necessarily paid more attention to, and had
their intellects better sharpened in respect to such matters than the
others, who had no such duty cast upon them. The next best witnesses would
be the other seamen during whose watch the accident occurred, their duty
being generally to attend to the management of the ship, her sails and
cordage, and obey the orders of the officer of the watch, but who, not
having immediate connection with the steering and course of the vessel,
would not be expected to have the same accurate knowledge of the
circumstances that led to and occurred up to the time of the collision as
the first three. The least valuable witnesses would be the steward and the
passenger, for the reasons already mentioned. Applying these rules to the
question now before us, it follows that the testimony of such a man as Dr.
Ayres--some of which I have given you already--and of others which I shall
lay before you, should have far greater weight and be more reliable than
that of ordinary persons having no special knowledge or experience of
opium or its effects, nor any opportunity of obtaining such knowledge,
much less any duty cast upon them to acquire it, _e.g._ missionaries and
other persons unconnected with native and foreign merchants, and having no
duties to perform which would bring them into constant intercourse with
the Chinese community.

The first of these fallacies which have so much tended to warp the
understanding of these Anti-Opium people is this: "That the poppy is not
indigenous to China, but has been recently introduced there, presumably by
British agency." With this let us take the second fallacy, viz.: "That
opium smoking in China is now and has always been confined to a small
per-centage of the population, but which, owing to the introduction of
Indian opium, is constantly increasing." Here I would first inquire--what
is the poppy? To this question one person would say, It is the plant that
produces that deadly drug, morphia. Another would answer, It is the herb
from which laudanum is made; and a third would say, It is the plant which
supplies opium, smoked so much in China and eaten so largely in India.
These answers would all be correct enough, so far as they go; but they
would not be complete, for there are many other uses to which the poppy is
applied besides all these. That valuable plant produces not only opium,
but an oil used for lighting and for edible purposes, the Chinese using
the oil to mollify their daily rice and other food, mixing it also very
commonly with another and richer quality of oil. The seeds, when the oil
is expressed, are given to cattle, or allowed to rot and form manure. If
the oil is not expressed, the seeds can be worked up into cakes. From the
capsules medicine is made, and lastly, the stalks and leaves when burnt
produce potash. Mr. William Donald Spence, one of Her Majesty's Consuls in
China, to whose valuable "Report on the Trade of the Port of Ichang, and
the Opium-culture in the Provinces of Szechuan and Yunnan," I shall
presently introduce you, knows all this as matter of fact, and, indeed, I
am mainly indebted to him for the information I now give you. It is
admitted by Mr. Storrs Turner that the poppy is indigenous to China, and
when it is remembered that the people of that country are and have been
for thousands of years the most civilized in Asia,--that agriculture is
considered the most honourable industry in the country, as evidenced by
the annual practice of the Emperor to turn over the earth with the plough
at the beginning of Spring,--that the Chinese are skilled husbandmen, and
of most frugal and thrifty habits, it becomes a matter of irresistible
inference that those people must have known that most useful plant, the
poppy, and must have cultivated it for economic purposes long before opium
was known in Europe. Sir Robert Hart, in his Yellow Book, says "that
native opium was known, produced, and used _long before_ any Europeans
began the sale of the foreign drug along the coast." Compare that with the
misleading passage at page 2 of Mr. Storrs Turner's book, where he says
"that the poppy had long been cultivated in Egypt, Turkey, Persia, India,
and _recently_ in China and Manchuria," and ask yourselves what credit you
can give to that gentleman as a trustworthy guide on the subject of opium.
Here is Sir Robert Hart, a great Chinese authority, practically admitting
that three or four hundred years ago at the least native opium was grown
and produced in China, and Mr. Storrs Turner, in this fallacious statement
of his, trying to induce his readers to infer that the drug was only
recently produced in that Empire! The reader can choose between these
authorities for himself. Now the fact is, that in very ancient Chinese
works mention is made of the poppy. In the "History of the Later Han
Dynasty" (A.D. 25-220), the brilliant colour of the poppy blossom, of the
charms of the juice, and the strengthening qualities of the seeds of the
plant, formed the themes of Chinese poets as far back as a thousand years,
and probably much farther. The poet Yung T'aou, of the T'ang dynasty (A.D.
618-907), celebrates the beauty of the flower. The poet Soo Cheh (A.D.
1039-1112), dwells, in an ode, on the curative and invigorating effects of
the poppy seeds and juice, and another poet, Soo Sung, of the same period,
praises the beauty of the plant, which he speaks of as being grown
everywhere in China. I am not a Chinese scholar, but I have high authority
for these statements. You will thus clearly perceive that opium is a
native plant, that its various uses have for many centuries been known to
the Chinese, and that the British are in no way responsible for the
introduction of opium into China, much less for the practice of smoking
the drug.

I have mentioned Mr. W. Donald Spence as one of Her Majesty's Consuls in
China. Now, every foreign resident in that country knows who and what
those consular gentlemen are; but I do not think the public here in
England are equally well informed upon the subject, because it is only
natural that they should confound them with the ordinary British Consuls
at the European and American ports; but that would be a very great
mistake, for the two sets of Consuls form quite distinct and separate
bodies. The Consuls at the latter ports are no doubt highly respectable
gentlemen, often indeed, men who have distinguished themselves in science
and literature, or in the army or navy, but still they are simply
commercial agents of the British Government, and no more, having little or
no diplomatic or other duties to discharge. The Consular Service of China
stands upon a totally different footing. In this country Her Majesty's
Consuls are not only commercial agents, but are trained diplomatists,
entering the service in the first instance as cadets, after passing most
difficult competitive examinations. They are always Chinese scholars, many
of them holding high rank as such. The Consuls have very important
diplomatic duties to discharge, and have also magisterial duties to
perform towards their countrymen in China, all of which demand qualities
of a high order, and which only superior education and careful training
enable them to discharge. England has acquired by treaty ex-territorial
rights, as regards her own subjects, in the ports of China thrown open to
her commerce, known as "Treaty ports," the most important of which are the
exclusive right to hear and determine all civil and criminal cases against
British subjects. These onerous and important duties are performed by Her
Majesty's Consuls at those ports. These gentlemen, indeed, have more power
in many respects than is possessed by the Queen's Ambassadors and
Ministers Plenipotentiary at the various Courts in Europe. They have, in
fact, all the powers now vested in the Judges of Her Majesty's High Court
of Judicature here in England, as well as the powers possessed by the
Judges of the Admiralty, Probate, and Bankruptcy Courts. Further, and in
addition to all these multifarious duties, they are Her Majesty's special
commercial agents at these treaty ports, with the usual jurisdiction over
British ships, their officers, and crew. It is, therefore, a matter of the
first necessity that the persons in whom such tremendous powers are placed
should not only be gentlemen of the very highest characters and assured
abilities, but men of superior education specially trained to fill these
important positions and discharge the varied and onerous duties
appertaining to them. Such are the present British Consuls in China, and
such they have been in the past. There is not, I believe, in this or any
other country, a more highly-educated, intelligent, and efficient body of
men to be found. If any proof of these high qualities is required, it will
be furnished in the fact that notwithstanding the difficult, delicate, and
onerous duties cast upon them, no instance of their abuse of these powers
has ever occurred. I certainly know of none. I am only here stating, I
assure you, what is actually true. It has, indeed, always been to me a
marvel that no complaints--no political entanglements, no troubles--have
arisen from the abnormal state of things arising out of our commercial and
political relations with China, and the extraordinary and exceptional
powers necessarily entrusted to our Consular Agents in that Empire in
consequence. We can now look back, after a quarter of a century of
experience, and congratulate ourselves that all our complicated machinery
has worked so well, that no clouds obscure the vista, and that our present
position in China is one of serenity and sunshine; that we stand upon the
very best terms with the Chinese Government from the central authority at
Peking to all its ramifications throughout the vast empire. Nothing, in
fact, blurs the landscape, save the miserable opium phantom created by our
own countrymen, the missionaries, and magnified to a monster of large
dimensions by the "Chinese jugglers," who here in England keep the
machinery of the Anti-Opium Society in motion. These happy results are due
to Her Majesty's Diplomatic and Consular Service in China, controlled by
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in England.
And here I cannot but remind you of that distinguished veteran statesman
Sir Rutherford Alcock, formerly Her Majesty's Minister to the Court of
Peking, to whose wise and far-seeing policy much of the present happy
relations with China is due. There is not an English resident in China
who cannot bear testimony to the splendid talents and genuine patriotism
which has marked his career in that vast and interesting country. There is
no greater authority living upon Anglo-Chinese affairs than he, especially
as regards the period of the famous treaty of Tientsin, some of whose
testimony on these points I will lay before you. After a long and
honourable career he is now in England enjoying his well-earned repose,
and is, happily, a powerful living witness to the fallacies I am now
trying to efface.

Now, one of the ablest and most accomplished men at present in the
Diplomatic and Consular Service of China is Mr. W. Donald Spence, Her
Majesty's Consul at Ichang, a port on the Yangtze, to whom I have before
shortly referred. This gentleman, in the year 1881, paid a visit to
Chungking, the commercial capital of Szechuan in Western China. Whilst
there he availed himself of the opportunity to make inquiries and
investigations into the commercial products of that immense province, and
especially into the cultivation of native opium, the extent and condition
of opium culture in Western China, and the attitude respecting it of the
Chinese Government, and on the effect of opium smoking on the people of
those provinces where it appears that habit is all but universal. It was
his especial duty to make these investigations. No better proof could be
produced as to the abilities of this gentleman than this valuable document
on the subject presented by him to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs which Mr. Spence, in his covering letter to Lord
Granville modestly styles "his Report on the Trade of the Port of Ichang
for the Year 1881." If anyone will read the whole of this Report--and it
will well repay careful perusal--he will pronounce it, I think, one of the
ablest and most admirable State papers that have ever been penned. In
giving you some extracts from it I will, therefore, ask you to treat the
author of it, not as a mere hireling, having an interest in certain
matters which it is desirable to place in a particular light, as the
agents of the Anti-Opium Society would, no doubt, have you believe, but as
the honest statement of an upright, high-minded, honourable English
gentleman, of superior talents and a cultivated mind, who values truth
above everything, who can have no other object in the matter but to do
what is honest, just, and right, and who on this question of opium smoking
tells the truth and nothing but the truth to Her Majesty's Minister. This
is what he says as to the cultivation of the poppy in Szechuan:--

    Of all the products of Szechuan, the most important nowadays is native
    opium. In September last year it was my fortune to be sent on the
    public service to the commercial metropolis of Szechuan, Chungking. I
    was four months in the province. In the course of that time I visited
    parts of the great opium country, questioned many people regarding
    opium culture, consumption, and export, and carefully noted the
    observations and conclusions on these subjects come to by Mr. Colborne
    Baber and Mr. E. H. Parker during their official residence there, with
    a view to giving, as far as possible, exact information in my Trade
    Report on a matter of great commercial, and no little political,
    interest at the present moment. The cultivation of the poppy is
    carried on in every district of Szechuan except those on the west
    frontier, but most of all in the Prefectures of Chungking Fu and
    Kweichow Fu. In all the districts of Chungking Fu, south of the
    Yang-tsze, and in some of the districts of Kweichow Fu, north of that
    river, it is the principal crop, and, in parts, the only winter crop
    for scores upon scores of square miles. The headquarters of the trade
    are at the city of Fuchow, in the first of these prefectures, and, in
    a considerably less degree, at Fengtu, a district city in Kweichow Fu.
    Baron Richthofen, writing in 1872, says that the poppy then was
    cultivated only on hill <DW72>s of an inferior soil, but one sees it
    now on land of all kinds, both hill and valley. Baron Richthofen
    himself anticipates this change when he says:--"The Government may at
    some time or other reduce the very heavy restrictions, and if Szechuan
    opium then should be able to command its present price at Hankow, the
    consequence would be an immediate increase in the area planted with
    the poppy." Since he wrote, the area given to the poppy has much
    increased, though not from the cause alleged. Being a winter crop, it
    does not interfere with rice, the food staple of the people,
    displacing only subsidiary crops, such as wheat, beans, and the like.
    When it is planted in paddy and bottom lands, which nowadays is often
    the case, it is gathered in time to allow rice or some other crop to
    follow. It can hardly be said of Szechuan that the cultivation of
    opium seriously interferes with food supplies. The supply of rice
    remains the same, and the opium produced, less the value of the crops
    it replaces, is so much additional wealth to the province.

    I shall presently show that opium is a more remunerative crop than its
    only possible substitutes, beans or wheat, and no per-centage of the
    opium crop being due to the landlord, its cultivation has been greatly
    stimulated in consequence. Of late years, however, in the districts I
    have named as being in winter one vast poppy-field, owners of land
    have become alive to the value to occupiers of the opium crop, and
    have stipulated for a share of it in addition to their share of the
    summer crop. Rents, in fact, where opium is in universal cultivation,
    have practically doubled. Before leaving the subject of tenure, I may
    add that, in the event of non-payment of rent from causes other than
    deficient harvests, the landlord helps himself to the deposit in his
    hands. In bad years remissions are willingly made by the Government to
    owners of the land-tax, and by owners to occupiers of the
    rent-produce.

Now you will remember that this very province of Szechuan, where such
extensive cultivation of the poppy is carried on, is the largest and most
distant of all the provinces of China; it is one of the westernmost of the
eighteen provinces of the empire, being bordered on the west by Thibet.
Until quite recently Szechuan was about as accessible to Englishmen as
Moscow was fifty years ago, a _terra incognita_, in fact, to Europeans, so
that it cannot be pretended for one moment that the introduction into
China of Indian opium has had anything to do with the cultivation of the
drug there. Indian opium could hardly ever have found its way into the
province, which is not less than one thousand two hundred miles from the
sea. It is only since the opening of the port of Ichang in the adjoining
province of Hupeh, which took place in April 1877, that the district has
become at all accessible. But let us return to Mr. W. Donald Spence. This
is another extract from his report:--

    The poppy is now grown on all kinds of land, hill <DW72>s, terraced
    fields, paddy and bottom lands in the valleys. Since 1872, when Baron
    Richthofen visited the province, a great change has taken place in
    this respect, for it appears to have been cultivated then on hill
    lands only. All the country people whom I asked were agreed that opium
    is most profitably grown on good land with liberal manuring. In India
    it is best grown on rich soil near villages where manure can be easily
    obtained, and the Szechuan cultivator has found this out for himself.
    Poppy cultivation, as practised in Szechuan, is very simple. As soon
    as the summer crop is reaped the land is ploughed and cleaned, roots
    and weeds are heaped and burnt, and the ashes scattered over the
    ground; dressings of night soil are liberally given. The seeds are
    sown in December, in drills a foot and a half apart. In January, when
    the plants are a few inches high, the rows are thinned and earthed up
    so as to leave a free passage between each: the plants are then left
    to take care of themselves, the earth round them being occasionally
    stirred up and kept clear of weeds. In March and April, according to
    situation, the poppy blooms. In the low grounds the white poppy is by
    far the most common, but red and purple are also grown. As the
    capsules form and fill, dressings of liquid manure are given. In April
    and May the capsules are slit and the juice extracted. The raw juice
    evaporates into the crude opium of commerce increasing in value as it
    decreases in weight.

Mr. Spence then goes on to compare the value of the wheat with the opium
crop, showing that the cultivation of the latter is just twice as
profitable as the former. Space will not allow me to give you full
extracts on this subject, but, as some portion of it is germane to this
part of my lecture, I give a short extract on the point:--

    It must be remembered, too, that every single part of the poppy plant
    has a market value. The capsules, after the juice has been extracted,
    are sold to druggists, and made into medicine; oil is expressed from
    the seeds, and largely used for lighting and adulterating edible oils;
    the oil-cake left in the oil-press is good manure, as are also the
    leaves; and the stalks are burnt for potash. Against these advantages
    opium is subject to a rent, and requires, for profitable cultivation,
    plenty of manure; whereas wheat, when followed by a summer crop, pays
    little or no rent, and gets, in general, no manure. Into the relative
    profits of opium and wheat both Mr. Baber and Mr. Parker have gone
    very carefully, and their results correspond, in the main, with my own
    observations.

I will now give you a short account of opium-culture in the province of
Yunnan, a more inaccessible part of China still perhaps than Szechuan. Mr.
E. Colborne Baber, like Mr. Spence, belongs to the diplomatic service, and
is now the secretary of the British Legation at Peking. All that I have
stated as to Mr. Spence applies alike to him. He is a gentleman in whom
the most implicit confidence should be placed. In 1877 he travelled
through Western Szechuan, having, in his own words, on the morning of the
8th July in that year, passed the western gate of Ch'ung-Ch'ung "full of
the pleasurable anticipations which precede a plunge into the unknown."
Having finished his journey through Szechuan, he struck into Yunnan,
following the route of Mr. Grosvenor's mission. He has recounted his
adventures in a most valuable and interesting book, written in such a
pleasing and graphic style, that the reader, when looking at it for
reference only, is irresistibly compelled to read further. His book has
been published by the Royal Geographical Society, and is well worthy of
general perusal. It is one of the few readable books of travel to be met
with nowadays. There is very little respecting opium culture in the
volume, but what there is upon the subject is very much to the point. This
is what he says:--

    Of the sole agricultural export, opium, we can speak with some
    certainty. We were astounded at the extent of the poppy cultivation
    both in Szechuan and Yunnan. We first heard of it on the boundary line
    between Hupah and Szechuan, in a cottage which appears in an
    illustration given in the work of Captain Blakiston, the highest
    cottage on the right of the sketch. A few miles south of this spot
    the most valuable variety of native opium is produced.

    In ascending the river, wherever cultivation existed we found numerous
    fields of poppy. Even the sandy banks were often planted with it down
    to the water's edge: but it was not until we began our land journey in
    Yunnan that we fairly realised the enormous extent of its production.
    With some fear of being discredited, but at the same time with a
    consciousness that I am under-estimating-the production, I estimate
    that the poppy-fields constitute a third of the whole cultivation of
    Yunnan.

    We saw the gradual process of its growth, from the appearance of the
    young spikelets above ground in January, or earlier, to the full
    luxuriance of the red, white, and purple flowers, which were already
    falling in May. In that month the farmers were trying the juice, but
    we did not see the harvest gathered. We walked some hundreds of miles
    through poppies; we breakfasted among poppies; we shot wild ducks in
    the poppies. Even wretched little hovels in the mountains were
    generally attended by a poppy patch.

    The ducks, called locally "opium ducks," which frequently supplied us
    with a meal, do really appear, as affirmed by the natives, to stupefy
    themselves by feeding on the narcotic vegetable. We could walk openly
    up to within twenty yards of them, and even then they rose very
    languidly. We are not, however, compelled to believe, with the
    natives, that the flesh of these birds is so impregnated with laudanum
    as to exercise a soporific influence on the consumer. They are found
    in great numbers in the plain of Tung-ch'uan, in Northern Yunnan, and
    turn out to be the _Tadorna vulpanser_.

    In the same district, and in no other, we met with the _Grus cinerea_,
    an imposing bird, which is also a frequenter of opium-fields.

    The poppy appeared to us to thrive in every kind of soil, from the low
    sandy borders of the Yang-tyu to the rocky heights of Western Yunnan;
    but it seemed more at home, or at any rate was more abundant, in the
    marshy valleys near Yung-ch'uan, at an elevation of seven thousand and
    sixty feet (seven thousand one hundred and fifty feet according to
    Garnier).

    I am not concerned here with the projects or prospects of the Society
    for the Abolition of Opium: _if, however, they desire to give the
    strongest impetus to its growth in Yunnan, let them by all means
    discourage its production in India_.

Now I have given you some very important evidence upon the two fallacies
before us; but perhaps, after all, the best testimony upon the subject is
that of Mr. Turner himself. He says, at page 13 of his book:--

    "Everywhere, in all climates, on every soil, in every variety and
    condition of circumstances throughout that vast empire, the Chinese
    smoke opium, but nowhere do they all smoke. The smokers are but a
    per-centage, greater or smaller in different places."

I quite agree with him on this point. But here the question arises, where
is the drug procured which is smoked in every part of the eighteen
provinces of this vast Empire, equal in extent to Europe? Surely not from
abroad, because that great China authority, Sir Robert Hart, tells us in
his Yellow Book that all the Indian and Persian opium imported into China
is sufficient only to supply one third of one per cent. of the population
with a small portion annually of the drug. Not from India, because there
are many provinces in China--and a province there means a territory as
large as Great Britain--into which a particle of the Indian drug has
seldom or never been introduced. Whence, then, comes the great bulk of the
drug to satisfy all these smokers? Surely it must be from Chinese soil,
from the opium fields surrounding their own homes, which are to be seen in
every province of the Empire.

Let us now return to the Yellow-book of Sir Robert Hart, to which I have
referred in the former lecture, and which seems to me to afford all the
evidence on this subject that is really wanted. It is admitted on both
sides that opium smoking is more or less prevalent throughout every
province of China, on every soil, whether in the valleys or on the hills
and mountains. Sir Robert Hart sent out a circular to the foreign
Commissioners of Customs at all the Treaty Ports in China, Hainan, and
Formosa,--two large islands lying respectively off the south and
south-east coast of China,--and the returns show that there are many
opium-smoking shops in each of these Treaty Ports, and that the gross
quantity of Indian and other foreign opium imported into China is about
one hundred thousand chests. Those returns also reveal the fact that in
almost every case foreign opium is used for mixing with the native drug,
which is of inferior quality and, there can be no doubt, invariably
adulterated; that a large amount of native opium is grown and sold; and
that the custom of opium smoking is more or less universal. Suppose we
take the case of Canton, as being a very large city. We may find, perhaps,
two or three hundred opium shops there, but the people who attend them are
not the better class of Chinese. They are exactly the same class of people
who frequent the drinking shops of London and other large cities in
England. The respectable, well-to-do people in Canton, who can afford to
keep the drug in their own houses, would not enter an opium shop any more
than a respectable person here would frequent a public-house. If a
stranger in London looked into the public-houses and saw men and women
drinking there, he would come to a false conclusion if he thought that
none but such people drank beer, spirits, or wine. We know that in almost
every private house here there is more or less liquor of all kinds kept
and consumed. The drinking shops furnish a mere indication of the amount
of alcoholic liquors drunk in a town. It is exactly the same with the
opium shops. They show the prevalence of the custom throughout the
country. If you find two hundred opium shops in Canton, and I am sure
there are not fewer there, you may be not less certain that opium is
smoked in the great majority of private and business houses in Canton. It
is the same in all the Treaty Ports. The opium-smoking shops in China may
be counted by hundreds and thousands, because China is as large as Europe,
and more populous.

Sir Robert Hart's Report, although to a certain extent an anti-opium one,
is in this and other respects very valuable, and forms in itself a
complete answer to the false and unfounded allegations of the Anti-Opium
Society. It is not likely that he would exaggerate the amount of opium
grown or smoked in China; the inference, indeed, would be that he, as an
official of the Chinese Government, would do just the contrary. There are
a great many other important ports in China besides the twenty ports with
which foreigners are not allowed to trade, and from which, indeed, they
are rigidly excluded; and in the interior of the country there are immense
and numerous cities and towns, large, thriving and densely populated,
where the opium pipe is used as freely as the tobacco pipe is with us. The
provinces in which opium is most grown are Szechuan and Yun-Nan, two of
the largest of the eighteen provinces constituting China proper. They are
the two great western provinces; but it is also grown in the eastern and
central provinces, in fact, more or less, all over the country. Though
there are no certain statistics, there cannot be a doubt that opium
smoking is more prevalent in the interior provinces than on the coast,
because it is there that the most opium is grown, and it is but reasonable
to infer that where opium is largely cultivated, especially in a country
like China, having no railroads, and few ordinary roads, there you will
find it to be most cheap and abundant, and therefore most consumed. Upon
this point I would refer to a most authoritative work by the late lamented
Captain Gill, R.E.,[6] whose barbarous murder the whole country deplored.
At page 235 of vol. ii. Captain Gill says:--

    As we had such vague ideas of the distance before us we were anxious
    to make an early start, but we were now in Yunnan, the province of
    China in which there is more opium smoked than in any other, and in
    which it is proportionately difficult to move the people in the
    morning. There is a Chinese proverb to the effect that there is an
    opium pipe in every house in the province of Kweichow, but one in
    every room in Yunnan, which means that men and women smoke opium
    universally.

That is the report of a man who was not only a sagacious and close
observer of all that he saw in his interesting journey, but who was wholly
impartial and disinterested on the subject of opium smoking. Sir Robert
Hart does not purport to give in this book correct returns of the quantity
of opium smoked or imported, much less of the quantity grown in China. The
replies of his subordinates at the different ports, many of them seven
hundred or a thousand miles apart, all concur in speaking of the great
difficulties they had in getting any figures at all. They are, therefore,
not to be taken as absolutely trustworthy, and Sir Robert candidly admits
that they are mere approximations. Before I had seen his book I had made a
calculation of the probable number of opium smokers in China, on the
assumption that the population of China proper was three hundred and sixty
millions, and that the custom was universal, limited only by the means of
procuring the drug; and I arrived at the conclusion that there were in
China three millions of habitual smokers, and about the same number of
occasional smokers. Mr. Lennox Simpson, Commissioner at Chefoo, in reply
to Sir Robert Hart's circular, says, at page 13 of the Yellow Book:

    Much difficulty has been experienced in eliciting answers to the
    various questions put to the native opium shops and others, all
    viewing with suspicion any inquiries made, evidently fearing that some
    prohibition is about to be put on the trade, or that their interests
    are in some way to suffer. _Hence some of the figures given in the
    return can scarcely be considered reliable, although every pains has
    been taken to collect information._

These commissioners are all gentlemen of good standing and education, and
they have a great many subordinates under them, so that they possess means
of collecting information such as no foreigner, not engaged in the public
service of China, could possibly command. Mr. Francis W. White, the
Commissioner at Hankow, replied:

    Owing to the entire absence of all reliable figures, the amount of
    opium put down as produced within the province and within the empire
    yearly, must be taken as approximate only. I have been careful to
    collect information from various sources, and this has been as
    carefully compared and verified as means will allow.

Mr. Holwell, the Commissioner at Kiukiang, wrote:

    The total quantity of unprepared native opium, said to be produced
    yearly in the province of Kiangsi, I find it next to impossible to
    ascertain with any degree of certainty. Native testimony differs.

I will point out by-and-by the reason why these returns are so unreliable.
The most extraordinary of them all are the returns of Mr. E. B. Drew, the
Commissioner at Ningpo, and Mr. H. Edgar, the Commissioner at Ichang. The
former estimates the entire quantity of native opium grown and consumed in
China at two hundred and sixty-five thousand chests, the latter at only
twenty-five thousand--less than a tenth of Mr. Drew's estimate. In the
face of all these discrepancies, Sir Robert Hart takes an arbitrary
figure, and says, in effect, there is at least as much opium produced in
China itself as is imported into China. With the knowledge I have of the
Chinese and the opium trade generally, from the calculations I have made,
and by the light thrown upon the question by Sir Robert Hart's Yellow
Book, and the Reports of Messrs. Spence and Baber and others, I am induced
to come to the conclusion that two hundred and sixty-five thousand chests
is much nearer the mark than a hundred thousand chests.

The reason the Chinese opium dealers have been so reticent in affording
information to the Commissioners of Customs at these Treaty Ports is, that
they are afraid to do so, fearing if they gave correct information, they
might in so doing furnish to the Mandarins reasons for "squeezing" them,
or for placing taxes and other restrictions on their trade; for the
Government officials in China, from the highest to the lowest, are, as I
have before said, the most corrupt, cruel, and unscrupulous body of men
in the whole world. Mr. Storrs Turner has told us that the Chinese
Government is a paternal one, exercising a fatherly care of its people,
and always exhorting them to virtue. Nothing can be more fallacious than
this. Theoretically, there is much that is good in the system of
government in China, but practically it is quite the reverse. There is
little sympathy between the supreme Government and the great body of the
people. The Emperor, his family, and immediate suite, are all Tartars,
quite another race from the Chinese, differing totally in customs,
manners, dress, and social habits. The Governors or Viceroys are pretty
much absolute sovereigns within their own provinces. Each has under him a
host of officials, commonly known as Mandarins, who are generally the most
rapacious and corrupt of men; their salaries, in most cases, are purely
nominal, for they are expected to pay themselves, which they well
understand how to do. Their system of taxation is irregular and
incomplete, and the process of squeezing is openly followed all over the
country. There is nothing a Chinese dreads so much as disclosing his
pecuniary means, or, indeed, any information that might furnish a clue to
them. If he admitted that he cultivated fifty acres of opium, or bought a
hundred pikuls of opium in a year, his means and his profits could be
arrived at by a simple process of arithmetic, and although he might feel
sure that, so far as Sir Robert Hart and the foreign Commissioners under
him were concerned, no wrong need be apprehended, yet he is so distrustful
and suspicious, that he would fear lest the facts should reach the ears of
the higher Chinese officials through the native subordinates in the
Commissioners' Offices.

A Chinaman, therefore, will never tell the amount or value of his
property, or the profits he is making by his business. He fears being
plundered; that is the simple fact. I know a respectable man in Hong Kong,
the possessor of considerable house property there, a man who would be
called wealthy even in England. Some years ago, when at Canton, where he
had a house, a Mandarin suddenly arrested and put him into prison. What a
Chinese prison is you will find in Dr. Gray's book. It is not the place
where a paternal Government ought to house the worst of criminals, or even
a wild beast. The man had committed no crime, and had done nothing
whatever to warrant this treatment; in vain he asked what he had been
imprisoned for, and demanded to be confronted with his accusers, if there
were any. His gaolers shrugged their shoulders and gave him no answer. He
was kept there for two or three months. Ultimately he received a hint,
which he recognized as an official intimation, that unless he came down
handsomely, as the phrase is, and that speedily, he would lose his head.
He took the hint, made the best bargain he could, and ultimately had to
pay seventy thousand dollars, or about fourteen thousand pounds, for his
release. There never was any accusation brought against him.

I knew another man, living at Swatow, who had made a great deal of money
in trade. He bought a large piece of foreshore at that place, which he
reclaimed and turned into profitable land. A military Mandarin living
there thought him a fair object for a squeeze; the same process was gone
through as in the case I have before mentioned; but this man, not having
the same wisdom as the other, held fast to his dollars. The result was
that a false charge of kidnapping, alleged to have been committed twenty
years before, was brought against him, and he was taken out and beheaded.
That is the way money is raised by the governors and their subordinates in
China. So much for Mr. Turner's benign and paternal Government. There is
no regular Income Tax in China, but there is a Property Tax levied in the
way I have mentioned. The Chinese authorities will let a man go on making
money for many years, and when they think he has accumulated sufficient
wealth for their purpose, they pounce down upon him and demand as much as
they think they can extort. That is the reason the Chinese opium dealers
are so reticent when inquiries are made concerning opium. If the
Commissioners at the Treaty Ports had got fair returns, I have no doubt
that it is not a hundred thousand pikuls of native opium that Sir Robert
Hart would have estimated as the quantity of opium grown in China, but
probably four or five times that amount.

Here, again, I must quote from Mr. Spence's report. Nothing can possibly
show better the prevalence of opium smoking in the provinces of Szechuan
and Yunnan and Hupah, they being about equal in extent to France, Spain,
and Portugal. This is what he says on the prevalence of opium smoking in
those provinces:--

    Before giving an estimate of the amount of opium produced in Szechuan,
    I must refer, in explanation of the large figures I shall be obliged
    to use, to the extraordinary prevalence of the habit of opium smoking
    in Western Hupei, in Szechuan, and in Yunnan. It prevails to an extent
    undreamt of in other parts of China. The Roman Catholic missionaries,
    who are stationed all over Szechuan to the number of nearly one
    hundred, and who, living amongst the people, have opportunities of
    observation denied to travellers, estimate that one-tenth of the whole
    male adult population of the province smoke opium. Mr. Parker, after
    travelling all over the thickly-settled parts of the province,
    estimates the proportion of smokers thus:--

                                                  Per cent.
        Labourers and small farmers                  10
        Small shopkeepers                            20
        Hawkers, soldiers                            30
        Merchants, gentry                            80
        Officials and their staffs                   90
        Actors, prostitutes, thieves, vagabonds      95

    I agree with Mr. Parker that the proportion of smokers varies in
    different classes according to their means and leisure, but I feel
    sure his estimate of the per-centage amongst the labouring classes is
    much too low. One of the most numerous class of labourers in China is
    the coolie class, day labourers who live by picking up odd jobs,
    turning their hands to any kind of unskilled work that may be offered.
    Certainly more than half of them smoke. Of the labouring classes who
    are not "coolies," as a whole this much may be said--they only have
    money at stated intervals; and when out of a gang of forty or fifty
    workmen or sailors only four or five smoke opium, it does not mean
    that only ten per cent. are smokers. In all probability half of the
    whole gang squandered their wages the day they got the money, and have
    nothing left to buy opium or anything else until the job or voyage for
    which they have been engaged is finished.

    For example, of my junk crew on my voyage to Chungking, only four
    smoked opium regularly, but seven others who had spent all their wages
    before we started smoked whenever I gave them a few cash. The total
    abstinence of a British sailor at sea for months on end proves
    nothing; it is what he will do when he has ten pounds in his pocket,
    and is in a street with fifteen public-houses, that decides his
    sobriety. So of workmen in the west of China, a large number smoke
    opium when they have money, and do the best they can when they have
    none. Whatever be the exact per-centage of the opium smokers in
    Szechuan in the whole population, it is many times larger than in the
    east.

Now, after all this absolutely irrefutable testimony, many might think it
unnecessary to go further. They little know, however, how strong a hold
fanaticism takes of the human mind; they little think how difficult it is
to eradicate a fascinating LIE from the mind, once its glittering
meretricious form has got hold of it and supplanted wholesome truth. I
have, therefore, to deal not only with those whose minds are as a sheet of
white paper, but with those in whom the fallacious seeds that beget error
and fanaticism have been sown and taken firm root. I will now give you an
extract from Sir Rutherford Alcock's paper, which is deserving of careful
study:--

    I may say here, that although most of the staple arguments and
    misleading opinions on opium and its disastrous effects come from the
    missionaries in China, whose good faith I do not question, there is no
    stronger protest against exaggerated and sensational statements on
    record than has been supplied by one of their number, the late Dr.
    Medhurst, of whom it has been truly said, he was "one of the most
    able, experienced, zealous missionaries in China." Opposed in
    principle to the opium trade in all its aspects, his statements will
    be readily accepted as unimpeachable evidence. The following remark
    appears in an official paper, forwarded to the Chief Superintendent of
    Trade of Hong Kong in 1855. Alluding to a speech of an American
    missionary who had visited England, and was reported to have told the
    British public "that the smokers of the contraband article have
    increased from eight to fifteen millions, yielding an annual death
    harvest of more than a million," and further characterizing the
    traffic as "staining the British name in China with the deepest
    disgrace," Dr. Medhurst observes, "_such statements do great harm;
    they produce a fictitious and groundless excitement in the minds of
    the religious and philanthropic public at home, while they steel
    against all reasonable and moderate representations the minds of the
    political and mercantile body abroad. The estimate given has not even
    the semblance of truth; it is an outrageous exaggeration._" And yet in
    a memorial presented to Lord Clarendon by two distinguished and justly
    respected noblemen, the Earls of Shaftesbury and Chichester, on the
    extent of the opium trade in 1855, these, and still more "outrageous
    exaggerations" appear with the authority of their names. Lord
    Shaftesbury officializes the estimate that twenty millions of Chinese
    are opium smokers, and assumes that of this number one-tenth, that is,
    two millions, die yearly, and states it as "an appalling fact."
    Appalling, indeed! But what if it be a mere figment of the
    imagination, and absolutely devoid, as Dr. Medhurst says, of a
    semblance of truth?

This is the way the benevolent British public have been cajoled and misled
for the last twenty years, or more, by opium-phobists. No wonder that the
Anti-Opium Society can raise fifty thousand pounds so easily, for the
British public is a benevolent one, and will subscribe its gold readily
where what they believe a proper object presents itself. Sad, indeed it
is, that in the present case its munificence represents, not merely so
much money lost, but vast sums recklessly squandered in a mischievous
agitation, that whilst it tends to sap and ruin one of the loveliest of
all virtues--that charity that endureth long and is kind--paralyses
missionary labour, prejudices the trade and revenue of our great Indian
Empire, and defames our country in the eyes of the whole world. Sad, sad
also to see that venerated nobleman, Lord Shaftesbury, after his long and
honourable career, and so many other good and eminent men, made the
victims of such miserable delusions.

I think it is now clear, both from the testimony I have adduced, and from
Mr. Turner's own admission, that the poppy is not only indigenous to
China, but that it has been cultivated there from time immemorial, and
that opium is smoked generally throughout China, the only limit to its use
being the means of procuring the drug.




LECTURE III.


In my last lecture I dealt with the fallacy that the poppy is not
indigenous to China, but has recently been introduced there presumably by
British agency, and that opium smoking in China was confined to a small
percentage of the people, which had been steadily increasing since the
introduction into China of Indian opium.

I now proceed to discuss fallacy number 3, which is, that "_opium smoking
is injurious to the system, more so than spirit drinking_." I think I
shall be able to show most clearly that exactly the reverse is the case.
With this it will be convenient to take fallacy number 5, which is a
kindred one, namely, that "_opium smoking and opium eating are equally
hurtful_." This fallacy lies at the root of the opium controversy, for it
alone has enabled the Anti-Opium agitators to give plausibility to their
teaching and to obtain some hold, as they lately had, upon the public
mind. There is, in truth, about as much difference in the two practices as
there is between drinking, say, a pint of ardent spirits and bathing the
surface of one's body with the same stimulant. Before proceeding further,
it may be stated that opium is admitted by physicians in all countries to
be an invaluable medicine, for which there is no known substitute. Mr.
Storrs Turner says that from the time of Hippocrates to the present day it
has been the physician's invaluable ally in his struggles against disease
and death.

Pereira thus describes the drug:--

    Opium is undoubtedly the most important and valuable remedy of the
    whole Materia Medica. For other medicines we have one or more
    substitutes, but for opium none,--at least in the large majority of
    cases in which its peculiar and beneficial influence is required. Its
    good effects are not, as is the case with some valuable medicines,
    remote and contingent, but they are immediate, direct, and obvious,
    and its operation is not attended with pain or discomfort. Furthermore
    it is applied, and with the greatest success, to the relief of
    maladies of everyday occurrence, some of which are attended with acute
    human suffering.

This is the description given of opium in Dr. Quain's _Dictionary of
Medicine_ recently published:--

    Opium and morphia naturally stand first and still hold their place as
    our most potent and reliable narcotics, all the more valuable because
    almost alone in their class they are also endowed with powerful
    anodyne action, in virtue of which they may relieve pain without
    causing sleep. Valuable as it is in all forms of insomnia, opium is
    especially indicated in typhus fever and other acute disorders, when
    delirium and prolonged wakefulness seem to endanger life. The
    principal drawback to opium is the digestive disturbance following its
    use, and the fact that, as toleration is very rapidly established,
    gradually increasing doses are needed to check the counteracting
    influence of habit.

The Anti-Opium Society and their followers allege that dram-drinking is
not only less baneful than opium-smoking, but they say that the latter
practice so injures the constitution, and has such extraordinary
attractions for those who indulge in it, that it is impossible to get rid
of the habit, and that, in effect, whilst drunkards can be reformed, opium
smokers cannot. This is absolutely untrue. The reverse is much nearer the
mark. The effect upon the system of constant spirit drinking, leaving
actual drunkenness and its consequences aside, is that it produces organic
changes in the system, by acting upon what medical men call the
"microscopic tissues," of which the whole human frame is made up; also
poisoning the blood, which then, instead of being a healthy fluid coursing
freely through the frame and invigorating the entire system, flows
sluggishly, producing organic changes in the blood vessels, inducing
various diseases according to the constitution and tendencies of the
individual. Three of the most usual diseases to which the habitual dram
drinker is subject are liver disease, fatty degeneration of the heart, and
paralysis. There is not a medical student of three months' experience who
could not, if you entered a dissecting-room, point you out a "drunkard's
liver." The moment he sees that object he knows at once that the wretched
being to whom it belonged had, by continued indulgence in alcohol, ruined
his constitution and health, and brought himself to an untimely end. There
is another serious consequence arising from habitual drinking. Not only
does the habit irreparably ruin the general health so that cure is
impossible, but it induces insanity, and I believe I am not beyond the
mark in stating that fifty per cent. at the least of the lunatics in our
various asylums throughout the country have become insane from
over-indulgence in alcohol. Dr. Pereira, in his celebrated _Materia
Medica_, states that out of one hundred and ten cases occurring in male
patients admitted into the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum in 1840, no fewer than
thirty-one were ascribed to intemperance, while thirty-four were referred
to combined causes of which intemperance was stated to be one; and yet Mr.
Turner and his disciples say that spirit drinking is a lesser vice than
opium smoking!

I need not remind you of the consequences to others besides the actual
victims to spirit drinking, for that is unfortunately told too eloquently
and but too vividly brought before us every day in the public newspapers.
You will find that those acts of violence, those unfortunate cases that
make one shudder to read, happening daily in this country--kicking wives,
sometimes to death, beating and otherwise ill-using helpless children,
violently attacking unoffending people in the streets--all are the
results, more or less, of spirit drinking. Even the missionaries admit
that opium smoking does not produce any of these evils. As I have said
before, truth is natural to the human mind, and will reveal itself, even
where it is not directly relevant to the purpose. Mr. Turner does not
venture to dispute this in his book, and I would call your attention to
the passage. He says on page 33:--

    Even between drunkenness and opium smoking there are perceptible
    distinctions. We must allow that opium smoking is a much more pacific
    and polite vice. The opium sot does not quarrel with his mate nor kick
    his wife to death; he is quiet and harmless enough while the spirit of
    the drug possesses him.

That is all true so far as the fact goes, but if an insinuation is
intended that the Chinaman gets violent after the effect of the drug has
passed away, there is no foundation for it in fact. The Chinaman takes
opium just because he likes it, and knowing it will act at once as a
pleasing sedative and a harmless stimulant. A man who is working hard all
day in a tropical climate, whether at bodily or mental work, finds,
towards the close of the day, his nervous system in an unsettled state,
and looks for a stimulant, and the most harmless and most effectual one he
can find is the opium pipe. When opium and opium smoking are better
understood--and I believe the subject is now but imperfectly known by most
medical men in this country--I feel convinced that the faculty will
largely prescribe opium smoking, not merely as a substitute for dram
drinking, but as a curative agency, that in many cases will be found
invaluable. In this I am borne out by an eminent medical authority, to
whom I shall refer by-and-by. The regular and habitual opium smoker is
seldom or never found to indulge in spirits at all. Stimulants of all
kinds are so freely taken here that people never look upon them as a
poison; but in point of fact they are a terrible poison, and a very active
one, too. Another medical work of very great authority is that by Dr.
Taylor.[7] It has always received the greatest attention in courts of law;
and it is also held in the highest estimation by the medical profession.
At page 315, under the head of "Poisoning by Alcohol," he says:--

    The stomach has been found intensely congested or inflamed, the mucous
    membrane presenting in one case a bright red, and in another a dark
    red-brown colour. When death has taken place rapidly, there may be a
    peculiar odour of spirits in the contents; but this will not be
    perceived if the quantity taken was small, or many hours have elapsed
    before the inspection is made. The brain and its membranes are found
    congested, and in some instances there is effusion of blood or serum
    beneath the inner membrane. In a case observed by Dr. Geoghegan, in
    which a pint of spirits had been taken and proved fatal in eight
    hours, black extravasation was found on the mucous membrane of the
    stomach; but no trace of alcohol could be detected in the contents.
    The action of a strong alcoholic liquid on the mucous membrane of the
    stomach so closely resembles the effect produced by arsenic and other
    irritants, as easily to give rise to the suspicion of mineral irritant
    poisoning. A drawing in the museum collection of Guy's Hospital
    furnishes a good illustration of the local action of alcohol. The
    whole of the mucous membrane of the stomach is highly corrugated and
    is of a deep brownish-red colour. _Of all the liquids affecting the
    brain this has the most powerful action on the stomach._ A case of
    alcoholic poisoning of a child, aet. seven, referred to me by Mr.
    Jackaman, coroner for Ipswich, in July 1863, will serve to show the
    correctness of this remark. A girl was found at four o'clock in the
    morning lying perfectly insensible on the floor. She had had access to
    some brandy, which she had swallowed from a quartern measure, found
    near her empty. She had spoken to her mother only ten minutes before,
    so that the symptoms must have come on very rapidly. She was seen by
    Mr. Adams four hours afterwards. She was then quite insensible, in a
    state of profound coma, the skin cold, and covered with a clammy
    perspiration. There had been slight vomiting. The child died in twelve
    hours, without recovering consciousness, from the time at which she
    was first found.

So far Dr. Taylor, a most competent authority on the subject, as showing
what a poison alcohol is. Now alcohol, as I have before mentioned, effects
an organic change in the system, which opium, if smoked, or even if eaten
does not; and when spirits are indulged in to a very considerable extent,
the disease produced is absolutely incurable, because it is impossible for
any medical skill to give a man new tissues, new blood, a new stomach, or
a new liver, where the whole substance and material of all has undergone a
complete and ruinous change. Now, the case as regards opium is totally
different, because, no matter how much one may indulge in opium, whether
in eating or smoking, the effects produced are always curable. This is so
as regards opium eating; in respect to the infinitely less exciting
practice of opium _smoking_, the rule applies with very much greater
force. A man may smoke opium inordinately until, from want of appetite and
impaired digestion, he seems sinking into the grave; he is, however, only
labouring under functional derangement, which is always curable. The use
of opium in any form produces no organic change in the system whatever.
Excessive eating or smoking opium may impair the appetite and digestion,
but that will be all. I have very competent medical authority for saying
this. This fact places opium and alcohol in two entirely different
categories. The one, if eaten in moderation, is, I believe, harmless, if
not beneficial; while, as to the smoking of the drug, it is absolutely
innocuous;--but if alcohol be freely though not inordinately used, it will
prove, sooner or later, destructive to the system, acting upon the frame
as a slow poison, which must eventually end, as experience shows, in ruin
and death. De Quincey tells us in his _Confessions_ that he ate opium with
impunity for eighteen years, and that it was only after eight years
_abuse_ of opium eating that he suffered in any way from the practice.

I will now give you another extract from Dr. Pereira's book. At page 446,
under the heading "Consequences of Habitual Drunkenness," he says:--

    The continued use of spirituous liquors gives rise to various morbid
    conditions of system, a few only of the most remarkable of which can
    be here referred to. One of these is the disease known by the various
    names of _delirium tremens_, _d. potatorum_, _oinomapria_, &c., and
    which is characterized by delirium, tremor of the extremities,
    wakefulness, and great frequency of pulse. The delirium is of a
    peculiar kind. It usually consists in the imagined presence of objects
    which the patient is anxious to seize or avoid. Its pathology is not
    understood. It is sometimes, but not constantly, connected with or
    dependent on an inflammatory condition of the brain, or its membranes.
    Sometimes it is more allied to nervous fever. Opium has been found an
    important agent in relieving it. Insanity is another disease produced
    by the immoderate and habitual use of spirituous liquors.

Now I do not think that, much as they have abused opium smoking, any of
the Anti-Opium writers have ever alleged insanity to be an effect or
concomitant of opium smoking. It must therefore be taken as generally
admitted that opium smoking, or even opium eating, does not produce
insanity. We have, then, this undisputed fact, viz. _that insanity and
acts of violence do not result from opium smoking, whilst they are
unquestionably produced by spirit drinking_.

I had recently some conversation on the subject of opium with a medical
friend who has been in large practice in London, for twenty years. I had
previously spoken to him frequently on the same subject, and he has been
kind enough to give me his views in a very interesting and concise manner.
This opinion, I may tell you, is not paid for, or prepared merely to
support a particular purpose, as in the case of trials in the law courts.
It is purely spontaneous. We all know that professional men, whether
doctors, lawyers, surveyors, and others, are all more or less prone to
take the views of the party requiring their services, and they,
accordingly, will give opinions more or less coinciding with those views.
It does not, however, follow that the persons doing so are guilty of any
moral wrong, or that they write or state what they do not believe to be
true; on the contrary, they have a complete faith in the statements they
make. The natural bent of the mind is to lean towards the views urged by
one's patient or client; and thus two physicians or lawyers of the highest
standing and character will be found to hold different opinions. But this
statement with which I have been furnished stands on an entirely different
footing. There can have been no bias in the mind of the writer; it is
simply the result of study and experience. I have the most perfect
confidence in this gentleman's opinions. He is Mr. William Brend, M.R.C.S.
He says:--

    There is no organic disease traceable to the use of opium, either
    directly or indirectly, and whether used in moderate quantities or
    even in great excess. In other words, _there is no special disease
    associated with opium_. Functional disorder, more or less, may be, and
    no doubt is, induced by the improper or unnecessary use of opium; but
    this is only what may be said of any other cause of deranged health,
    such as gluttony, bad air, mental anxiety....

    However great the functional disorder produced by opium, even when
    carried to great excess, may be, the whole effect passes off, and the
    bodily system is restored in a little while to a state of complete
    health, if the habit be discontinued. Alcohol, when taken in
    moderation, unquestionably benefits a certain number of individuals,
    but there are others whose systems will not tolerate the smallest
    quantities; it acts upon them like a poison. But in the case of all
    persons when alcohol is taken in excess disease is sooner or later
    produced; that disease consists of organic changes induced in the
    blood-vessels of the entire system, more especially the minute
    blood-vessels called the capillaries; these become dilated, and
    consequently weakened in their coats, and eventually paralyzed, so
    that they cannot contract upon the blood. The result of this is
    stagnation, leading to further changes still, such as fatty
    degeneration of all the organs; for it must be remembered that alcohol
    circulates with the blood, and thus finds its way into the remotest
    tissues. The special diseases referrable to alcohol, besides this
    general fatty degeneration, are the disease of the liver called
    "cirrhosis," and very frequently "Bright's disease of the kidneys."
    Here, then, we have a great and important difference between opium and
    alcohol. The second great difference grows out of the first. It is
    this:--I have said that if alcohol be taken in excess for a certain
    length of time, depending to some extent upon the susceptibility of
    the individual, organic change, that is disease, is inevitable; but
    the saddest part of it is that it is real disease, not merely
    functional disorder; so that if those who have yielded to that excess
    can be persuaded to abandon alcohol entirely the mischief induced must
    remain. The progress of further evil may be staved off, but the system
    can never again be restored to perfect health. _The demon_ has taken a
    grip which can never be entirely unloosed. Herein there is the second
    great difference between the use of opium and of alcohol in excess.

    If what I have said of opium eating be true, common sense will draw
    the inference that opium smoking must be comparatively innocuous, for
    used in this way, a very small quantity indeed of the active
    constituents find their entrance into the system. Its influence, like
    tobacco, is exerted entirely upon the nervous system, and when that
    influence has passed off it leaves (as also in the case of tobacco) a
    greater or less craving for its repetition; but as organic disease is
    not the result, I see no reason why opium smoking in moderation
    necessarily degrades the individual more than does the smoking of
    tobacco.

Here I will give you another extract from Mr. Storrs Turner's book, which
tells against his case very strongly indeed. How he came to insert it I
can only understand on the principle I have already mentioned, that truth
is inherent to the human mind and will reveal itself occasionally even
though it has to struggle through a mountain of prejudice and of warped
understanding. This is it, from the evidence of Dr. Eatwell, First
Assistant Opium Examiner in the Bengal service; it will be found on page
233:--

    Having passed three years in China, I may be allowed to state the
    results of my observation, and I can affirm thus far, that the effects
    of the abuse of the drug do not come very frequently under
    observation, and that when cases do occur, the habit is frequently
    found to have been induced by the presence of some painful chronic
    disease, to escape from the sufferings of which the patient has fled
    to this resource. That this is not always the case, however, I am
    perfectly ready to admit, and there are doubtless many who indulge in
    the habit to a pernicious extent, led by the same morbid impulses
    which induce men to become drunkards in even the most civilised
    countries; but these cases do not, at all events, come before the
    public eye. It requires no laborious search in civilized England to
    discover evidences of the pernicious effects of the abuse of alcoholic
    liquors; our open and thronged gin-palaces, and our streets afford
    abundant testimony on the subject; but in China this open evidence of
    the evil effects of opium is at least wanting. As regards the effects
    of the habitual use of the drug on the mass of the people, I must
    affirm that no injurious results are visible. The people generally are
    a muscular and well-formed race, the labouring portion being capable
    of great and prolonged exertion under a fierce sun, in an unhealthy
    climate. Their disposition is cheerful and peaceable, and quarrels and
    brawls are rarely heard amongst even the lower orders; whilst in
    general intelligence they rank deservedly high amongst Orientals. I
    will, therefore, conclude with observing, that the proofs are still
    wanting to show that the moderate use of opium produces more
    pernicious effects upon the constitution than does the moderate use of
    spirituous liquors; whilst, at the same time, it is certain that the
    consequences of the abuse of the former are less appalling in their
    effect upon the victim, and less disastrous to society at large, than
    are consequences of the abuse of the latter.

Could any evidence against the allegations of the Anti-Opium Society be
stronger than this? Have I not now a right to say, "Out of the mouth of
thine own witness I convict thee!"

My own observation goes to show that opium smoking is far more fascinating
than opium eating, and that the opium smoker never relapses into the opium
eater. Opium eating, as I think I have already stated, is unknown in
China. I think these statements put the question as regards opium smoking,
opium eating, and spirit drinking in a very different light to what the
advocates of the Anti-Opium Society throw upon the subject. The latter
talk of the importation of Indian opium into China as the origin of the
custom of smoking the drug, or, at the least, that it has made the natives
smoke more than they otherwise would have done. There is no truth in such
representations. Let us take the year 1880, for instance, and adopting the
figures given by Sir Robert Hart, and concurred in by the British
merchants, which I take to be quite correct, that the amount of opium
imported into China from India was in that year one hundred thousand
chests, each chest weighing a pikul, which would amount to about six
thousand tons. Distribute those six thousand tons over the whole of China,
which, as I have before so often said, is as large as Europe, and with a
population amounting to three hundred and sixty millions, and you will
find it gives such a trifling annual amount to each person, that Sir
Robert Hart cannot mark from its use any damage to the finances of the
State, the wealth of its people, or the growth of its population. In the
United Kingdom, where we have less than a tenth of the population of
China, there were two hundred thousand tons of alcohol--whisky, gin,
brandy--and one thousand and ninety millions four hundred and forty-four
thousand seven hundred and sixteen gallons of wine and beer consumed in
that year. If all these spirits, wine, and beer were mixed up so as to
form one vast lake--one huge "devil's punch-bowl"--there would be
sufficient liquor for the whole population of the United Kingdom to swim
in at one time. But if the tears of all the broken-hearted wives, widows,
and orphans that flowed from the use of the accursed mixture were
collected, they would produce such a sea of sorrow, such an ocean of
misery as never before was presented to the world. Yet philanthropists and
Christian people in this country give all their time, energies, and a
great deal of their money to put down this purely sentimental grievance in
China, and shut their eyes to the terrible evils thundering at their own
doors!

The whole purpose of Mr. Storrs Turner's book, and of the Anti-Opium
Society, is to write down opium smoking in China, with the ultimate view
of suppressing the Indo-China opium trade; and no man living is better
aware than Mr. Turner that opium eating is not a practice with the
Chinese; indeed, I doubt if it is known in China at all. Yet, knowing all
this, he puts forward the outrageous theory that opium smoking and opium
eating are equally injurious; it therefore becomes a matter of the first
importance that the great difference between these two practices should be
clearly shown. In the appendix to Mr. Turner's book there is a mass of
evidence, of which a large portion is quite beside the question, for it
applies exclusively to opium eating--a practice, I assert and will clearly
show, is totally different from, and a thousand times more trying to the
constitution than opium smoking. Dr. Ayres says that opium smokers can
smoke in one day as much opium as would, if eaten, poison one hundred men,
and Dr. Ayres is a very great authority on the subject; for not only has
he a large practice among the better classes of Chinese, all of whom are,
more or less, opium smokers, but his daily duties bring him into contact
with the criminal classes, who are most prone to excessive sensual
indulgence of this kind.

This is what Dr. Ayres says upon the subject in his article in the _Friend
of China_:--

    As regards opium smoking, no prisoner who confessed to be an opium
    smoker has been allowed a single grain in the gaol. Neither has he had
    any stimulant as a substitute, and I do not find there has been any
    evil consequence in breaking off this habit at once, nor that any
    precaution has been necessary, further than a closer attention to the
    general health. Several very good specimens of opium smokers have come
    under observation; one was the case of a man whose daily consumption
    had been two ounces a day for nineteen years, and who was allowed
    neither opium nor gin, nor was he given any narcotic or stimulant. For
    the first few days he suffered from want of sleep, but soon was in
    fair health, and expressed himself much pleased at having got rid of
    the habit.... In my experience, the habit does no physical harm in
    moderation. In the greatest case of excess just mentioned at the gaol,
    a better-nourished or developed man for his size it would be difficult
    to see.

So far as regards opium _eating_, the best medical authorities are divided
as to whether opium eating or drinking in moderation is injurious to the
system at all. In any case, opium eating is not the question before us,
nor the subject of these lectures, which is opium smoking in China. Mr.
Storrs Turner gives, in his appendix, at page 240, extracts from some
statements of Lieut.-Col. James Todd, who says:--

    This pernicious plant (the poppy) has robbed the Rajpoot of half his
    virtues, and while it obscures these it heightens his vices, giving to
    his natural bravery a character of insane ferocity, and to the
    countenance which would otherwise beam with intelligence an air of
    imbecility.

That entirely relates to the _eating_ of the drug by the Rajpoots of
India, and has no connection or analogy to opium smoking by the Chinese.
There is another quotation on the same page from Dr. Oppenheim, given in
Pereira's _Materia Medica_ as follows:--

    The habitual _opium eater_ is instantly recognised by his appearance:
    a total attenuation of body, a withered, yellow countenance, a lame
    gait, &c.

And so on. This, as you see, applies to opium eating only. There are many
other instances of the effects of such use of opium given in the appendix,
which, after these two quotations, it is useless to further repeat.
Indeed, so far as relevancy to his subject goes, Mr. Storrs Turner might
just as well have introduced into his book medical or other testimony as
to the effects of gluttony or spirit drinking. It suits his purpose,
however, to mix up the two practices, so as to confuse and mislead his
readers. Dr. Oppenheim's statement, by the way, is completely refuted by
Dr. Sir George Birdwood, a distinguished physician, whose long residence
in Bombay,--where there is a Chinese colony, most, if not all, of whom are
habitual smokers of the drug,--and whose thorough acquaintance with the
effects of opium eating and opium smoking, entitle his testimony to the
very highest consideration. Again, at p. 8 of Mr. Turner's volume,
reference is made to De Quincey's book on opium eating, intituled, "The
Confessions of an English Opium Eater." Could anything be more
disingenuous than this? De Quincey was an opium eater, not an opium
smoker. Here is the passage from Mr. Turner's book to which I have
referred:--

    Those "Confessions," which are not confessions, but an _apologia pro
    vita sua_, an elaborate essay to whitewash his reputation and varnish
    over the smirching blot of a self-indulgent habit by a glitter of a
    fascinating literary style.

Now did anyone ever hear of such an extraordinary explanation of De
Quincey's motives in publishing that volume? De Quincey, he says, in
effect, was ashamed of the practice of opium eating, and wrote the book as
an excuse for his conduct, so horrible, disgraceful, and debasing,
according to Mr. Storrs Turner, is--not opium eating, observe you,
but--opium smoking. How fallacious are such arguments I think I shall make
apparent to the most simple mind. If a man has the misfortune to have
contracted a disgraceful habit, such, for instance, as over-indulgence in
spirit drinking, the very last thing he would think of doing is to publish
a book upon the subject, and thus acquaint the whole world with his
infirmity. Yet this is what Mr. Turner alleges against De Quincey. But, in
point of fact, he is altogether wrong in supposing that De Quincey was
ashamed of opium eating; if he had been, he unquestionably would not have
written his book, which, by the way, is one of the most fascinating
volumes in our literature. Previous to the publication of it, probably
there were not half a dozen people who knew that he, De Quincey, was an
opium eater, and in the preface to the work, he says, "that his
self-accusation does not amount to a confession of guilt." I know Mr.
Turner to be a gentleman utterly incapable of wilfully acting
disingenuously, much less of stating intentionally what he knew to be
untrue; but he is so blinded by prejudice, his naturally clear intellect
is so warped and distorted, and his faculties and reasoning powers are so
perverted, by this opium question, and his duties towards the Anti-Opium
Society, that he either does not see the difference between the two
things,--opium smoking and opium eating,--or, aware of that difference,
thinks himself justified in classing them together, as they both proceed
from opium, and thus he would persuade himself and his readers that they
are equally baneful. But in this book of his he takes De Quincey, the
opium eater, who confesses to having eaten three hundred and twenty grains
a day, and compares him with an opium-smoking Chinaman who smoked one
hundred and eighty grains a day; the difference between eating three
hundred and twenty grains and smoking one hundred and eighty grains a day
being about as a thousand is to one, in fact, in such case it would be
simply the difference between life and death; and yet Mr. Storrs Turner
would strive to mix up the two practices, so that the incautious reader
might infer that the effects of the one were as injurious as those of the
other. Such is the class of arguments with which the Anti-Opium Society
and its credulous supporters have been satisfied, and upon which the whole
religious world, the country, and the legislature are called upon to come
to the rescue of injured humanity, and abolish this Indo-China opium
trade.

Now, as De Quincey is on the _tapis_, I cannot refrain from exposing a
very disgraceful piece of deception which has been practised upon the
public by some of the agents or supporters of the Anti-Opium Society since
the first edition of my Lectures appeared. This work of De Quincey, as I
have intimated, is a very entertaining book; it is the first of a series
of fourteen volumes by the same author, published in 1880 by the eminent
firm of Adam and Charles Black, of Edinburgh; the price of each volume is
two shillings, which is very moderate indeed, taking the character and
quality of the letterpress, the paper, and general "get up" into account,
for, as for the copyright, it has expired. Although Mr. Storrs Turner has
mis-described the book as a penitential effort on the part of De Quincey,
I am afraid that the effect of its perusal on most readers would be to
induce them rather to become opium eaters than repel them from the
practice, as will be manifest from an extract which I shall shortly give
the reader. The truth is, De Quincey, who knew human nature very well,
lived by his pen, and was actuated more by the desire to amuse than reform
his readers--for, say as you will, a well presented comedy will be always
more popular with the multitude than a tragedy, however skilfully
performed. Now, I am far from impugning the main features of our author's
"confessions," but in saying that in writing this very fascinating and
original book he went extensively into the picturesque, and drew largely
on his imagination, no person who will afford himself the pleasure of
reading the book can, I think, deny. Now, some very zealous agent or
advocate of the Anti-Opium Society, fearing that the effect of this work
of De Quincey's--brought as it has been into notice in connection with
this controversy by Mr. Turner's and my own book--might be to induce the
reading public to think that opium, after all, was not so terrible a drug
as the Anti-Opium agitators represent, has set himself to the ignoble task
of so garbling the work, and importing into it other matter of his own, as
to represent opium eating as the most terrible, fearful, and demoralizing
practice in the world, and then printing the concoction and flooding the
country with the impudent travesty at the very moderate charge of one
penny. All the entertaining and diverting passages have been suppressed,
and some wretched stuff inserted. It is called on the title page "The
Confessions of an Opium Eater; the famous work by Thomas De Quincey.
Copyright edition." The whole is nothing more than a burlesque--and a very
bad one indeed--of the real volume. In the first place, there is a lie
upon the face of it, as the copyright has expired, and it is not in any
respect a copy of the original; and secondly, it barely contains one-sixth
of the matter of the actual volume, and has "counterfeit" stamped upon
every page. It was exposed at the various book-stalls of Messrs. W. H.
Smith and Son, in London, and, I believe, also throughout the country. I
myself bought two copies at the Charing Cross station a few months ago,
but I believe the delectable piece of literary forgery has since been
withdrawn. I daresay, however, it has, to a great extent, answered its
purpose, _i.e._ to poison the minds of its readers on the Opium question,
by making it appear that opium is a terrible poison, and that the smoking
of it is more injurious than the excessive indulgence in alcohol. This
"pious fraud" has done a grievous wrong to the memory of a great English
author, Thomas De Quincey--whose pure and classic English adorns our
language--and also an injury to the general public who have advanced their
money for the penny lie upon false pretences. The whole affair is just as
defensible a proceeding as that of some tenth-rate dauber who, having
copied (?) a masterpiece of Sir Joshua Reynolds, or some other great
master of the English school, had the miserable caricature oleographed,
and flooded the country with the imposture, in the hope of inducing the
public to believe that true copies of the originals were offered to them.
But these Anti-Opium fanatics do not stick at trifles, and, in their
insane desire to make right appear wrong, do not hesitate to defame the
dead and vilify the living. I have mentioned this incident to show my
readers the unscrupulous efforts these people will resort to in order to
impose their fictions upon the public.

Now, leaving De Quincey and his book for the present, let us see what Dr.
Ayres says upon the difference between opium eating and opium smoking. In
his article in _The Friend of China_, from which I have already quoted, he
says:--

    I have conducted my observations with much interest, as the effects of
    opium eating are well known to me by many years' experience in India,
    and I have been surprised to find the opium smoker differs so much
    from the opium eater. _I am inclined to the belief that in the popular
    mind the two have got confused together. Opium smoking bears no
    comparison with opium eating._ The latter is a terrible vice, most
    difficult to cure, and showing rapidly very marked constitutional
    effects in the consumer.

Dr. Ayres was quite right, the two have got mixed up together, thanks to
Mr. Storrs Turner and his confreres. To further explain the difference
between opium eating and opium smoking, let us take the familiar instance
of tobacco smoking. It is not, I think, generally known that tobacco,
taken internally, is a violent and almost instantaneous poison. A very
small quantity of it admitted into the stomach produces speedy death, and
it is a wonder to some medical men that its use has not been made
available by assassins for their foul and deadly purposes. Tobacco has no
medicinal properties; it is simply known to chemists and physicians as a
poison. Its alkaloid, or active principle, is nicotine, a poison of so
deadly and instantaneous a nature as to rank with aconite, strychnine, and
prussic acid. Of the four, indeed, it takes the lead. In Taylor's "Medical
Jurisprudence," to which I have already referred, it is laid down at page
321, under the head of "Poisoning by Tobacco":--

    The effects which this substance produces when taken in a large dose,
    either in the form of powder or infusion, are well marked. The
    symptoms are faintness, nausea, vomiting, giddiness, delirium, loss of
    power in the limbs, general relaxation of the muscular system,
    trembling, complete prostration of strength, coldness of the surface
    with cold clammy perspiration, convulsive movements, paralysis and
    death. In some cases there is purging, with violent pain in the
    abdomen; in others there is rather a sense of sinking or depression in
    the region of the heart, passing into syncope, or creating a sense of
    impending dissolution. With the above-mentioned symptoms there is
    dilatation of the pupils, dimness of sight with confusion of ideas, a
    small, weak, and scarcely-perceptible pulse, and difficulty of
    breathing. Poisoning by tobacco has not often risen to medico-legal
    discussion. This is the more remarkable as it is an easily accessible
    substance, and the possession of it would not, as in the case of other
    poisons, excite surprise or suspicion. In June, 1854, a man was
    charged with the death of an infant, of ten weeks, by poisoning it
    with tobacco. He placed a quantity of tobacco in the mouth of the
    infant, with the view, as he stated, of making it sleep. The infant
    was completely narcotized, and died on the second day.... Tobacco owes
    its poisonous properties to the presence of a liquid volatile
    alkaloid, _nicotina_.

Whilst under the head "Nicotine," on the same page, he says:--

    This is a deadly poison, and, like prussic acid, it destroys life in
    small doses with great rapidity. I found that a rabbit was killed by a
    single drop in three minutes and a half. In fifteen seconds the animal
    lost all power of standing, was violently convulsed in its fore and
    hind legs, and its back was arched convulsively.

In Dr. Ure's "Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines," it is laid
down, at page 250, under the head of "Nicotine":--

    This alkaloid is the active principle of the tobacco plant....
    Nicotine is a most powerful poison, one drop put on the tongue of a
    large dog being sufficient to kill it in two or three minutes.

So much for tobacco and its alkaloid as deadly poisons; yet we all know
that, unless indulged in to an inordinate extent, tobacco smoking is a
perfectly harmless practice, almost universally indulged in; the exception
now being to find a man, young or old, gentle or simple, who is not a
tobacco smoker. Most of our greatest thinkers, philosophers, poets,
statesmen, and mathematicians smoke it, and in most cases, I believe, with
advantage. Indulged in moderately, it does no injury to the constitution,
but I should rather say its effects are curative and beneficial; you will
rarely find a heavy tobacco smoker a drunkard or even a spirit drinker.
Yet this plant, which gives comfort and delight to millions of people, is
a deadly poison if taken internally in even a minute quantity in its
natural or manufactured state. So it is with opium; the habitual eating of
it may be injurious, but the smoking is not only innocuous, but positively
beneficial to the system. It is a complete preservative against dram
drinking and drunkenness, for whilst it produces similar but far more
agreeable effects on the nervous system than wine, it does not, like
alcohol, poison the blood, destroy the health, and lead to ruin, disgrace,
and death. Of course, opium-smoking, like every other luxury--tea, wine,
spirits, beer, tobacco--may be abused, but the few who indulge excessively
are infinitesimally small as compared with the many who abuse the use of
alcoholic liquors. As to opium eating, an overdose produces death, but the
opium smoker can indulge in his luxury from, morning till night without
any apparent injury. It is plain, therefore, that opium smoking and opium
eating cannot be classed in the same category at all, but stand apart
quite separately and distinctly.

I may here again appropriately refer to Sir Wilfrid Lawson's speech at the
Anti-Opium meeting at Newcastle. In the course of his remarks, the speaker
referred with some humour to an Anti-Tobacco-smoking Society, a once
active organization. At a meeting of this body held at Carlisle, it
appears that the chief orator,--an energetic person, with wonderful powers
of imagination and a fluent tongue, quite another Mr. Storrs
Turner--having exhausted his power of vituperation in denouncing the
Virginian weed and its terrible effects upon its votaries, alleged in
particular that tobacco smoking tended to shorten human life, but here he
was interrupted by one of the audience, a jovial middle-aged north
countryman, who said, "I don't know that Mr. Lecturer, for my father
smoked till he was eighty!" "Ah!" exclaimed the other, quite equal, as he
thought, to the occasion, "your father's case was an exceptional one; he
was an unusually strong, healthy man. Anyone who sees you, his hale,
hearty son, must know that. Had he not been a tobacco smoker he would have
lived much longer." "I don't know that either," returned the countryman,
"for he is alive and well and still smokes tobacco." Now had Sir Wilfrid
delivered that speech at a meeting formed to protest against the theories
of the Anti-Tobacco Society, he would assuredly have scored; but, as
matters stood, I must claim his speech as one made in favour of my views
upon the opium question; for, to use a famous formula, I would say to the
honourable baronet, "Would you be surprised to hear that I can produce to
you, not only an aged father and son who are opium smokers, but a father,
son, and grandson all living who follow that practice, and have done so
all their lives without injury to health?"

But enjoyable as tobacco smoking may be, I contend that, to the Asiatic at
least, opium smoking is not only a more agreeable but also a far more
beneficial practice. Tobacco has no curative properties, but is simply a
poison; opium is the most valuable medicine known; where all other
sedatives fail its powers are prominent. As an anodyne no other medicine
can equal it. There is one property peculiar to opium, that is that it is
non-volatilizable, or nearly so. If a piece of opium is put on a red-hot
plate, it will not volatilize; that is, it will not disappear in the form
of vapour, which by chemical means can be preserved in order to resume or
retain its original character. But it will be destroyed by combustion; the
heat will consume it in the same manner as it would destroy a piece of
sugar or any other non-volatilizable body; whereas a substance that is
volatilizable, like sulphur, on being subjected to the same process,
instead of being destroyed, is simply given out in vapour, and by proper
means may be caught again and reformed in the shape of sulphur. So when
you place opium into a pipe and put the pellet to the lamp, the effect of
the combustion is to destroy the active property of the opium; the smoker
takes the smoke thrown off into his mouth, which he expels either through
the mouth or nostrils. The only way, therefore, he can get any of the
active property of the opium into his system is by smoking it like
tobacco. Now tobacco, on the contrary, is volatilizable, but the poison is
so volatile, and escapes so freely through the bowl of the pipe in the
shape of vapour, and is so rapidly expelled from the mouth, that no harm
is produced by the process of smoking the deadly poison, the natural
recuperative power of the frame neutralizing the effects of the noisome
vapour. The difference between opium and tobacco smoking appears to be
this:--In the one case you take into your mouth the mere smoke of a
valuable aromatic drug, which, when passed into the stomach in proper
quantities as a medicine, has powerful curative properties, the smoke when
expelled leaving no substance behind it, but in its passage exerting a
pleasant and perfectly harmless stimulating effect upon the nerves.

In the case of tobacco, the fumes with the volatilized substance of a foul
and poisonous weed having no curative properties whatever, and having the
most loathsome and offensive smell to those who have not gone through the
pain and misery necessary to accustom themselves to them, is taken into
the mouth. Nicotine, the alkaloid of tobacco, is simply a deadly and rapid
poison, useful only to the assassin. Morphia, the alkaloid of opium, is
only poisonous when taken in an excessive quantity; whether used
internally or injected under the skin, it is the most wonderful anodyne
and sedative known. I fully believe that, when medical men come to study
opium and opium smoking more fully, it will become the established opinion
of the faculty that opium smoking is not only perfectly harmless, but that
it is most beneficial, so that it may ultimately not only put down spirit
drinking, but perhaps supersede, to a great extent, tobacco. But few
medical men in this country have as yet made opium a special study. They
only know its use and properties as described in the British Pharmacopeia;
many even of those who have practised in the parts of India where the drug
is eaten do not, it seems, as yet fully understand all its properties. Dr.
Ayres himself admits that he was astonished after his arrival in Hong Kong
to find the great difference between the effects of smoking and eating the
drug. I may here remind my readers that we have, or had once, an
Anti-Tobacco-smoking Society, just as there is now an Anti-Opium-smoking
Society. The former had so many living evidences of the absurdities
alleged by its supporters against the use of tobacco, that the agitation
was laughed down and has either died a natural death or has only a
moribund and spasmodic existence; but had the place where the alleged
enormity of tobacco smoking was practised been Africa, I think the Society
would have died a much harder death, or at all events shown more vitality.
The Anti-Opium Society would have shared the same fate long ago were it
not that the scene of all the alleged evils is China, ten thousand miles
away, and the witnesses against their absurd allegations live the same
distance from us. But still, believe me, the Anti-Opium Society's days are
numbered: it is doomed, and, like the Anti-Tobacco craze, will be numbered
soon amongst the things that were. I flatter myself that in the delivery
and publication of these lectures I have given the agitation a heavy blow
and great discouragement.

I had some time ago the advantage of reading a very interesting and
remarkable letter in the "Times" by Sir George Birdwood, to whom I have
already referred; he has had more than fourteen years' experience in India
as a medical man, and has made the opium question a special study. I think
his testimony is worth a great deal more than that of any layman, however
learned or talented; the one has both theoretical and practical knowledge
of his subject, the other at best is only a theorist. Believe me, the
Roman poet knew human nature well when he said, "Trust the man who has
experience of facts." The paper, which is a learned and interesting one,
is too long to read, but here is an extract from it:--

    My readers can judge for themselves from the authorities I have
    indicated; but the opinion I have come to from them and my own
    experience is, that opium is used in Asia in a similar way to alcohol
    in Europe, and that, considering the natural craving and popular
    inclination for, and the ecclesiastical toleration of it and its
    general beneficial effects, and the absence of any resulting evil,
    there is just as much justification for the habitual use of opium in
    moderation as for the moderate use of alcohol, and indeed far more.

    Sir Benjamin Brodie is always quoted as the most distinguished
    professional opponent of the dietetical use of opium; but what are his
    words (_Psychological Enquiries_, p. 248):--"The effect of opium when
    taken into the stomach is not to stimulate, but to soothe the nervous
    system. It may be otherwise in some instances, but these are rare
    exceptions to the general rule. The opium eater is in a passive state,
    satisfied with his own dreamy condition while under the influence of
    the drug. He is useless but not mischievous. It is quite otherwise
    with alcoholic liquors." Opium smoking, which is the Chinese form of
    using the drug--for which the Indian Government is specially held
    responsible--is, to say the least in its favour, an infinitely milder
    indulgence. As already mentioned, I hold it to be absolutely harmless.
    I do not place it simply in the same category with even tobacco
    smoking, for tobacco smoking may, in itself, if carried into excess,
    be injurious, particularly to young people under twenty-five; but I
    mean that opium smoking in itself is as harmless as smoking
    willow-bark or inhaling the smoke of a peat-fire or vapour of boiling
    water.... I have not seen Surgeon-General Moore's recent paper on
    opium in the _Indian Medical Gazette_, but I gather from a notice of
    it quoted from the _Calcutta Englishman_, in the _Homeward Mail_ of
    the 14th of November last, that it supplies a most exhaustive and able
    vindication of the perfect morality of the revenue derived by the
    Indian Government from the manufacture and sale of opium to the
    Chinese. He quotes from Dr. Ayres, of Hong Kong: "No China resident
    believes in the terrible frequency of the dull, sodden-witted,
    debilitated opium smoker met with in print;" and from Consul Lay:--"In
    China 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." Mr.
    Gregory, Her Majesty's Consul at Swatow, says Dr. Moore never saw a
    single case of opium intoxication, though living for months and
    travelling for hundreds of miles among opium smokers. Dr. Moore
    directly confirms my own statement of the Chinese having been great
    drunkards of alcohol before they took to smoking opium. I find also a
    remarkable collection of folk-lore (_Strange Stories from a Chinese
    Studio_, by Herbert A. Giles), evidence in almost every chapter of the
    universal drinking habits of the Chinese before the introduction of
    opium among them, notwithstanding that the use of alcohol is opposed
    to the cardinal precepts of Buddhism. What Dr. Moore says of the
    freedom of opium smokers from bronchial thoracic diseases is deserving
    of the deepest consideration. I find that, on the other hand, the
    Chinese converts to Christianity suffer greatly from consumption. The
    missionaries will not allow them to smoke, and, as they also forbid
    their marrying while young, after the wise custom, founded on an
    experience of thousands of years of their country, they fall into
    those depraved, filthy habits, of which consumption is everywhere the
    inexorable witness and scourge. When spitting of blood comes on, the
    opium pipe is its sole alleviation.

Now Dr. Birdwood is not only well informed upon the opium question, but is
certainly one of the ablest opponents of the Anti-Opium agitation who has
yet appeared. His letters in the "Times" created quite a sensation, and so
alarmed Mr. Storrs Turner that he left no means untried to neutralize
their effects. At this point a bright idea occurred to him. Finding that
there was a general consensus of opinion against him amongst English
medical men and other competent authorities that the outcry against opium
was groundless, he hit upon the brilliant expedient of discrediting them
all, by the assertion that Englishmen are so prejudiced that they are not
to be believed. This is what he says on the subject in his famous article
in the _Nineteenth Century_ having in a previous passage imagined a case
in which China was the plaintiff and Great Britain the defendant:--

    The baneful effects of the opium vice are established by universal
    experience. One may apply to it the theological maxim _Quod semper
    quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_. Two considerations will show that the
    opposition of a few dissentient voices does not detract from the
    general conclusion. Most of these are quite clear on the point that
    opium is bad for everybody but Chinese. They would be horrified at the
    suggestion that opium should be freely used in England and approve the
    efforts or supposed efforts of the Indian Government to keep it out of
    the way of the natives of India. On another point these dissentients
    are all alike; _every one of them is prejudiced in favour of the
    defendant in the case before us. They are all Englishmen._ No French
    or German medical man, no single Chinese authority has been quoted to
    testify to the innocence of opium. Some of these apologists are opium
    merchants, who aver that the drug by which they make their wealth is a
    boon and a blessing to China; or it is a gentleman employed in the
    India Office who considers opium smoking as safe as "twiddling one's
    thumbs."

Could the force of folly or fanaticism go further than that? All
Englishmen are prejudiced. I wonder, did it ever occur to Mr. Storrs
Turner that _he_, being an Englishman, might be a little prejudiced
also--on the other side of the question. Yes; Dr. Ayres, Dr. Eatwell,
Surgeon-General Moore, Dr. Birdwood, and a host of other eminent medical
men standing in the front rank of their profession, Sir Rutherford
Alcock, Mr. Colborne Baber, Mr. W. Donald Spence, and others are not to be
believed--because they are Englishmen! Were they Germans or Frenchmen,
they would, of course, be entitled to the fullest credence. Like the
priest and prophet of Crete, Mr. Storrs Turner holds that all his
countrymen are liars.[8] But, stay, do I not remember that gentleman's
holding a select conference of English medical men, about October 1882,
when certain resolutions were drawn up condemnatory of opium? Surely, yes.
The invitations were issued by the Earl of Shaftesbury. I should like to
ask Mr. Storrs Turner were the medical and other gentlemen then present
Englishmen or foreigners? If I do not greatly err they were _all_
Englishmen. Does Mr. Storrs Turner consider those gentlemen worthy of
credit? I rather think he does: so that Mr. Turner's creed runs thus:
"Englishmen are to be believed so long as they agree with me on the opium
question. When they differ from me on that subject they are not to be
believed at all." Mr. Turner is fond of treating his readers to
theological maxims. I will now give him a legal one which, I think, is
applicable to his case. It runs thus, translated into plain English: "_He
is not to be heard who alleges things contrary to each other_." Of course,
the reader has seen that Mr. Turner's sneer at "the gentleman employed in
the India Office," is at Sir George Birdwood, whose pungent articles in
the _Times_ have inflicted such damage on his cause, and whose efforts in
the interests of common sense and truth he would wish to suppress.

As Mr. Turner's tastes are exotic, I will furnish him now with some
_foreign_ testimony that may perhaps astonish him. For many years previous
to 1858, Don Sinibaldo de Mas had been the Envoy-Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary of the Court of Spain at Pekin. That nobleman had
travelled much in China, India, Java, Borneo, and Malacca, having learned
the Chinese language the better to enable him to utilize his travels in
those places. In 1858 he published a book[9] in the French language on
China and the Chinese, making special reference to the opium question, to
which he has devoted one very interesting chapter exclusively. The book
was brought out in Paris, and has never, that I am aware of, been
translated into English. Now about the last person from whom one would
expect to obtain testimony of the kind is a Spaniard. Yet so it is. This
book of Don Sinibaldo de Mas is, indeed, one of the most powerful
vindications of British policy in India and China that has yet been
written. I hardly think even Mr. Storrs Turner can accuse this gentleman
of partiality, or object to his testimony as being influenced by personal
motives. This is part of what he says on the subject:--

    I may say, in the first instance, that personally neither as a private
    individual nor as a public functionary have I ever been in the
    slightest degree interested in this (opium) trade, for be it noted
    that Spanish vessels have never imported into China a single chest of
    opium. I consequently approach this subject with complete
    impartiality. I have known the Chinese at Calcutta, Singapore, Penang,
    Malacca, Manila, and in many parts of their own country, where I
    acquired a sufficient knowlege of the Chinese language to enable me to
    converse with the natives and make myself fully acquainted with the
    opium question, which I believe I understand, and may be considered
    thoroughly unbiassed in my opinions.

    Opium has been preached against and denounced as a veritable poison,
    and it has been looked upon as a crime in those who have made the drug
    an object of commerce or gain. A memorial embodying those views,
    signed by many missionaries and supported by the Earl of Chichester,
    was presented to Queen Victoria. A meeting was also held in London,
    composed of philanthropic gentlemen, presided over by the Earl of
    Shaftesbury, when a petition to the Queen embodying the same object
    was drawn up; this document I shall refer to more particularly later
    on. Lastly, some members of the House of Lords and Commons spoke
    against the sale of opium. On the other hand, Christian merchants
    established in China, many men of eminence, such as Sir J. F. Davis
    and others of the highest respectability, have maintained that the
    smoking of this drug has less deletorious effects than the use of
    fermented liquors. I will endeavour to explain this question in all
    good faith and impartiality. In the maritime towns of India, Malacca,
    Java, the Philippines, Borneo, and Sooloo the Chinese are at liberty
    to smoke opium where and when they please, and can buy it cheaper than
    they can in Canton or Shanghai, not to mention the inland towns: yet
    it is a well-known fact that in all these countries, notwithstanding
    their unwholesome climates, the opium-smoking Chinese are remarkably
    healthy and strong. These very opium smokers are employed as farm
    labourers, masons, and porters, enduring great fatigue and performing
    the most arduous labours; they have acquired such an excellent
    reputation as colonists that efforts have been made during the last
    few years to induce them to settle in Lima and Cuba. The percentage of
    deaths amongst these people does not exceed the usual rate, and I must
    confess that having known numbers of Chinese emigrants in the various
    countries I have mentioned, I have never heard of a single death or of
    any serious illness having been caused by opium smoking.

    It was only on my first arrival in China that I was made aware of the
    dire effects this narcotic is said to produce, and that the vapour
    inhaled by opium smokers was designated a poison; _I must add that in
    none of the different parts of China which I have visited has it come
    to my knowledge that death has resulted from opium smoking_. Having
    asked several natives whom I thought worthy of credence whether they
    had ever heard of a death having occurred from the habit, they
    answered me that it might have happened to a very inordinate smoker,
    but only in the event of his being suddenly deprived of the
    indulgence. One Chinaman related how he had witnessed such a case. He
    had known an inveterate opium smoker who had become extremely poor,
    and was found insensible and almost lifeless; some good-natured person
    passing by puffed some fumes of opium into his mouth, which
    immediately seemed to revive him, and enabled him shortly to smoke a
    pipe himself, which most effectually recalled him to life. I admit
    that opium is in itself a poison, but let me ask what changes does not
    fire produce in the various substances which it consumes?

I should like to know what does Mr. Storrs Turner think of that. Here is a
highly-educated Spanish gentleman, speaking Chinese well, living amongst
the natives, studying their habits, especially as regards their use of the
opium pipe, declaring that the practice is innocuous. Now, supposing that
instead of smoking opium these Chinese in Malacca, Java, Borneo, and the
Philippines were addicted to the habitual use of spirits, wine, or even
beer, instead of opium, can any intelligent being suppose for a moment
that they would be the patient, strong, healthy, hard-working people that
Don Sinibaldo De Mas found them, and which they still are?

Let us refer to Mr. W. Donald Spence's testimony as to the _effects_ of
opium. I quote again from his Report of the trade of Ichang for 1881:--

    As to the effect of this habit on the people, amongst whom it is so
    widespread, there is but one opinion. Baron Richthofen, the most
    experienced traveller who ever visited Szechuan, after noticing the
    extraordinary prevalence of the habit, says:--"In no other province
    except Hunan did I find the effects of the use of opium so little
    perceptible as in Szechuan." Mr. Colborne Baber, who knows more of the
    province and its people than any living Englishman, says: _Nowhere in
    China are the people so well off, or so hardy, and nowhere do they
    smoke so much opium_. To these names of weight I add my own short
    experience. I found the people of Szechuan stout, able-bodied men,
    better housed, clad, and fed, and healthier looking than the Chinese
    of the Lower Yang-tsze. I did not see amongst them more emaciated
    faces and wasted forms than disease causes in all lands. People with
    slow wasting diseases such as consumption are, if they smoke opium,
    apt to be classed amongst the "ruined victims" of hasty observers, and
    amongst the cases of combined debility and opium smoking I saw, some
    were, by their own account, _pseudo_-victims of this type. There were
    some, too, whose health was completely sapped by smoking combined with
    other forms of sensual excess. And no doubt there were others weakened
    by excessive smoking simply, for excess in all things has its penalty.
    But the general health and well-being of the Szechuan community is
    remarkable; to their capacity for work and endurance of hardship, as
    well as to the material comforts of life they surround themselves
    with, all travellers bear enthusiastic testimony.

Now, allow me to ask the reader, can he suppose for a moment that if the
people of Szechuan were prone to spirits, or even to beer drinking, in the
same way as they are given to opium smoking, should we have the same
results? Would those people be "so well off and so hardy," so stout,
able-bodied, and so much "better housed, clad, and fed, and healthier
looking than the Chinese of the Lower Yang-tsze?" I think not. What, then,
is the fair conclusion to draw from such a state of things? Why, only that
opium smoking is a harmless if not a beneficial practice, unless when
indulged in to an inordinate extent, which, it is now plain, is entirely
exceptional. I think I am not far from the truth in saying that for one
excessive opium smoker to be met with in China you will find in this
country a hundred cases, at the least, of excessive indulgence in
alcohol--the effects of this being incurable, whilst it is quite otherwise
as regards excessive indulgence in opium. The inference, then, I think, is
that so far as regards any evil effects from opium smoking, they are out
of the range of practical politics and should be relegated to the region
of sentiment alone.

I will now give you a passage from a valuable work by the learned Dr. J.
L. W. Thudichum, Lecturer to St. George's Hospital,[10] which will throw
a good deal of light upon this part of my subject. At pp. 88 and 89 of the
second volume he says:--

    The medical uses of opium have been so well known through all
    historical times that it is a matter for surprise to find that they
    are not better appreciated in the present day. In this, as in many
    other matters, we are in fact only gradually emerging from the
    condition of those dark times during which, amongst many good things,
    the knowledge of opium, for example, was lost.... These and other
    considerations led me to look about for a more convenient mode of
    producing the effects of morphia without its inconveniences or even
    dangers. I know from the experiments of Descharmes and Benard (_Compt.
    Rend._, 40, 34) that in opium-smoking a portion of the morphia is
    volatilized and undecomposed, and I therefore experimentalized with
    the pyrolytic vapours of opium, first upon myself, then upon others;
    and when I had made myself fully acquainted with the Chinese method of
    using the drug, I came to the conviction that here one of the most
    interesting therapeutical problems had been solved in the most
    ingenious and at the same time in the most safe manner. I held in my
    hand a power well-known and used largely by Eastern races, yet its use
    neglected, ignored, denounced, and despised by the entire Western
    world.

In other and non-professional words, Dr. Thudichum has found opium smoking
not only harmless but a valuable curative practice.

As to Chinese evidence on this question I could, had I thought proper,
have adduced the testimony of some really trustworthy Chinese merchants
and traders, which would have fully borne out all that I have stated as to
the innocuous effects of opium smoking. I have refrained from doing so,
because such evidence, however strong and reliable, would, I feel assured,
be impugned as untrustworthy by the agents of the Anti-Opium Society and
missionaries, who on their part would, no doubt, in the best faith and
with good intentions, I admit, bring out counter testimony of so-called
Christian converts and other natives of a wholly unreliable character. One
of these persons, called Kwong Ki Chiu, styling himself "late a member of
the Chinese Educational Commission in the United States," has written, or
purported to have written, from Hartford, in Connecticut, a letter on this
question to the _London and China Telegraph_. The statements in this
document are exaggerated, misleading, and, in many respects, actually
untrue. I doubt very much if the letter was ever, in fact, written by a
Chinaman at all, and suspect it was produced either here in London by some
agent or advocate of the Anti-Opium Society and forwarded to Mr. Kwong Ki
Chiu for signature, or that it was written by some American missionary. At
any rate, it is plain that the writer has no real knowledge of the subject
of his letter. To prove this is so it is only necessary to refer to one
passage, in which the writer proceeds to show that opium is to a beginner
more alluring than tobacco or spirits. He says:--

    There is this also to be said as to the difference between the two
    stimulants: opium is much the more stimulating, and therefore more
    dangerous. It is also much more agreeable and fascinating. Not every
    person likes the taste of liquor; the flavour of tobacco is agreeable
    to very few persons at first: _but everyone, of whatever nationality,
    finds the fragrance of the smoking opium agreeable and tempting, so
    that I have no doubt that if opium shops were opened in London as in
    China, the habit would soon become prevalent even among Englishmen_.

Now this is not true. Every foreigner who has lived in China knows it to
be quite the opposite. During my long residence in Hong Kong I have never
known a single instance of an Englishman, or any other foreigner, being an
opium smoker, although I have met with many who had smoked a few pipes by
way of experiment. All have assured me that the vapour was nauseous, and
produced no pleasurable sensations whatever. The fact that Europeans
dislike the fumes of opium, and never indulge in the opium pipe, shows
that Mr. Kwong Ki Chiu, who has doubtless been since his childhood under
missionary tutelage, and therefore interdicted from the use of the drug,
knows nothing reliable upon the subject he writes about so glibly. At a
proper time and place, I should be prepared to treat Mr. Storrs Turner to
such native testimony upon this subject as would make him open his eyes
very wide and put him and his disciples to confusion and flight.

Let me now give you an extract from a despatch of Sir Henry Pottinger,
formerly Her Majesty's Governor-General and Minister Plenipotentiary in
China, written by him some fifty years ago to the Principal Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs. It is very important, showing, as it does, the
pains that have been taken by Her Majesty's Government at home and her
representatives in China so long ago to ascertain if there were any truth
in the theory that opium smoking was injurious to the health and morals of
the Chinese:--

    I cannot admit in any manner the idea adopted by many persons that the
    introduction of opium into China is a source of unmitigated evil of
    every kind and a cause of misery. Personally, I have been unable to
    discover a single case of this kind, although, I admit that, when
    abused opium may become most hurtful. Besides, the same remark applies
    to every kind of enjoyment when carried to excess; but from personal
    observations, since my arrival in China, from information taken upon
    all points, and lastly, from what the Mandarins themselves say, I am
    convinced that the demoralization and ruin which some persons
    attribute to the use of opium, arise more likely from imperfect
    knowledge of the subject and exaggeration, and that not one-hundredth
    part of the evil arises in China from opium smoking, which one sees
    daily arising in England as well as in India from the use of ardent
    spirits so largely taken in excess in those countries.

I may now appropriately give you the promised extract from De Quincey's
_Confessions_. I recommend it to the notice of Sir Wilfrid Lawson. The
distinction which he draws between alcoholic intoxication and the
excitement produced by opium eating is instructive and entertaining. He
says:--

    Two of these tendencies I will mention as diagnostic, or
    characteristic and inseparable marks of ordinary alcoholic
    intoxication, but which no excess in the use of opium ever develops.
    One is the loss of self-command, in relation to all one's acts and
    purposes, which steals gradually (though with varying degrees of
    speed) over _all_ persons indiscriminately when indulging in wine or
    distilled liquors beyond a certain limit. The tongue and other organs
    become unmanageable: the intoxicated man speaks inarticulately; and,
    with regard to certain words, makes efforts ludicrously earnest yet
    oftentimes unavailing, to utter them. The eyes are bewildered, and see
    double; grasping too little, and too much. The hand aims awry. The
    legs stumble and lose their power of _concurrent_ action. To this
    result _all_ people tend, though by varying rates of acceleration.
    Secondly, as another characteristic, it may be noticed that, in
    alcoholic intoxication, the movement is always along a kind of arch;
    the drinker rises through continual ascents to a summit or _apex_,
    from which he descends through corresponding steps of declension.
    There is a crowning point in the movement upwards, which once attained
    cannot be renewed; and it is the blind, unconscious, but always
    unsuccessful effort of the obstinate drinker to restore this supreme
    altitude of enjoyment which tempts him into excesses that become
    dangerous. After reaching this _acme_ of genial pleasure, it is a mere
    necessity of the case to sink through corresponding stages of
    collapse. Some people have maintained, in my hearing, that they had
    been drunk upon green tea; and a medical student in London, for whose
    knowledge in his profession I have reason to feel great respect,
    assured me, the other day, that a patient, in recovering from an
    illness, had got drunk on a beef-steak. All turns, in fact, upon a
    rigorous definition of intoxication.

    Having dwelt so much on this first and leading error in respect to
    opium, I shall notice briefly a second and a third; which are, that
    the elevation of spirits produced by opium is necessarily followed by
    a proportionate depression, and that the natural and even immediate
    consequence of opium is torpor and stagnation, animal as well as
    mental. The first of these errors I shall content myself with simply
    denying; assuring my reader, that for ten years, during which I took
    opium, not regularly, but intermittingly, the day succeeding to that
    on which I allowed myself this luxury was always a day of unusually
    good spirits.

    With respect to the torpor supposed to follow, or rather (if we were
    to credit the numerous pictures of Turkish opium-eaters) to accompany,
    the practice of opium-eating, I deny that also. Certainly, opium is
    classed under the head of narcotics, and some such effect it may
    produce in the end; but the primary effects of opium are always, and
    in the highest degree, to excite and stimulate the system. This first
    stage of its action always lasted with me, during my novitiate, for
    upwards of eight hours; so that it must be the fault of the
    opium-eater himself, if he does not so time his exhibition of the
    dose, as that the whole weight of its narcotic influence may descend
    upon his sleep.

    First, then, it is not so much affirmed, as taken for granted, by all
    who ever mention opium, formally or incidentally, that it does or can
    produce intoxication. Now, reader, assure yourself, _meo periculo_,
    that no quantity of opium ever did, or could, intoxicate. As to the
    tincture of opium (commonly called laudanum), _that_ might certainly
    intoxicate, if a man could bear to take enough of it; but why? Because
    it contains so much proof spirits of wine, and not because it contains
    so much opium. But crude opium, I affirm peremptorily, is incapable of
    producing any state of body at all resembling that which is produced
    by alcohol; and not in _degree_ only incapable, but even in _kind_; it
    is not in the quantity of its effects merely, but in the quality, that
    it differs altogether. The pleasure given by wine is always rapidly
    mounting, and tending to a crisis, after which as rapidly it declines;
    that from opium, when once generated, is stationary for eight or ten
    hours: the first, to borrow a technical distinction from medicine, is
    a case of acute, the second of chronic, pleasure; the one is a
    flickering flame, the other a steady and equable glow. But the main
    distinction lies in this--that, whereas wine disorders the mental
    faculties, opium, on the contrary (if taken in a proper manner),
    introduces amongst them the most exquisite order, legislation, and
    harmony. Wine robs a man of his self-possession; opium sustains and
    reinforces it. Wine unsettles the judgment, and gives a preternatural
    brightness and a vivid exaltation to the contempts and the
    admirations, to the loves and the hatreds, of the drinker; opium, on
    the contrary, communicates serenity and equipoise to all the
    faculties, active or passive; and, with respect to the temper and
    moral feelings in general, it gives simply that sort of vital warmth
    which is approved by the judgment, and which would probably always
    accompany a bodily constitution of primeval or antediluvian health.
    Thus, for instance, opium, like wine, gives an expansion to the heart
    and the benevolent affections; but, then, with this remarkable
    difference, that in the sudden development of kind-heartedness which
    accompanies inebriation, there is always more or less of a maudlin and
    a transitory character, which exposes it to the contempt of the
    bystander. Men shake hands, swear eternal friendship, and shed
    tears--no mortal knows why; and the animal nature is clearly
    uppermost. But the expansion of the benigner feelings incident to
    opium is no febrile access, no fugitive paroxysm; it is a healthy
    restoration to that state which the mind would naturally recover upon
    the removal of any deep-seated irritation from pain that had disturbed
    and quarrelled with the impulses of a heart originally just and good.
    True it is, that even wine, up to a certain point, and with certain
    men, rather tends to exalt and to steady the intellect; I myself, who
    have never been a great wine-drinker, used to find that half-a-dozen
    glasses of wine advantageously affected the faculties, brightened and
    intensified the consciousness, and gave to the mind a feeling of being
    "ponderibus librata suis," and certainly it is most absurdly said, in
    popular language, of any man, that he is _disguised_ in liquor; for,
    on the contrary, most men are disguised by sobriety, and exceedingly
    disguised; and it is when they are drinking that men display
    themselves in their true complexion of character; which surely is not
    disguising themselves. But still, wine constantly leads a man to the
    brink of absurdity and extravagance; and, beyond a certain point, it
    is sure to volatilise and to disperse the intellectual energies;
    whereas opium always seems to compose what had been agitated and to
    concentrate what had been distracted. In short, to sum up all in one
    word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and
    feels that he is, in a condition which calls up into supremacy the
    merely human, too often the brutal, part of his nature; but the
    opium-eater (I speak of him simply _as_ such, and assume that he is in
    a normal state of health) feels that the diviner part of his nature is
    paramount--that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless
    serenity; and high over all the great light of the majestic intellect.

    This is the doctrine of the true church on the subject of opium, of
    which church I acknowledge myself to be the Pope (consequently
    infallible), and self-appointed _legate a latere_ to all degrees of
    latitude and longitude. But then it is to be recollected that I speak
    from the ground of a large and profound personal experience, whereas
    most of the unscientific authors who have at all treated of opium, and
    even of those who have written professionally on the _materia medica_,
    make it evident, by the horror they express of it, that their
    experimental knowledge of its action is none at all.

I have now dealt with fallacies 1, 2, 3, and 5. The fourth Mr. Turner
gravely states in his book--and I am perfectly sure it is accepted as
seriously by his fellowers, _that the supply of opium regulates the
demand, and not the demand the supply_. He says at pp. 152, 153:--

    Defenders of the [opium] policy vainly strive to shelter it behind the
    ordinary operation of the trade laws of demand and supply. The
    operation of these economic laws does not divest of responsibility
    those who set them in motion at either end; for though it would be
    absurd to speak of supply as alone creative of demand, _there is no
    question but that an abundant and constantly sustained supply
    increases demand whenever the article is not one of absolute
    necessity_. When silk came by caravans across Central Asia, and a
    single robe was worth its weight in gold in Europe, the shining fabric
    was reserved for emperors and nobles, and no demand could be said to
    exist for it among common people, whereas now the abundant supply
    creates a demand among all classes but the very poorest. The
    maid-servant who covets a silk dress may be literally said to have had
    the demand _created_ in her case, by the ample supply of the material
    which places it constantly before her eyes and renders it impossible
    for her to obtain it. Only a few years ago there was no demand for
    newspapers amongst multitudes who are now daily or weekly purchasers
    of them. In this case the supply of penny and halfpenny journals may
    be fairly said to have almost alone created the demand. Such
    illustrations might be indefinitely multiplied.

After that it may be said that the Birmingham jewellers and Manchester
merchants have only to send out to China any amount they please of their
wares, and they will find a ready market, the more the merrier. All their
goods will be taken off their hands; they will only have to take care that
the prices shall not be too exorbitant, for otherwise, as in the case of
the maid-servant, though the Chinese working classes may have helped to
_create_ the demand, they would be unable to avail themselves of the
supply. If that doctrine were sound, a mercantile firm could create as
extensive a trade as it desired, and that, too, in any part of the world.
Instead of sending out fifty thousand pounds worth this year, as it did
last, it would have only to export ten times the amount, and still the
demand would continue. The fact is, as every man well knows who is not
blinded by enthusiasm and looks at the subject by the light of cool reason
and common sense, that the effect of sending to China or elsewhere an
excessive quantity of merchandise, even though such merchandise were in
request there, would have the effect of glutting the market. It is only
where the demand exists, and the desire to possess the article, or where
the people want a particular class of thing, that the goods can be readily
and profitably disposed of. I am sure that if we sent double the quantity
of opium that we do to China, or, indeed, three times the amount, it would
be readily bought up by the natives, because there is a great demand there
for Indian opium, owing to its superior strength and better flavour. And
it must be remembered that China is a vast empire, and that the natives
cannot get as much of the Indian drug as they want. I had an opportunity
recently of speaking to a German gentleman established here in London, who
has been many years in the opium trade generally, who has made opium quite
a study, tasting and smelling it, as wine merchants do their wine, and he
declares that Indian opium has a perfume and aroma that is not found in
the Chinese or Persian drug, and that, in fact, the smell of the one is
comparatively agreeable, while that of the others is offensive. This, I
believe, is one of the reasons for the Chinese liking Indian opium. For my
own part I must say, that much as I dislike the odour of tobacco, I have a
greater aversion still to the effluvium of opium in any form or shape, and
I think this is also the case with all Europeans. In fact, opium smoking
is a practice peculiar to China.

Nothing proves this so completely as the correspondence between Sir Robert
Hart and his various Sub-Commissioners of Customs, as set out in the
Yellow-Book to which I have so often referred. These Commissioners say
that the Indian drug is almost invariably used to mix with the Chinese
article to flavour and make it, so to speak, the more palatable. The
proposition which Mr. Storrs Turner lays down is simply preposterous, and
cannot for a moment be sustained. I do not wish to utter an offensive word
towards that gentleman personally, whose talents and energy are
unquestionable, and whom I hold in great esteem. Upon any subject but
opium he would be incapable of writing anything but sound sense, but
having opium on the brain, he starts theories that are wholly
unsustainable, which, I am sorry to say, his devoted followers accept as
gospel. But to return to the theory that supply creates the demand. By way
of illustration, Mr. Turner goes on to show that, previous to the removal
of the duty on newspapers, there were very few in the country, but that
the moment the duty was taken off, they multiplied, which he considers
proof that in this case the supply created the demand. That is most
fallacious. The demand for newspapers always existed, but, unfortunately,
owing to the oppressive taxes upon knowledge to which the press in former
times was subjected, the supply was limited. In those days even a weekly
newspaper was a great undertaking. An enterprising man in a country town
might start such a paper, but after a lingering existence it was almost
sure to die, not for want of readers, but because it was so heavily taxed
that readers could not afford to buy it, the price then being necessarily
high. First there was a penny duty on each copy of the newspaper. Next
there was a duty of so much the pound upon the raw material, which had to
be paid before it left the mill; and then there was a further duty upon
every advertisement; so that the unfortunate newspaper proprietor was met
with exactions on every side. A copy, even though an old one, of the
_Times_, or of any of the London morning papers, was in former days
eagerly sought for. In his "Deserted Village," Goldsmith, describing the
village ale-house, says:--

  Where village statesmen talked with wit profound,
  And news much older than their ale went round.

And one can imagine an eager group in that ale-house trying to get a
glimpse of a London newspaper over the shoulders of the privileged holder.
But when these oppressive duties were removed, a different state of things
prevailed. The cost of starting and manufacturing a newspaper was reduced
to about one-fifth of what it was formerly. Every considerable town had
its daily and its weekly newspaper, because the demand had always existed,
whilst, owing to these prohibitive taxes, there was no supply. The craving
for news had always been present, and the moment these prohibitive duties
were struck off, the ambitious editor, or proprietor, saw his opportunity
and started a paper, not because the supply would create a demand, but
because he knew the demand already existed, and he printed just as many as
he thought he would find readers for, and no more. Had he printed more
than was required the excess would have lain on his hands as so much waste
paper. But according to Mr. Turner's theory, the more newspapers he
printed the more he would have sold! It will at once be recognised that
this theory of supply and demand is simply absurd. If it could be shown to
hold water for a moment, China, and other countries also, would be
inundated with articles that never were seen there before. There would be
no reason why China should not be largely supplied with ladies' bonnets
and satin shoes, which, we know, might lie there for a thousand years and
never be used. I have brought before you this notable theory of Mr. Storrs
Turner's, to show you the utterly worthless kind of arguments with which
the British public have been supplied, in order to support the silly,
unfounded, and most mischievous agitation against the Indo-China opium
trade.

The next fallacy is number six, namely: _that all, or nearly all, who
smoke opium are either inordinate smokers or necessarily in the way of
becoming so; and that once the custom has been commenced it cannot be
dropped, and that the consumption daily increases_. That is not so at all.
It is altogether exceptional to find an inordinate opium smoker; my
reasons for saying so I have already given. I am supported in those views
by every English resident in China, amongst them by Dr. Ayres, whose
authority is simply unquestionable, and whose opinion on the point I have
set out at page 7. I have known hundreds of men who were in the daily
habit of smoking opium after business hours, and they never showed any
decadence whatever. Opium smoking is never practised during business
hours, except by very aged people or the criminal classes. This is an
absolute fact. The Chinese are too wise and thrifty to while away their
time in such luxurious practices during working hours. The opium pipe, as
a rule, is indulged in more moderately than wine or cigars are with us,
the Chinese being so extremely abstemious in their habits. I never saw any
such instances of over-indulgence as Mr. Turner alleges, and I could get
hundreds of European witnesses out in China and here in London who would
depose to the same fact. Frequently have I compared the small shop-keeping
and working people of China with the same classes here at home as regards
sobriety, industry, and frugality, and always, I regret to say, in favour
of the Chinese.

It is absolutely untrue, as put forward by the Anti-Opium Society and
their secretary, Mr. Turner, that opium is so fascinating that, once a man
begins to use it, he cannot leave it off; natives will smoke it, on and
off, for two or three days, and not smoke it again for a week or more; but
the truth is, the habit is a pleasant and beneficial one, and few who can
afford it desire to discontinue smoking. The fact undoubtedly is, that if
opium smoking were productive of the terrible results that the
missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society allege, China would not be the
densely-populated country that it now actually is. China could not have
held its own as it has done so long and so successfully had all the people
been addicted to such a vice as dram drinking. The true way to look at
this aspect of the case is to suppose for a moment that, instead of being
"opium sots," as Mr. Storrs Turner puts it, the Chinese, "everywhere in
China, in all climates and all soils, in every variety of condition and
circumstance throughout the vast Empire," to adopt that gentleman's own
language, drank spirits freely. Should we then have the Chinese the
hard-working, industrious, thrifty, frugal people that we find them? I
trow not. Intemperance carries with it the destruction of its votaries,
but no baneful consequences attend opium smoking. Some thirty years ago,
as Sir Rutherford Alcock tells us, an American missionary declared that
there were twenty millions of opium smokers in China--all, no doubt,
induced to that immorality by the British Government and people--and that
two millions were dying annually from the effects of the vice! This
monstrous tale was implicitly believed in by Lords Shaftesbury and
Chichester. Yet we now have a Chinese official, Sir Robert Hart,
deliberately telling the Government of China, in his official Yellow Book,
that there are but two millions of smokers in the whole Empire; that
Indian opium supplies but a moderate quantity of the drug to but half of
that number; and that neither the health, wealth, nor prosperity of the
people suffers in consequence.

This is what Don Sinibaldo de Mas says upon the subject:--

    The most extraordinary of the advocates of the opium trade is the Earl
    of Shaftesbury, President of the Committee organized in London for the
    suppression of the traffic. I have not the slightest doubt as to the
    _bona fides_ and excellent heart of the noble lord. There is something
    grand and generous in entering the lists for the welfare and
    protection of a distant and foreign nation, and manfully fighting for
    it against the interests of one's own country and one's native land. I
    sincerely admire men of such mettle and the country which can produce
    them, but I regret that Lord Shaftesbury did not act with greater
    caution, and that before entering upon this question he had not
    studied it more carefully; especially do I regret that he did not
    adopt a more moderate and dignified tone in the expression of his
    opinions. Had he done so, he would have saved himself from the
    reproach of having lent his name and sanction to a document disfigured
    by statistical errors, some of which are opposed to common sense, and
    also of having given gratuitous and undeserved insults to others who
    differed from his opinions.

    He argues in his statement to the Queen's Government that opium
    smoking annually kills two millions of people in China. How is it
    possible that the noble Earl could for a moment imagine that every
    year so many human beings voluntarily commit suicide! Two millions of
    adults who destroy themselves to enjoy a pleasure! Does it not strike
    His Lordship how absurd is such an antithesis as pleasure and death?
    Can he believe that human nature in China is different to what it is
    in Europe? Is it logical to give publicity to such strange assertions
    without adducing the slightest proofs. If we inquire into the
    accusations brought forward against the merchants and growers of
    opium, we find the same discrepancy and the same injustice. It is a
    mistake to imagine that the English alone trade in opium, for all
    foreigners alike, especially the Americans, introduce and sell it.

    Lord Shaftesbury, in speaking of the value of the opium imported into
    China, says that the merchants "rob" the Chinese. I scarcely know
    which is the funnier, the idea expressed by the noble Earl, or the way
    in which he expresses it. I can assure His Lordship that amongst the
    merchants who make opium their business there are men of the highest
    integrity, perfect and most accomplished gentlemen, who not only are
    incapable of "stealing" anything, but who are equal to any living men
    in noble sentiments, justice, and practical benevolence; I need only
    mention one man, and do so because he is not now living. I refer to
    the late Mr. Launcelot Dent, who, during a most trying and critical
    time when this question first arose, was considered one of the most
    interested men in the opium trade.... Everyone who has been in China
    knows the generosity and the charity for which Mr. Launcelot Dent was
    renowned. Having on one occasion travelled from India to Europe with
    him, I saw many of his good deeds, but will only mention one, so as
    not to wander too far from my subject. A Catholic missionary was
    amongst the steerage passengers; Mr. Dent having seen this, without
    saying a word to any person on the subject, took a berth for him in
    the first cabin and paid the difference, begging me to ask him to take
    possession. The missionary expressed much gratitude, but said that as
    he had not a sufficient change of linen he would not feel at home in
    the state room, especially as there were lady passengers. Mr. Dent
    understood the difficulty, and having casually heard that the
    clergymen intended to proceed to Jerusalem, begged of him to accept
    the sum which the saloon cabin would have cost,[11] which the poor
    missionary accepted with heartfelt thanks.

I should like to know what Mr. Storrs Turner thinks of that. He objects to
British testimony, except when it coincides with his own views. There is
the evidence of a Spanish nobleman, a scholar, a traveller, and an
accomplished diplomatist, for him! I am afraid he will find the foreign
testimony quite as unpalatable as the home article. This Mr. Launcelot
Dent, by the way, was a member of the eminent firm of Dent and Co.--since
dissolved--which, Mr. Turner says, in his article in the _Nineteenth
Century_, were "legally smugglers."

The next fallacy, number seven, is _that the Chinese Government is, or
ever was, anxious to put a stop to or check the use of opium amongst the
people of China_. That is one of the accepted propositions or dogmas of
the Anti-Opium people. There is another fallacy, number ten, which I will
dispose of at the same time. It is _that the opposition of the Chinese
officials to the introduction of opium into China arose from moral
causes_. There never was anything more fallacious or more distinctly
untrue than that the Chinese Government is, or ever was, anxious to put a
stop to the trade upon moral grounds. The sole object of the Government of
China in objecting to the importation of Indian opium into the country, as
I have stated already, and as everybody except the infatuated votaries of
the Anti-Opium Society believes, was to protect the native drug, to
prevent bullion from leaving the country, and generally to exclude foreign
goods. This Don Sinibaldo de Mas points out in his book written some five
and twenty years ago.

If the Chinese Government really wanted to put a stop to or check the use
of opium, they would begin by doing so themselves. They would first stop
the cultivation of the poppy in their own country. We have it on the high
authority of Sir Robert Hart, that the drug was grown and used in China
long before foreigners introduced any there. The Chinese are emphatically
a law-abiding people, and if the Chinese Government really wished to put a
stop to the opium culture, they could do so without any difficulty, just
as our Government has put down tobacco culture in the United Kingdom. I
suppose that in Cornwall and Devon, and in some parts of Ireland--the
golden vein, for instance--tobacco could be grown most profitably. It
could be cultivated also in the Isle of Wight, and in many other parts of
the country. Why, then, is it not grown here? Simply because it is illegal
to do so, and the Government is strong enough to enforce the law. If a
farmer in Ireland or in England were to sow tobacco, the fact would be
soon discovered, and it would be summarily stopped. The same thing could
be done with even greater facility in China. Why, then, does not the
Government of China suppress the cultivation of the poppy there? Simply
because it does not desire to do so, because it derives a large revenue
from opium, both native and foreign, and because the smoking of the drug
is an ancient custom amongst the people, known by long experience to be
harmless, if not beneficial. If it were possible to put down opium smoking
in China, the people would assuredly resort to sam-shu, already so
abundant and cheap, and that would indeed cause China's decadence: for
then we should have the working classes there indulging in spirits, when
the quarrellings, outrages, and kicking of wives to death--which Mr.
Turner admits are never the result of opium smoking--would ensue. I only
wish we could turn our drunkards into opium smokers. If the change would
only save those wretched wives and their helpless children from
ill-treatment by their husbands and fathers, we should have secured one
valuable end. No Government will attempt to interfere with the fixed
habits of the people, especially where those habits have existed many
centuries, if not thousands of years, and where they are known to be not
injurious to themselves or the safety and stability of the State, and to
be, in fact, harmless. We have it from Sir Robert Hart's book, that as far
as can be ascertained, the probability is that there is about the same
quantity of the drug grown in China as is imported into it. That is
admittedly a mere approximation, and Sir Robert Hart gives no data for it,
save the returns of his Sub-Commissioners, each of which differs from the
other, and which he admits are not reliable. The information upon which
these Commissioners made up their returns is simply the gossip collected
by them at the Treaty Ports of China: no doubt the best, and, indeed, the
only, information which they could procure. But with the light thrown upon
the subject by Messrs. Baber and Spence, and numerous other independent
authorities, no one can doubt that there is at least three times the
quantity produced in China that is imported from abroad.

Both the Customs and Consular reports on trade in China for the year 1880
as well as 1881 bear testimony to the ever-increasing production of opium
in the northern and western provinces of China, and missionaries and
others who have recently made journeys in the interior report the poppy
crops to be much larger than before the Imperial decree purporting to
prohibit its cultivation. The report of the Customs' Assistant-in-charge
at Ichang for 1880 shows that the average annual import of the Indian drug
at that port does not exceed ten pikuls, while the native production in
the Ichang Prefecture is estimated to be over one thousand pikuls per
annum. Mr. W. Donald Spence, in his report on trade for 1880, gives an
estimate of the total crop of opium raised in Western China in 1880, which
is as follows:--Western Hupeh, two thousand pikuls; Eastern Szechuan,
forty-five thousand pikuls; Yunnan, forty-thousand pikuls; and Kweichow,
ten thousand pikuls; giving a total of ninety-seven thousand pikuls--as
much, in fact, for these districts as the whole amount of Indian opium
imported into China for that year. What his report for 1881 is I have
already shown you. This, it must be borne in mind, is the production of
Western China only. In Shantung, Chihli, the inland provinces, and
Manchuria it is extensively grown, and in all the other provinces smaller
quantities of the drug are produced. That nothing is being done to check
this widespread cultivation of the poppy is notorious. Messrs. Soltan and
Stevenson, who passed through Yunnan last year on their way from Bhamo to
Chingkiang, described the country as resembling "a sea of poppy"; and Mr.
Spence tells us that in 1880 and 1881 a greater breadth of land was sown
with poppies in Western Hupeh than in the previous years. In Manchuria,
which is a large territory forming part of the empire to the north-east of
China, and in the northern provinces of China proper, there was also a
general increase in the area under poppy cultivation. No efforts, in fact,
are being made to stop it. On this subject Mr. Spence, in his report for
1880, remarks:--

    In Western Hupeh there has been no interference with opium farmers or
    opium cultivation by the officials, nor, as far as I have been able to
    ascertain, by any of the authorities of the provinces named in this
    report. In Yunnan it receives direct official encouragement, and in
    all the cultivation is free. Its production is regarded as a fertile
    source of revenue to the exchequer, of pelf to officials and
    smugglers, of profit to farmers and merchants, and of pleasure to all.
    Nearly everybody smokes, and nearly everybody smuggles it about the
    country when he can; and in this matter there is no difference between
    rich and poor, lettered and unlettered, governing and governed.

After this testimony, which is corroborated in the strongest manner by
many other and equally disinterested persons, who can pretend to say that
the Chinese Government has any real desire to put down the poppy
cultivation?

Let us now see what Don Sinibaldo de Mas has to say upon this point.
Having gone into the history of the Indo-Chinese opium trade, and shown
that the sole object of the Chinese Government in objecting to that trade
was to prevent bullion from leaving the country, he says:--

    It is totally wrong to suppose that the Mandarins are anxious to
    prevent the introduction of opium into the country. Many of these
    Mandarins smoke it; most of them, if not all, accept presents and
    close their eyes at opium smuggling. With the exception of the famous
    Lin-tsi-su and a few others who reside at Court, all the others, and I
    think even Ki-Ying himself, have profited by this illegal traffic. Sir
    I. F. Davis when in China as Minister Plenipotentiary frequently
    called Ki-Ying's attention to the smuggling that was being carried on
    under the connivance and encouragement of rural officials.

I referred in my last lecture to a valuable paper read by Sir Rutherford
Alcock at a recent meeting of the Society of Arts. Everybody knows this
gentleman's abilities and his high character, which afford the most
perfect assurance that he would be incapable of asserting anything that he
did not know from his own experience, or from unquestionable sources, to
be true. He speaks also with authority. He may be taken to be, therefore,
a perfectly unbiassed witness. He has no personal interest in the
question, and there is no reason why he should state anything but what is
perfectly accurate. He says, in the paper I have mentioned:--

    Whatever may have been the motive or true cause, about which there
    hangs considerable doubt, it is certain that neither in the first
    edicts of 1793-6, nor as late as 1832-4, when several Imperial edicts
    were issued against the introduction of opium from abroad, no
    reference whatever is made to the _moral ground_ of prohibition, so
    ostentatiously paraded in later issues, and notably in Li Hung Chang's
    letter to the Anglo-Opium Society last July. The reasons exclusively
    put forward in the first of these edicts (in 1793) were that "It
    wasted the time and property of the people of the Inner Land, leading
    them to exchange their silver and commodities for the vile dirt of the
    foreigner." And as late as 1836, when memorials were presented to the
    Emperor, showing the connection of the opium trade with the
    exportation of sycee, they generally regarded the question in a
    political and financial character, rather than a moral light; and
    certainly, in several edicts issued between 1836 and 1839, when Lin
    made his grand _coup_, there is little, if any, reference to the evils
    of opium smoking, but very clear language as to the exportation of
    bullion. When we reflect that this "vile dirt," as I will presently
    show, was being extensively cultivated in the provinces of China, and
    largely consumed by his own subjects, we may be permitted to question
    whether the balance of trade turned by the large importation of opium,
    and the leakage of the sycee silver, so emphatically and angrily
    pointed to in after years, was not the leading motive for the
    prohibition of the foreign drug. We have it on authority, that "From
    the commencement of the commercial intercourse down to 1828-29 the
    balance of trade had always been in favour of the Chinese, and great
    quantities of bullion accumulated in China. Since that date the
    balance of trade had been in the opposite direction, and bullion began
    to flow out of China. As silver became more scarce, it naturally rose
    in value, and the copper currency of the realm (and the only one),
    already depreciated by means of over-issues and mixture of foreign
    coin of an inferior standard, appeared to suffer depreciation when
    compared with its nominal equivalent in sycee; and the effects of this
    change fell heavily upon a large and important class of Government
    officers, and ultimately upon the revenue itself. Memorials were
    presented to the Emperor on the subject, and the export of sycee was
    prohibited."

How, after that, it can be said for a moment that the Chinese Government
was actuated by moral considerations, or was really anxious to put down
opium smoking or opium culture, I cannot conceive. The truth is, and it is
so palpable that it really seems to me to require no advocacy whatever,
that the Government, as Sir Rutherford Alcock and Don Sinibaldo so
strongly put it, does not like to see so much bullion leaving the country.

Now, Sir Rutherford Alcock, unlike the missionaries and the agents of the
Anti-Opium Society, has acquired his knowledge of opium and the opium
trade in the regular course of his ordinary duties, and has necessarily,
therefore, acquired an authentic knowledge of the subject. His testimony,
like that of Messrs. Spence, Baber, and a host of other unimpeachable
witnesses, comes under the head of the "best evidence." But it is said of
Sir Rutherford by the agents of the Anti-Opium Society, with the view of
discrediting his testimony, that he has changed his opinions; that
formerly he was opposed to the trade which he now defends. I do not
believe there is any solid truth in this assertion; but if there is, what
does the fact prove? Why, simply nothing at all. Show me the public man
who during the past forty or fifty years has not altered or modified his
opinions more or less. Sir Robert Peel, one of the greatest of modern
statesmen, when he was past sixty years of age, changed the opinions he
had held all his life upon free trade. Was he right or wrong in doing so?
If Sir Rutherford Alcock had at an earlier period of his life held
different opinions to those he now holds on the Indo-Chinese opium trade,
it is not unreasonable that on a closer study of the subject, and by the
strong light that has been thrown upon it within the past ten or fifteen
years, he should have modified or even altogether changed his opinions.
This is, again, another instance of the desperate efforts of the
Anti-Opium advocates to hold their ground and maintain their unfounded and
untenable theories.

The Government of China have always been protectionists in the strictest
sense of the term. Their idea has been that China can support itself; that
the people can provide themselves with everything they want, and need
nothing from abroad. They will sell the foreigner as much of their produce
as he wishes to buy, and cheerfully take his gold in exchange, but they
will not buy from him if they can help doing so. This is the real end they
are aiming at; but they would not be at all so persistent, or put their
case so much forward as they do, were it not for the attitude taken up by
the missionaries and that most mischievous, intermeddling, un-English
confederacy the Anti-Opium Society, as revealed to them by _The Friend of
China_. The Government of China have in their employment Chinese clerks
and interpreters who are excellent English scholars. These men explain
everything about the objects of the Anti-Opium Society, and, whilst the
Mandarins laugh at the absurdities put forward by that association, they
are still quite ready to accept the Society as their ally. Hence Li Hung
Chang's letter to Mr. Storrs Turner, mentioned in Sir Rutherford Alcock's
paper; one would almost fancy that this letter had been written for Li by
Mr. Storrs Turner himself. No one knew better than Li Hung Chang that this
letter was one tissue of hypocrisy and mendacity. But, stay, there is one
part of it that is certainly true. Li says to Mr. Turner: "_Your Society
has long been known to me and many of my countrymen_." There can be no
doubt of the fact. Whilst despising Mr. Storrs Turner and his Society, and
cordially hating him and his fellow missionaries, Li Hung Chang and his
friends play into their hands and humour them in this matter to the top of
their bent. Their real object is to get rid of the Indian opium if they
can; or, if they cannot, to have a higher duty fixed upon it, so as to
reduce its supply; or, at all events, to augment their own revenues by the
higher duty. As matters stand at present, the Chinese Government obtains a
net revenue of over two million pounds sterling from the Indian drug, and
they derive, perhaps, half that amount from the duty on the home-grown
article. They have revenue cruisers constantly watching to put down opium
smuggling, and they adopt other rigid steps to prevent the practice; but
it is still carried on to a considerable extent, not by Englishmen or
other foreigners, mark you, but by their own countrymen. Very great
misconception, I may here say, prevails upon this point artfully spread
abroad by agents here of the Anti-Opium Society, but I shall sweep this
away before I close. The Chinese Government is quite willing to perpetuate
the Indo-China opium trade if it can only get the duty raised to suit its
purpose. Therein lies their whole object. Mr. Turner speaks about the
paternal character of the Chinese Government. In the _Peking
Gazette_--which is in some respects analogous to the _London
Gazette_--Imperial decrees are from time to time published. Amongst
others, there will appear proclamations addressed to the people, warning
them to abstain from this and that evil practice. But they have not the
least effect, nor is it expected that they will have effect. They are mere
shams, and are not heeded; yet they please the people. These proclamations
or injunctions are never seriously intended, and Mr. Turner knows this
perfectly well. Dr. Wells Williams mentions in his book that two thousand
years before Christ the manufacture of spirits was forbidden in China; yet
the trade still flourishes there. Spirits are still drunk in moderation
throughout China, just as opium is smoked.

Sir R. Hart says that "Native opium was known, produced, and used long
before any Europeans began the sale of the foreign drug along the coast."
Mr. Watters, one of Her Majesty's Consuls in China, states that the poppy
is largely cultivated throughout Western China; Mr. Colborne Baber, who
has travelled through nearly the whole of China, not only confirms Mr.
Watters' statement, but says that from his own experience one-third of the
province of Yunnan is under opium culture. Mr. W. Donald Spence and a host
of others thoroughly well informed upon the question also give the
strongest corroborative testimony. Now, in the face of the statements of
such witnesses as these, can you credit for a moment Mr. Storrs Turner
when he says--believing only what he wishes to be true, but having no data
whatever for his statements--that it is only recently that opium has been
cultivated in China? Of all the existing nations of Asia, the only one
that can now be described as civilized is China; and this is the country
where Mr. Turner, because it suits his purpose, tells us that this
invaluable drug has been only _recently_ known.

China may be said to be the garden of Asia. Opium has been grown
throughout the fertile plains of that immense continent for thousands of
years, and is it likely that the oldest and most civilized of all Asiatic
nations would be the last to introduce into their country the culture of
that drug to whose curative properties Mr. Storrs Turner bears such strong
testimony in the opening chapter of his book? The only reason that
gentleman could have had for making such a statement is simply, as I have
already intimated, to induce his readers to believe that the Chinese would
not have cultivated the drug, nor have used it for smoking, were it not
for the importation of Indian opium into China. Upon this part of my
subject, I may mention that a book has been written by a very learned man,
Dr. W. A. P. Martin, President of the Tungwen College at Peking, who shows
that China was the cradle of Alchemy, which was known there five hundred
years before it was ever heard of in Europe. Are these a people likely to
be ignorant of this indispensable medicine, as Mr. Turner characterizes
it, or to neglect its cultivation throughout their fertile country? I may
add that all, or nearly all, the medicines of the British Pharmacopoeia,
and a great many more also, have been known to the Chinese for hundreds,
if not thousands, of years.

The eighth fallacy is, _that the British merchants in China are making
large fortunes by opium_. I have already, I think, pretty well disposed of
this, and I need not say much more upon the subject now. One of the great
points of the Anti-Opium Society and its supporters seems to be that the
British merchants are birds of prey, a set of rapacious and ravenous
creatures, without the feelings of humanity in their breasts, who have
gone out to China to make princely fortunes, after the manner of that
apochryphal youth who, on his departure from the paternal roof, is said to
have received this admonition from his canny sire, "Mak money, ma
boy--honestly if you can--but mak money"; that thus animated the British
merchant arrives in China like a hawk amid a flock of pigeons, and helps
himself to one of those princely acquisitions, which, to Mr. Storrs
Turner, seem to be as plentiful as blackberries in the flowery land, and
who, after having helped to demoralise and ruin the nation, gracefully
returns home to enjoy his ill-gotten gains. The best answer to this is the
amicable relations that now exist and have always existed between the
natives and these merchants. The British merchants, as a body, have no
interest in the opium trade; nor are any of them engaged in smuggling or
in any practices detrimental to the natives of China. In point of
education, thorough mercantile knowledge, strict integrity, and sound
practical Christianity, these gentlemen are second to no other body of men
in the British Empire.

Another fallacy, or false assumption, number nine, which the advocates of
the Anti-Opium Society are fond of propagating, and which is as fully
believed in by themselves as by their deluded followers, is--_that the
discontinuance of the supply of opium from India would stop or check the
practice of opium smoking_. They fully believe that if they could only
succeed in suppressing the Indo-China opium trade they would deal such a
death-blow to this ancient custom, which prevails more or less over the
eighteen provinces of the Chinese empire, that we should in a very short
time hear of there being no opium smoking at all in China! That is as
great a delusion as was ever indulged in. Imagine a person saying that if
we ceased to ship beer, stout, and whiskey to Denmark, France, or Italy,
we should check the consumption of brandy or other alcoholic liquors
throughout Europe, and you have a pretty fair parallel to this assumption.

Suppose it were possible to stop the supply of opium from British India,
and that such stoppage had in fact taken place, the result would be that
the Chinese would increase the cultivation of the poppy in their own
country still more than they have already done, and the Indian drug known
as "Malwa opium" would still continue to be imported into China, for the
British Government, even if desirous to do so, could not prohibit its
manufacture and exportation. The Portuguese, who were the first to import
Indian opium into China, would cultivate the drug, not only in their
Indian possession of Goa, but in Africa, where they have colonies.
Further, they would encourage its increased cultivation in the native
states of India, which produce the Malwa opium, and which, as I have just
said, we could not prevent. A great stimulus would also be given to the
cultivation of Persian opium. Hear, how I am borne out by Don Sinibaldo de
Mas, an authentic and thoroughly impartial witness. This is what he says,
in his very valuable book:--

    It is another fallacy to say that if the East India Company were to
    prohibit the cultivation of opium in her territories that the article
    would disappear from China altogether. The poppy grows freely between
    the equator and latitudes 30 deg. to 40 deg.; it is produced in large
    quantities in Java, the Phillipines, Borneo, Egypt, and other places,
    as well as in China itself, where for many years past some thousands
    of chests are annually produced. It may be that the opium grown at
    Java has perhaps a different taste from that grown at Malwa and
    Benares, and may seem to be of inferior quality, but the consumers
    would soon become accustomed to that, and would probably prefer the
    former to the latter. Persons who are in the habit of smoking Havanna
    dislike Manilla cigars, and those who generally smoke Manillas prefer
    them to Havannas. At present opium is not exported from other
    countries because Indian Opium is so cheap.

    What, then, may I ask, is the reproach constantly hurled at the East
    India Company? That it derives an annual income by the culture of
    opium of at least three millions of pounds sterling. Should the
    Company prohibit the culture of the drug in order to allow other
    nations to derive the emoluments arising from it? I who have travelled
    in both upper and lower India, and know something of the country, am
    persuaded that the people there are already over-taxed, and to demand
    from them a substituted tax for those three millions would be a very
    serious matter indeed. And for whom pray would this sacrifice be made?
    To reduce the quantity of opium smoked in China? Most assuredly not;
    for the Chinese would still smoke just as much. This sacrifice on the
    part of England would only benefit those countries which would take up
    the cultivation of opium in order to supply the Chinese markets from
    which the Indian drug had been withdrawn. And what fault can be found
    with the merchants? Is it not the Chinese who ask for opium, and who
    buy it of their own free will, although not a single foreigner, either
    by example or precept, encourages them to do so. Is it not the Chinese
    who go out of their ports to the "Receiving Ships" to fetch it? Is the
    Chinese nation composed of children, or of savages who do not know
    right from wrong? Ought, for instance, the Queen of England to
    undertake to redress Chinese habits, or let us say vices, and to
    reform her Custom-house administration by watching the Chinese Coast?
    By what right could the English Government or any other Government do
    such things? If that is not what is wished, what is? Against whom and
    against what is all this outcry?

    It is said that the receiving ships are anchored at the mouth of
    rivers, that British war-ships anchor alongside of them, and that the
    consuls know this. That is quite true. The consuls admit all this--in
    fact, they often send their despatches by these very opium ships to
    Hong Kong. How many times has it happened that the consuls have had
    discussions with the Chinese governors respecting these receiving
    ships? They say, "We do not protect these ships; why do you not drive
    them away?" All this, I repeat, is notorious, and it is to be
    regretted that it is so; because, under proper legal authorisation,
    opium might be introduced into the Chinese Empire with such great
    advantage to the Imperial treasury....

    It cannot be expected that the English Government through its naval
    commanders should prevent its subjects from carrying on a remunerative
    commerce, whilst Americans, Dutchmen, Danes, Swedes, and Portuguese
    would continue to carry on the trade with increased profit through the
    withdrawal of the English.

Were the supply of opium from British India discontinued we should have a
class of merchants who would form syndicates to buy up all the opium that
could be found, and Macao would become the great depot for Persian,
Javanese, and Malwa opium for the China market, so that we should have
probably four times the quantity of the foreign drug shipped to China that
is now imported into that country, and thus the alleged evils of opium
smoking in China would be intensified. By a stupid though well-meaning
policy, that ultimate demoralisation, degradation, and ruin which the
Anti-Opium Society allege is now being wrought upon the natives of China
by the existing Indo-China opium trade would be enormously accelerated,
whilst England and English missionaries would only earn the contempt of
the Chinese nation and the ridicule of the whole world. I have shown you
that the Government of China is not sincere in its professed desire to put
down opium smoking; for if it was we should never have had the poppy grown
so extensively as it is at present all over the empire. The evidence of
Sir Robert Hart alone upon this point puts the matter beyond the question
of a doubt. How, in the face of that gentleman's book, this Anti-Opium
agitation can continue I really cannot understand. He is an officer of the
Chinese Government, and he would be the last man to publish anything
damaging to the Government or people of China. Here have these Anti-Opium
agitators been forty years in the wilderness without making any progress,
but only getting deeper into the quagmire of error and delusion. Even now,
although defeated at all points, they persist, as I shall show by and by,
in obstructing public business in the House of Commons by again
ventilating their unfounded theories.

As matters stand, this book of Sir Robert Hart's must show to every
impartial mind that the teaching of the Anti-Opium Society, from its
formation to the present time, has been fallacious, misleading, and
mischievous. Yet, in the face of this most damaging official Yellow-Book,
we are still calmly and seriously told from many platforms, by dignitaries
of the highest position in the Church, and by clergymen of all
denominations, that we are demoralising and ruining the whole nation,
because we send the Chinese a comparatively small quantity of pure and
unadulterated opium, which is beneficial rather than injurious to them.
But what does Sir Robert Hart, with all his official information, say?
That all this opium, amounting to about six thousand tons annually, is
consumed in moderation by one million of smokers, or one-third of one per
cent. of the whole population of China, estimating the number of people at
three hundred millions only.

The missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society, in the face of facts which
directly contradict them, say that the Chinese Government has a horror of
opium; but they never tell us that that Government has a horror of
themselves. What was the celebrated saying of Prince Kung to the British
Ambassador? "Take away your opium and your missionaries," said he. Now the
Chinese Government does not hate opium; it derives a very large revenue
from the drug at present, and it is only anxious to increase the amount. I
have very little doubt that Prince Kung, and all the other Imperial
magnates, including Li Hung Chang, that strictest of moralists, revel in
the very Indian drug they affect so to abhor. But they do detest the
missionaries most cordially; so do the whole educated people of the
empire, and so do Chinamen generally. None know this better than the
missionaries themselves. That disgraceful book, written by a Mandarin,
called "A Death-blow to Corrupt Practices," which was, by the aid of his
brother Mandarins, extensively circulated throughout China, but too
plainly proves the fact. That infamous volume was aimed at the whole
missionary body in China, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant; it
attributed the foulest crimes, the most disgraceful and disgusting
practices to the missionaries. It was, in fact, the precursor of the
fearful Tientsin massacre; yet the missionaries tell us that if we will
only discontinue the Indo-China opium trade the millennium will arrive. I
may here observe that if opium was the terrible thing, and was productive
of so much misery to its votaries, as the Protestant missionaries and the
Anti-Opium Society would have us believe, it seems strange that no mention
of opium or opium smoking appears in this book. If half the outcry raised
against the Indo-Chinese opium trade were true, here was an excellent
opportunity for the writer to have inveighed against the wickedness of
foreigners in introducing the horrible drug into the country. If the
Gospel is objected to because of this Indian opium, what a fine occasion
for the author to have enlarged upon the iniquity. If the Chinese mind
had been in any way impressed with the evils proceeding from opium
smoking, can it be supposed for a moment that the author of this book, an
educated Mandarin--one of the _literati_, in fact--would have omitted the
opportunity of denouncing the missionaries and foreigners generally for
introducing the terrible drug into the country and making profit by the
vices and misery of the Chinese people? Does not the entire omission of
opium from this book prove most eloquently that there is no real truth in
the outcry raised by these missionaries against the opium trade? The real
fact, believe me, is this, the Chinese dislike and distrust the
missionaries not because opium is an evil but because they hate and
despise Christianity. From the Anti-Opium Society one never hears anything
about the removal of the missionaries; it is all "take away your opium." I
am perfectly sure that, if we agreed to exclude our missionaries from
China, the Government of that country would unhesitatingly admit Indian
opium into the country duty free. No greater proof can be adduced of this
than the zeal and persistency with which the Chinese Government recently
and successfully prosecuted the celebrated Wu Shi Shan case, which was in
the nature of an action of ejectment against a Protestant missionary body
at Foochow. The late Mr. French, the Judge of Her Majesty's Supreme Court
for China and Japan, tried the case, the hearing of which occupied nearly
two months. It cost the Chinese Government about one hundred thousand
dollars, or twenty thousand pounds; they were well satisfied with the
result, although the land they recovered was not worth a tenth of the
money.

It is declared by Mr. Turner and the other advocates of the Anti-Opium
Society that we have treated the Chinese with great harshness; that we
have extorted the Treaty of Tientsin from them, and bullied them into
legalizing the admission of opium into the empire; that we began by
smuggling opium into China, and ended by quarrelling with the Chinese. It
must not be forgotten, on the other hand, how the Chinese have treated us.
For more than a century before we introduced opium into China, and began,
as it is said, to quarrel with the Chinese, we had been buying their teas
and silks, and paying for them in hard cash. During all that time we were
treated by the Mandarins with the greatest indignity. Our representatives
and our people were insulted, often maltreated, and sometimes murdered. As
to opium smuggling, about which so much is sought to be made by the
Anti-Opium people, there is one point that the writers and speakers upon
the subject seem to have forgotten. In the first place, I think I will
show you that smuggling, in the proper sense of the term, has never, in
fact, been carried on in China by Englishmen--or, indeed, by other
foreigners--at all. But even admitting, for argument's sake, that
smuggling in its ordinary acceptation did, in fact, exist, how does the
matter stand? It has been for centuries the recognized international law
of the civilized world that one nation is not bound to take cognizance of
the revenue laws of another. This principle has been carried out in past
times with the greatest strictness. For instance, there was once a very
large contraband trade done between England and France. When brandy was
heavily taxed, and when it was thought more of than it is now, smuggling
it into England was a very profitable business. It was the same as regards
silks, lace, and a great many other articles before free trade became the
law of this country. Our Government knew this very well, but they never
dreamt for a moment of sending a remonstrance to the French Government
upon the subject. Had they done so, the latter would probably have
replied: "We cannot prevent our people from doing this. We give them no
encouragement whatever. We have enough to do to prevent your people from
smuggling English goods into our country, and you must do your best on
your side to prevent our subjects from introducing French goods into
yours." For I suppose our people, carrying out the principle of
reciprocity, had some contraband dealings with French contrabandists on
their own account. That was the law for centuries, and it is so still.

But of late years what is called "the comity of nations" has become more
understood, and there is a better spirit spreading between different
states on this subject, although, as I have said, the law is still the
same. If our Government knew that there was now an organized system of
smuggling carried on here with France, they would, I dare say, try to put
a stop to the practice, and would, at the least, give such information to
the Government of France as would put their revenue officers on their
guard, and I am sure that the French Government would act in the same way
towards us. That would be due to the better feeling that has arisen
between the two countries within the last forty years. The moment,
therefore, it was found that there was a considerable demand in China for
Indian opium, British and other vessels brought the article to China; and
there can be no doubt that they met with great encouragement from the
Chinese officials, but they got no assistance from us. The opium shippers
carried on the trade at their own risk. All this has been very clearly
shown by Don Sinibaldo de Mas. There was no actual smuggling on the part
of the owners of these vessels. The Chinese openly came on board and
bought and took away the opium, "squaring" matters, so to speak, with the
Mandarins. These so-called smugglers belonged to all nationalities. There
were Americans, Portuguese, and Germans, as well as English, engaged in
it. According to the international law of European countries, the Chinese
Government ought, under the circumstances, to have had a proper preventive
service, and so put down the smuggling. But, instead of this, the practice
was openly encouraged by the Chinese officials, some of them Mandarins of
high position.

Now and then an explosion would occur; angry remonstrances would be
addressed to the British Government, and bad feeling between the two
nations would be engendered, the Chinese all along treating us as
barbarians, using the most insulting language towards us, and subjecting
our people, whenever opportunity offered, to the greatest indignities. The
missionaries have ignored all this. They appear to have satisfied
themselves so completely that we forced this trade upon the Chinese that
they have lost sight both of fact and reason. The very existence of an
opium-smuggling trade with China shows that the article smuggled was in
very great demand in that country. People never illegally take into a
country an article that is not greatly in request there. They will not
risk their lives and property unless they know large profits are to be
acquired by the venture, and such profits can only be made upon articles
in great demand. It was because there was found to be a demand for Indian
opium that this so-called contraband trade sprang up. This furnishes the
strongest proof that the Chinese valued the opium highly, and that it was
on their invitation that the drug was introduced. There is, I believe, a
considerable contraband trade now carried on in tobacco between Germany
and Cuba and England, just because the article is in demand here, and
there is a very high duty upon it. The fact is, that if the arguments of
the Anti-Opium people are properly weighed, they will be found, almost
without exception, to cut both ways, and with far greater force against
their own side.

Now with respect to smuggling, it is right that I should clear up the
misconception that seems to prevail upon the subject. Whatever may have
been the practice previous to the Treaty of Nankin, which was signed on
the 29th of August 1842, and ratified on the 26th of June 1843--forty
years ago, I say it advisedly, and challenge contradiction, that _no
smuggling or quasi smuggling, or any practice resembling smuggling, has
been carried on in China by any British subject_ since the signing of that
treaty. Although no mention is made of opium in that convention, it is an
indisputable fact that from the time of the making of it until the Treaty
of Tientsin in 1858, Indian opium was freely allowed into the country at
an _ad valorem_ duty. This is shown by Don Sinibaldo de Mas, in his book,
and also by Sir Rutherford Alcock, in his valuable paper. No doubt the
Chinese themselves have since then smuggled opium into their country, and
are doing so still. They are, in truth, inveterate smugglers, and it has
been found impossible for the British authorities of Hong Kong to prevent
the practice. For the past thirty years laws have from time to time been
passed in the colony with the object of checking the practice, which have
not been wholly unsuccessful; for instance, some twenty-five years ago an
Ordinance was passed prohibiting junks from leaving the harbour between
sunset, and, I think, 6 a.m. on the following morning, and compelling
every outward-bound junk to leave at the harbour master's office a copy of
the "Manifest" before starting, and I have known many prosecutions for
breach of this Ordinance.

Still smuggling by Chinamen goes on more or less, but not now, I think, to
any large extent. As for any connivance or participation in the practice
by the British authorities or the British people, and, indeed, I may say
the same for all foreigners in China, there is none whatever. I am fully
borne out in this statement by the _Friend of China_, which you will
remember is the organ of the Anti-Opium Society. It would appear that Sir
John Pope Hennessy, lately Governor of Hong Kong, made a speech last
autumn at Nottingham, on the occasion of the meeting of the Social Science
Congress, in the course of which he made some allusion to smuggling by the
British community of Hong Kong. I have not myself read the speech, but
collect this from the statement of the journal in question, which I shall
now read to you. This is the passage:--

    The present governor of Hong Kong is extremely unpopular with the
    British community under his jurisdiction. Into the occasion and merit
    of the feud we do not pretend to enter, but in reproducing the
    Governor's condemnation of the Colony it is only fair to note the fact
    of the existing hostility between governor and governed. _We are
    sorry, too, that Sir John did not state that these desperate smugglers
    are of Chinese race. So far as we know there is no ground for
    inculpating a single Englishman in Hong Kong in these nefarious
    proceedings; the English merchant sells his opium to Chinese
    purchasers, and there his connection with the traffic ceases._

So much for the delusion as to smuggling by British subjects in China. As
for the "Hoppo" of Canton, who farms from the Chinese Government the
revenue of the provinces of Kwantung and Kwangsi, and whose object it is
to squeeze as much as he can from the mercantile community of these
provinces during his term of office, he has a fleet of fast English-built
steam cruisers, heavily armed, ostensibly to put down smuggling, but
really to <DW36> the commerce of the port of Hong Kong, they keep the
harbour blockaded by this fleet of armed cruisers to prey upon the native
craft coming to and sailing from the colony. Wild with wrath at the
prosperity of Hong Kong, the Hoppo and his cruisers lose no opportunity of
oppressing the native junks resorting to the place. All those vessels they
think should go to Canton to swell the Hoppo's income. Many Chinese
merchants have put cases of oppression of the kind in my hands, where
those armed cruisers simply played the part of pirates, seizing
unoffending junks, taking them to Canton, and confiscating junk and cargo;
but I regret to say that only in a very few cases have I been able to
obtain redress. This state of things has been going on for the past
fifteen or twenty years, and should be put down by the British Government.
So far as respects the Chinese authorities, and the junk owners, and
native merchants, it is simply legalised robbery; whilst as regards the
British Government and people of the colony, foreigners as well as
natives, it is a system of insult and outrage--a very serious injury, and
a glaring breach of international law, which no European Government would
tolerate in another. I mention this to show how forbearing and
long-suffering the Government of Hong Kong and the Imperial Government
have been towards China during the continuance of this most nefarious and
unjustifiable state of things. This is in truth a very serious matter.
When Sir Henry Elliott took possession of Hong Kong in 1841 on behalf of
the Queen, he invited by proclamation the Chinese people to settle in the
place, promising them protection for their lives and property, upon the
faith of which the natives took their families and property to the colony.
But how can it be said now that their property is protected when this
piratical fleet, like a bird of prey, hovers round the colony, pouncing
down upon the native craft going to or leaving the port?

To close this part of my subject, I may say in short, that the charges
brought by the Anti-Opium Society against the importation of Indian opium
into China are exactly on a par with the objections of a Society
established in France for the purpose of prohibiting the importation into
England of cognac, on the grounds that that spirit intoxicated,
demoralised, and ruined the English people. If any set of men in France
were fanatical and insane enough to set forth such views, they would be
laughed down at once. The answer to the objection to the brandy trade
would be, "That the English people manufacture and drink plenty of gin and
whisky, and if they, the French, discontinued sending them brandy the
English would simply manufacture and drink more spirits of their own
production." No two cases could be more alike.

Before proceeding to the last of the fallacies by which the opponents of
the Indo-Chinese opium trade have been so long deluding society, I wish to
refer to the statements made by Mr. Storrs Turner in his book, and by the
advocates of the Anti-Opium trade, respecting the Treaty of Tientsin. It
is alleged that Lord Elgin, who bore the highest character as a statesman
and Christian gentleman, extorted the treaty from the Chinese, and forced
them to include opium in the schedule to that treaty. Mr. Turner, at p. 95
of his book, typifies the conduct of England thus:--

    The strong man knocks down the weak one, sets his foot upon his chest
    and demands:--"Will you give me the liberty to knock at your front
    door and supply your children with poison _ad libitum_?" The weak man
    gasps out from under the crushing pressure--"I will, I will; anything
    you please." And the strong man goes home rejoicing that he is no
    longer under the unpleasant necessity of carrying on a surreptitious
    back-door trade.

This metaphor is really absurd, and has no application whatever. Were a
man so infamous as to act in the manner stated, it would be a matter of
little concern to him whether his poison entered by the front or the back
door, so long as he got paid for the article. The fact is, as I have
stated, that since the Treaty of Nankin, in 1842, opium has been openly
allowed in the country without any difficulty or objection. If there is
any point in this metaphor of Mr. Storrs Turner's at all, it applies not
to the insertion of opium in the tariff, but to the clause in the treaty
as to the admission of missionaries into China, for that was really the
bitter pill the Chinese swallowed. In 1858, when the Treaty of Tientsin
was being drawn up, the tariff upon British goods had to be settled. The
Chinese Commissioners, not only as a matter of course, and without any
pressure whatever, proposed to put down opium in the schedule at the
present fixed duty of thirty taels a pikul, but actually insisted upon
doing so. There was no necessity for using pressure at all, and none in
fact was used. It was included in the tariff just like other goods. Mr. H.
N. Lay, who jointly with Sir Thomas Wade, Her Majesty's present minister
at Pekin, was Chinese Secretary to Lord Elgin's special mission, and who
then, I believe, filled the important post in the Chinese service now
occupied by Sir Robert Hart, expresses his opinion on the subject as
follows:--

    Statements have been advanced of late, with more or less of precision,
    to the effect that the legalisation of the opium trade was wrung from
    Chinese fears. At the recent meeting in Birmingham Lord Elgin is
    credited, in so many words, with having "extorted" at Tientsin the
    legalisation of the article in question. There is no truth whatever in
    the allegation, and I do not think, in fairness to Lord Elgin's
    memory, or in justice to all concerned, that I ought to observe
    silence any longer. Jointly with Sir Thomas Wade, our present minister
    in China, I was Chinese Secretary to Lord Elgin's special mission. All
    the negotiations at Tientsin passed through me. Not one word upon
    either side was ever said about opium from first to last. The revision
    of the tariff, and the adjustment of all questions affecting our
    trade, was designedly left for after deliberation and arrangement, and
    it was agreed that for that purpose the Chinese High Commissioners
    should meet Lord Elgin at Shanghai in the following winter. The Treaty
    of Tientsin was signed on the 26th of June 1858; the first was
    withdrawn, and Lord Elgin turned the interval to account by visiting
    Japan and concluding a treaty there. In the meantime the preparation
    of the tariff devolved upon me, at the desire no less of the Chinese
    than of Lord Elgin. _When I came to "Opium" I inquired what course
    they proposed to take in respect to it. The answer was, "We have
    resolved to put it into the tariff as Yang Yoh_ (foreign medicine)."
    This represents with strict accuracy the amount of the "extortion"
    resorted to. And I may add that the tariff as prepared by me, although
    it comprises some 300 articles of import and export, _was adopted by
    the Chinese Commissioners without a single alteration_, which would
    hardly have been the case had the tariff contained aught objectionable
    to them. Five months after the signature of the Treaty of Tientsin,
    long subsequently to the removal of all pressure, the Chinese High
    Commissioners, the signatories of the treaty, came down to Shanghai in
    accordance with the arrangement made, and after conference with their
    colleagues, and due consideration, signed with Lord Elgin the tariff
    as prepared, along with other commercial articles which had been drawn
    up in concert with the subordinate members of the Commission who had
    been charged with that duty. _The Chinese Government admitted opium as
    a legal article of import, not under constraint, but of their own free
    will deliberately._

Now Mr. H. N. Lay is a gentleman whose testimony is altogether
unimpeachable, and this is his statement. He explains the whole
transaction, and it is substantially and diametrically contrary to the
allegations of Mr. Turner and the Anti-Opium Society. His account of the
matter has the greater force, because I believe he is rather anti-opium in
his views than the opposite, and at the time of the treaty he was in the
service of the Chinese Government. The truth is, that we never should have
had the Chinese urging us to increase the duty had they not been supported
by the Anti-Opium Society. Mr. Laurence Oliphant was Lord Elgin's
secretary at the time of the Tientsin Treaty. This is what he says on the
subject:--

    As a great deal of misconception prevails in the public mind upon this
    subject, I would beg to confirm what Mr. Lay has said as to the views
    of the Chinese Government in the matter.

    I was appointed in 1858 Commissioner for the settlement of the trade
    and tariff regulations with China; and during my absence with Lord
    Elgin in Japan, Mr. Lay was charged to consider the details with the
    subordinate Chinese officials named for the purpose. On my return to
    Shanghai I went through the tariff elaborated by these gentlemen with
    the Commissioner appointed by the Chinese Government. When we came to
    the article "opium," _I informed the Commissioner that I had received
    instructions from Lord Elgin not to insist on the insertion of the
    drug in the tariff, should the Chinese Government wish to omit it.
    This he declined to do. I then proposed that the duty should be
    increased beyond the figure suggested in the tariff; but to this he
    objected, on the ground that it would increase the inducements to
    smuggling._

    I trust that the delusion that the opium trade now existing with China
    was "extorted" from that country by the British Ambassador may be
    finally dispelled.

But Mr. Storrs Turner will doubtless still say, "Oh! these gentlemen are
Englishmen; you cannot believe them." I do not think, however, this kind
of objection will have much weight with my readers or the country at
large.

And now, as I am on the political side of the question, I will say a few
words on the Indian aspect of the case. The Government of India is charged
by Mr. Storrs Turner and the Anti-Opium people generally with descending
to the position of opium manufacturers and merchants, and quotes an
alleged proposal of the late Lord Lawrence to drop the traffic, leaving
the cultivation and exportation of the drug to private enterprise, and
recouping itself from loss by placing a heavy export duty on the article.
If Lord Lawrence ever proposed such an arrangement, which I doubt very
much, I hardly think he could have carefully considered the question. No
doubt, in an abstract point of view, it is contrary to sound policy for
the Government of a country to carry on mercantile business, much less to
take into its own hands a monopoly of any trade, yet the thing has been
done for a great number of years, and is still practised by some
continental Governments without the existence of any special reason for so
doing. The Indo-China opium trade, however, is an entirely exceptional
one. When an exceptional state of things has to be dealt with,
corresponding measures must be resorted to. The opium industry in India is
an ancient one; and the exportation of this drug to China began under the
Portuguese, several centuries ago. Were the Government of India to adopt
the alleged proposals of Lord Lawrence, the result would be that a much
larger quantity of opium than is now produced in India would be turned
out, so that not only would the alleged evils now complained of by the
missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society be intensified, but the Government
of India would find its revenue greatly increased by its export duty on
the drug. This is very conclusively shown by Don Sinibaldo de Mas, a most
competent authority, who has studied the question deeply and can have no
possible object but the revelation of the truth.

There are numerous objections to throwing open the Indian trade. As
matters now stand, the Government of India annually makes advances to the
opium growers, to enable them to produce the drug. These advances are made
at a low or nominal rate of interest. Let the Government once drop the
monopoly and throw open the trade, and then the small farmers--and they
form perhaps seventy-five per cent. of the whole, whether they cultivate
the poppy or any other crop--would be at the mercy of the usurers, who are
the curse of India. Thus the poor cultivator, instead of paying the
Government two or three per cent. interest for the advance, would have to
pay perhaps five times that amount, with a bill for law costs; and a much
larger bill staring him in the future, in case he should be so unfortunate
as not to be up to time with his payments. The usurers or Marwaris as I
believe they are called, would in such cases profit by the fruits of the
soil instead of the growers. As to the morality of the proposed change, I
do not see what could be gained by such an arrangement. If it is wrong to
derive a revenue from opium by direct, it is equally wrong to do so by
indirect means. Before closing this part of the subject, there is another
point I wish to say a few words upon. It is put forward by Mr. Turner in
his book, with great plausibility, and is, no doubt, accepted by his
disciples as fact, that every acre of land put under opium cultivation
displaces so much rice, the one being a poison, the other the staff of
life. This is perfectly fallacious; wherever rice is grown in China--and I
fancy it is the same in India--there are two crops taken in the year. Rice
is cultivated during the spring and summer months (that is, the rainy
season), for the grain only grows where there is abundance of water.

The poppy thrives only in the dry season, that is, during the latter part
of the autumn and the winter, when the rice crops have been saved. The
poppy requires a rich soil, so that before planting it the farmers have to
manure the ground well; then, when the poppy crop has been secured, the
land is in good heart for rice, and so the rotation goes on. This I stated
in the first edition of this lecture; since then Mr. Spence's Report for
1881 has appeared which fully confirms my view. Thus much for the accuracy
of this statement of Mr. Storrs Turner.

I come now to the last of the fallacies, follies, and fantasies, upon
which the huge superstructure of delusion put forward for so many years by
the Anti-Opium Society has been built. At once the least sustainable, it
is the one which carries the most weight with the supporters of that
Society, for it furnishes the _raison d'etre_ of their whole action. It is
_that the introduction of Indian opium into China has arrested the
progress of Christianity in that country, and that if the trade were
discontinued the Chinese would accept the Gospel_. No greater mistake, nor
more unfounded delusion than this could be indulged in; indeed, it seems
to me something very like a profanation to mix up the Indo-China opium
trade with the spread of the Gospel in the Empire of China. If the
objection to embrace Christianity because we send opium to that country
has ever, in fact, been made by natives, that objection was a subterfuge
only.

The Chinese are an acute and crafty race; when they desire to attain an
object, they seldom attempt to do so by direct means, but rather seek to
gain their ends indirectly. They despise and hate Christianity, although
they will not tell you so, much less will they argue with you, or enter
into controversy upon the subject. They will rather try to get rid of it
by a side-wind. They are a very polite and courteous people, and
understand this style of tactics very well. I have no doubt whatever that
if the British trade in opium were suppressed to-morrow, and that no
British merchant dealt any longer in the drug, or sent a particle of it
into China, and if a missionary were to go before the Chinese and say, "We
can now show clean hands, our Government has stopped the opium trade," and
then were to open his book and begin talking to them of Christianity, he
would only be met with derisive laughter. "This man," they would say,
"thinks that because the English have ceased to sell us opium we should
all become Christians. If they sold us no more rice or broadcloth, we
suppose they would say that we should become Mahomedans."

Knowing the cunning and keen sense of humour of the people, I have no
doubt they would use another argument also. There is a story told of a
Scotch clergyman who rebuked one of his congregation for not being quite
so moderate in his potations as he ought to be. "It's a' vera weel,"
returned the other, who had reason to know that the minister did not
always practise what he preached, "but do ye ken how they swept the
streets o' Jerusalem?" The clergyman was obliged to own his ignorance,
when Sandy replied, "Weel, then, it was just this, every man kept his ain
door clean." And I can well fancy in the case I have supposed, an equally
shrewd Chinaman saying to the missionary, "What for you want to make us
follow your religion? Your religion vely bad one. You have plenty men
drink too muchee sam-shu, get drunk and fight, and beat their wives and
children. Chinaman no get drunk. Chinaman no beat or kill his wife. Too
muchee sam-shu vely bad. Drink vely bad for Inglismen; what for you don't
go home and teach them to be soba, plaupa men?" Believe me, the Chinese
know our little peccadilloes and are very well informed respecting our
doings here at home.

We send but six thousand tons of opium annually to China, which, according
to Sir Robert Hart, who ought to be a reliable authority on the subject,
inflicts no appreciable injury upon the health, wealth, or extension of
the population of that vast empire. The truth is, that the alleged
objection of the Chinese against Christianity amounts simply to this:
because some of our people do what is wrong, and we are not as a nation
faultless in morals, we should not ask them to change their religion for
ours. Perfection is not to be attained by any nation or the professors of
any creed. If we had the ability, and were foolish enough to stop the
exportation of Indian opium to China, the natives of the country would
find some other reason for clinging to their own creeds and rejecting
Christianity. They could, and doubtless would, point to the fearful plague
of intemperance prevailing amongst us; they could also refer to the great
number of distilleries and breweries in the United Kingdom, to our Newgate
Calendar, and to the records of the Divorce Court. In short, they would
say, "You do not practise what you preach. What do you mean, then, by
trying to make Christians of us?" The same doctrine has been used over and
over again even in Christian countries, and it is lamentable to see
educated and intelligent men becoming victims to such a delusive mode of
reasoning. This sad hallucination on the part of the missionary clergymen
is the origin of the mischievous and very stupid agitation going on
against the Indo-China opium trade, but now rapidly, I believe and hope,
coming to an end.

A few years ago I paid a short visit to Japan. Whilst I was at Tokio, the
capital, a lecture was given there by an educated Japanese gentleman, who
spoke English well and fluently. He introduced religion into his lecture,
and considered the question why the Japanese did not embrace Christianity.
"Our minds," said he, "are like blank paper; we are ready to receive any
religion that is good, we are not bigoted to our own, but we object to
Christianity because we do not consider it a good religion, because we see
that Christians do not reverence old age, and because they are so
licentious, and so brutal to the coolies." But these reasons are again
merely subterfuges. The Japanese do not smoke opium, and the very same
objection they urge against Christianity might also be used by the
Chinese. The Oriental mind is very much the same, whether Chinese,
Japanese, or Indian. Upon religious or political questions they well know
how to shift their ground. As to the Chinese embracing Christianity, I
trust the day will come when they will do so. They would then be the most
powerful nation in the whole world, and probably become our own best
teachers on religion and morals; but at present I see no immediate hope of
their conversion. I say this in view of the stand taken by the Protestant
missionaries on this opium question. Nothing, in my opinion, is more
calculated to impede the progress of missionary work than this most absurd
and unfounded delusion. The reason given by the missionaries for the
apparently small success which has hitherto attended their efforts, is
that the so-called iniquitous traffic in opium has been the one stumbling
block in their way. Put a stop to this villanous trade, they say, and the
Gospel will flourish like a green bay-tree. This sort of argument takes
with the missionaries themselves and with religious people generally, and
thus converts to the anti-opium policy are made. Yet all these statements
rest, I can assure you, on an entirely fallacious foundation. We are not
dealing with a savage but with a civilized people. You may change a
nation's religion, but you cannot alter its customs, and if China were
evangelised to-morrow the Chinese would still continue opium smokers. The
Reverend Mr. Galpin has hit the nail on the head when he said in his
letter to the missionaries of Peking:--

    Looking at Christianity in the broad and true sense, as a great
    regenerating force breathing its beneficent spirit upon and promoting
    the welfare of all, of course the excessive use or abuse of opium and
    every other thing, is a serious hindrance to its happy progress. But
    this is a very different position from that of supposing that the
    present apparently slow progress of mission-work in China is to be
    attributed to the importation of Indian opium. China is a world in
    itself, and the influence of Christian missions has hitherto reached
    but a handful of the people, for there are many serious obstacles to
    its progress besides opium.

As before mentioned, the Roman Catholic missionaries have never complained
that their missionary labours were impeded by the opium trade. I had the
honour of being Solicitor at Hong Kong to a wealthy and important
religious community of that persuasion which has missionary stations all
over China, Formosa, and Tonquin, and might call the head of the order a
personal friend, yet I never heard a complaint of the kind from him or any
of his clergy. I was on very intimate terms with a Roman Catholic
gentleman who was in the confidence of the Catholic Bishop at Hong Kong,
and the Roman Catholic community generally, and I have had conversations
with him on missionary matters. He has never uttered such a complaint,
but, on the contrary, has always spoken of the success which attended the
Roman Catholic missions throughout China. In this connection it should not
be forgotten that the Chinese treat all foreigners alike; they know no
distinction between them--English, French, German, Spanish, Americans,
Portuguese, are to them one people. The victims of the Tientsin massacre
were, with the exception, I think, of a Russian gentleman, a community of
French nuns. The petition to the House of Commons set out in my first
letter emanated from the Protestant missionaries alone, and it has not, I
am well assured, been signed by a single Roman Catholic missionary. It is
plain, therefore, that this alleged obstacle to the spread of the Gospel
in China by the English and American missionaries is a monster of their
own creation, and has no real existence. Bishop Burden, of Hong Kong, the
missionary bishop for South China, who, although no authority on the opium
question, ought, on this point at all events, to be well informed,
estimates the number of Protestant converts in China at forty thousand,
and of Roman Catholics at one million. The disparity is great, but then it
should not be forgotten that Roman Catholic missions in China date from a
period probably two centuries earlier than Protestant missions. If out of
these forty thousand converts I allow five per cent., or two thousand, to
be really sincere and able to give a reason for the faith that is in them,
I believe that I am not underrating the precise number of true and _bona
fide_ converts which these missionaries have made. But knowing this as I
do, it is very far from my intention to cast blame upon the missionaries
in consequence. To those who understand the difficulties those devoted men
have to contend with in the progress of their labours, the wonder is not
that they have done so little, but that they have achieved so much. Upon
this point, I would say again, I am very far from attributing any blame to
our missionaries, save in so far as they have allowed themselves to be
cajoled by certain Chinese and others as to opium smoking. No one is more
sensible of their piety, learning, zeal, and industry; and a very sad task
it has been to me to impugn their conduct and controvert their views as I
have done. A good cause, however, cannot and ought not to be promoted by
falsehood; for such this Anti-Opium delusion amounts to, and nothing more,
and there can be no hope for more solid results from the missionary field
until it is swept from the missionaries' path. Two thousand sincere
converts after all is, in my belief, a great and encouraging result,
considering the tremendous obstacles our missionaries have to encounter in
overcoming in the first instance the prejudice of the Chinese against
foreigners, and then in displacing in their minds the idolatrous and
sensuous creed that has taken such firm root there, and become, so to
speak, engrained in the Chinese nature, and implanting in its stead the
truths of the Gospel. Each of these two thousand converts will prove, I am
well assured, like the grain of mustard seed that will fructify and in
time bring forth much fruit. But it must not be forgotten that China, in
the terse and apposite words of the Rev. Mr. Galpin, is "a world in
itself," containing as it does about a fourth of the whole human race.

The custom of opium smoking has existed in the Empire of China from time
immemorial. You might as well try to reverse the course of Niagara as to
wean the Chinese from the use of their favourite drug. As to the Treaty of
Tientsin, it is unfair and ungrateful of the missionaries to speak of it
as they do. It did no more than reduce to a formal settlement a state of
things that had been for several years tacitly acquiesced in and agreed to
by the Chinese and British authorities and people. That treaty was
prepared with the greatest deliberation by an eminent statesman who was
singularly remarkable for his humanity and benevolence, assisted by able
subordinates who were in no way deficient in those qualities. The
missionaries seem to forget that this very Treaty of Tientsin, which they
so denounce, is the charter by which they have now a footing in China,
with liberty to preach the Gospel there. They would have no _locus standi_
in China but for this sorely abused treaty. There is a special clause in
it drawn up by Lord Elgin himself, providing that we should be at liberty
to propagate Christianity in the country. That treaty is the missionaries'
protection. It is to it they would now appeal if molested by the Mandarins
or people of China. They cry it down for one purpose, and rely upon it for
another. I may here not inappropriately observe that the missionaries of
Peking seem to have been under a misapprehension as to the nature of this
treaty. From their petition to the House of Commons it would appear that
they were under the impression that some special clause legalizing the
importation of opium into China was introduced into it under pressure from
the British Government; but that was a mistake. There is no "clause"
whatever in the treaty on the subject of opium. The only place that the
word "opium" appears is in the schedule, where it is set down amongst
other dutiable articles, such as pepper and nutmegs, exactly as stated by
Mr. H. N. Lay. It is plain, then, that these missionary gentlemen had not
a copy of the Treaty of Tientsin before them when they drew up their
petition, and I doubt very much if any of them ever read the treaty at
all. They appear to have got the delusion so strongly into their heads
that the legalization of opium was wrung from the Chinese Government that
it seems they thought it quite unnecessary to read the treaty and took
everything for granted.

I have now, I think, shown and fully refuted the fallacies which within
the past thirty years have crept into the minds of the opponents of the
Indo-China opium trade, dimming the faculties, blinding the reason,
warping the judgment, ministering to the prejudices, deluding the senses,
gratifying the feelings, until these fallacies have become so interwoven
and welded together as to form and culminate into one CONCRETE PLAUSIBLE,
FASCINATING, DEFAMATORY LIE! A cruel, false, and treacherous lie, that
misleads alike its votaries and its victims, and that, too, in the names
of religion and charity.--A lie circumstantial,--so highly genteel and
respectable,--so sentimental and pious,--so sleek and unctuous,--so
caressed and flattered,--so bravely dressed, and so beflounced and trimmed
with the trappings of truth, that even those who have bedecked the jade
fail to see the imposture they have created, so that the tawdry quean
struts along receiving homage as she goes, whilst plain honest TRUTH in
her russet gown wends her way unnoticed.--I have shown that this
Anti-Opium scare is a sham, a mockery, a delusion--a glittering piece of
counterfeit coin, which I have broken to pieces and proved to you that,
for all its silvery surface, there is nothing but base metal beneath.

Let me now recapitulate. I have, I think, made it irrefutably clear--

1. That the Chinese are a civilized people, very abstemious in their
habits, especially as regards the use of opium, spirits, and stimulants of
all kinds.

2. That there is and can be no analogy or comparison whatever between
opium eating and opium smoking, as each stands separate and apart from the
other, differing totally in the mode of use and their effects, and that
opium eating is not a Chinese custom.

3. That an overdose of opium, like an excessive draught of spirits, is
poisonous and produces immediate death.

4. That opium smoking is a harmless and perfectly innocuous practice,
unless immoderately indulged in, which rarely happens, as seldom, indeed,
as over-indulgence in tea or tobacco in England.

5. That even when immoderately indulged, any depressing effects resulting
from opium smoking are removed simply by discontinuing the use of the drug
for a short period.

6. That no death from opium smoking, whether indulged in moderately or
excessively, has ever occurred, and that death from such cause is a
physical impossibility.

7. That opium smoking is a custom far less enslaving and more easily
discontinued than dram drinking or even tobacco smoking.

8. That opium smoking is a luxury which can only be indulged in by those
who are well-to-do and is wholly out of the reach of the poor, and, save
in Western China and certain other districts, where the poppy is very
extensively cultivated and opium comparatively cheap, beyond the means of
the working classes.

9. That opium smoking is a universal custom throughout the whole of the
immense empire of China, just as tea, wine, or beer drinking is with the
people of the United Kingdom, its use being limited only by the ability of
the people to procure the drug.

10. That it is admitted by Sir Robert Hart, a high official of the Chinese
Government, that the greatest quantity of Indian opium of late years
imported into China is only sufficient to supply about one million of
people with a modicum of the drug, and that, in his own words, "neither
the finances of the State, nor the wealth of the people, nor the growth of
its population," can be specially damaged by a luxury which only draws
from five-pence to eleven-pence a-piece from the pockets of those who
enjoy it, and which is indulged in by a comparatively small number of the
Chinese people.

11. That the poppy is extensively cultivated in all the provinces of China
proper as well as in Manchuria, and that there is probably three or four
times as much native drug produced annually in China as is imported from
abroad.

12. That in the western parts of China, where the poppy is more
extensively cultivated and opium more generally smoked than in other parts
of the empire, no decadence whatever is produced in the mental or bodily
health, or the wealth, industry, and prosperity of the people, but on the
contrary, that these very people are peculiarly strong and vigorous.

13. That the Chinese Government is not, and never was, sincere in its
professed desire to put down the practice of opium smoking in the empire,
which is evidenced by the fact that the poppy is largely cultivated
throughout the country, and that a revenue is derived by the Government
from the native drug.

14. That Hong Kong being the great depot of Indian opium and the place
where the drug is most largely prepared for smoking purposes, and where
also the native population (about three-fourths of whom are adult males)
are in good circumstances, and therefore better able to indulge in opium
smoking than their countrymen in the mainland of China, is the place where
the alleged evils of opium smoking, if they existed, would be found in
their worst form, yet that _those evils are unknown there_.

15. That the outcry, got up and disseminated for so many years past in
England against the Indo-China opium trade has not, and never had, any
substantial foundation; that such outcry has arisen from the complaints,
of the Protestant missionaries in China, which also are equally baseless,
those missionaries having been simply made dupes of by certain designing
and mendacious natives for purposes of their own, or of the Government of
China.

16. That opium was inserted into the Schedule to the Treaty of Tientsin at
the express desire and request of the Chinese authorities; that Lord Elgin
wished and proposed to those authorities by his Secretary, Mr. Laurence
Oliphant, to place a higher duty than thirty taels on the drug, but that
the Chinese officials declined to do so, fearing that, if the duty were
raised, an impetus would be given to smuggling.

17. That the career of the Anti-Opium Society has been signalized by a
continuous series of mistakes and blunders--commencing with the monstrous
figment (the invention of an American missionary) that there were twenty
millions of opium smokers in China supplied by the Indian drug, and that
_two millions of these smokers died annually from the practice_,--and that
the Anti-Opium confederacy is only kept alive by the continued reiteration
of exploded fallacies, sophistries, and mis-statements of the same nature.

18. That the British merchants connected with China in the past and the
present were and are wholly free from the stigmas cast upon them by the
Anti-Opium Society, anent smuggling and the opium trade;[12] that, so far
from having acted wrongfully towards China and the Chinese, their conduct
towards both has been, and still is, emphatically characterized by honour
and rectitude, and by uniform courtesy and kindness; and that those
merchants, have deserved well of their country.

19. That the Anti-Opium Society, from its formation to the present time,
has wrought nothing but mischief, crippling by its pragmatical efforts the
action of Her Majesty's Government, both here and in India and China,
abstracting by its mis-statements enormous sums of money from the
charitable and benevolent, and squandering that money in the propagation
of unfounded theories and injurious reflections against our
fellow-countrymen in China; and that the public should withdraw their
confidence from the Society, and cease to supply it with one farthing
more.

20. That, save in respect of the blockade of Hong Kong by the armed
cruisers of the Hoppo or Revenue Farmer of the provinces of the two
Kwangs, which inflict great and bitter hardship upon the Chinese merchants
of Hong Kong and the junk owners who trade to that place, the British
nation, by its Government and people, has amply redeemed the promises made
to the people of China by Her Majesty's representative, Sir Henry Elliott,
on taking over Hong Kong, which is amply verified by the flourishing state
of that Colony, and its large, thriving, and contented Chinese population.

21. That, whilst it is desirable to maintain the most amicable and cordial
relations with the Government of China and its various viceroyalties, that
most unjustifiable blockade by the Hoppo or Revenue Farmer of Canton
should be promptly suppressed; a matter which has only to be taken in hand
by Her Majesty's Consul at Canton, supported, if necessary, by the British
Minister at Peking, and firmly but courteously pressed upon the Viceroy
of the two Kwangs, who cannot but acknowledge the gross injustice and
cruel wrong inflicted on Hong Kong and its native merchants by those
cruisers, and who has the power and only wants the will to let right be
done.

In the course of these lectures I have spoken of some of the vices of the
Chinese, and of our own also. The people of England have, however, many
virtues, the growth of centuries; one of these is a broad and liberal
charity, that pours forth a continuous stream of benevolence over the
whole world. It is a virtue that pervades all classes, from our honoured
Queen to the humblest of her subjects. It is not without a swelling heart
that one can walk through the streets of London and see the noble
charitable institutions surrounding him upon all sides, such as hospitals,
convalescent institutions, homes for aged and infirm people, educational
institutes, and such like, _supported by voluntary contributions_--living
evidences of the charity and benevolence of our people in the past and
present. Yet these splendid monuments but faintly testify to the flow of
munificence perpetually running its course around us. Observe how
liberally the public respond to the appeals made to it almost daily. Look
at the case of the persecution of the Jews in Russia, the famine in the
North of China, the distress and troubles in Ireland. Then, again, there
is the charity "that lets not the left hand know what the right hand
doeth," of which the world sees nothing, but which is known to go on
unceasingly, and which probably is the most liberal of all. The history of
the world, so far as I am aware, does not record a parallel to this in any
other nation or people. With such an active and unceasing charity going on
amongst us, we should take care that this beneficent stream is not
diverted into worthless channels, for that would be a matter concerning
the whole public.

Now, though I hold in respect all the officers and supporters of the
Anti-Opium Society, who are actuated, I admit, by the best motives, and
whose characters for benevolence and good faith I do not question, I
cannot forbear from repeating that their crusade against the Indo-China
opium trade is as unjustifiable as it is mischievous, and is well
calculated to produce the results I have deprecated. It encourages the
Chinese Government to make untenable demands upon us, under false
pretences, and it is an unwarranted interference with an industry, wholly
unobjectionable on any but sentimental grounds, affording subsistence to
millions of our fellow-subjects in India. It aims, also, at cutting off
some eight or ten millions sterling from the revenue of that vast
dependency, now expended in ameliorating the condition of its dense
population. Furthermore, it offers to useful and legitimate legislation an
opposition and obstruction of the worst kind, seeing that it obtrudes upon
the Legislature its unfounded and exploded theories, to the displacement
or delay of really useful measures.

I say that the Anti-Opium Society, in the course of its agitation for the
abolition of this Indo-China opium trade, is vilifying its countrymen and
blackening this country in the eyes of the whole world, so that the
foreigner can convict us out of our own mouths, and jibe at us for
hypocrisy and turpitude we are wholly innocent of, and for crimes we have
never committed.[13] I say that the history of this Society presents
nothing but a dreary record of energies wasted, talents misapplied, wealth
uselessly squandered, charity perverted, and philanthropy run mad. The
members of this Society never think, perhaps, of the mischief they have
done and are doing. Here has our Government been trying for the past seven
or eight years to agree upon a revised commercial treaty with the
Government of China, and here also, side by side, is an irresponsible
political body doing its utmost to <DW36>, paralyse, and defeat our
Government in its efforts, taking up, in fact, a downright hostile
attitude to the action of the Imperial and Indian Governments, by carrying
on an unauthorized unofficial correspondence with Li Hung Chang, the Prime
Minister, and the most influential public man in China, who is a master of
the arts of diplomacy, and who is doing his utmost to get the better of us
if he can in the matter of the Chefoo Convention. Here, I say, is this
society putting forward Li's audacious and misleading letter to its
secretary, Mr. Storrs Turner, as an embodiment of truth and justice. Is
this patriotic or proper on the part of this Anti-Opium Society? Should
that body, instead of setting itself up as a junto, with a quasi-official
standing, having a monopoly of all the virtues, be allowed by the
Government to carry on its mischievous organization any longer? I think
not. I believe there is no other country in the world--not even America,
where liberty has run to seed--where such an intermeddling, anti-national
and mischievous confederacy would be permitted to exist. Instead of trying
to thwart Her Majesty's Government, as it is doing, it should be the duty
of its members, of every Englishman interested in China, and, indeed, of
the whole country, to strengthen as far as possible the hands of the
Government in its endeavour to bring the pending negotiations for a
commercial treaty with China to a successful close. Yet what are the
present plans of this pragmatical body? In its latest publication, a
compilation of the most fallacious and misleading matter, bearing a title
meanly plagiarized from this book, it is announced that the following
motion stands upon the Order Book of the House of Commons, and is intended
to be moved in the Session for 1883, viz:--

    That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that in
    the event of negotiations taking place between the Governments of Her
    Majesty and China, having reference to the duties levied on opium
    under the Treaty of Tientsin, the Government of Her Majesty will be
    pleased to intimate to the Government of China that in any such
    revision of that treaty _the Government of China will be met as that
    of an independent State, having the full right to arrange its own
    import duties as may be deemed expedient_.

What a modest proposition! The Queen's Ministers, it appears, cannot be
trusted in their negotiations with the Government of China, and Her
Majesty in consequence is to be asked to ignore her constitutional
advisers, and personally inform the Chinese Minister that his Government
shall be treated as an independent state, and so forth. In fact, this
proposal is tantamount to a vote, _pro tanto_ at least, of want of
confidence in the Government, which, I have little doubt, would be
rejected by an overwhelming majority of both sides of the House. I only
hope it will be pressed to a division, as the result, I believe, will show
to the country in an unmistakable manner, once and for all, the utter
insignificance of the Anti-Opium confederacy as a political body, the
falsity and mischief of its teaching, and prove the knell of its
existence. If motions like this were to be passed, it would be impossible
to carry on Her Majesty's Government. The matter is really too absurd to
be seriously dealt with by Parliament, and I bring it before my readers
more for the purpose of showing the downright folly, infatuation and
fanaticism which characterize this Anti-Opium confederation than for any
other purpose. To these political philanthropists and amateur statesmen I
would recommend these lines, which seem to me to meet their case
exactly:--

  "No narrow bigot he, his reasoned view
   Thy interest, England, ranks with thine, Peru;
   War at our doors, he sees no danger nigh,
   But heaves for all alike the impartial sigh;
   A steady patron of the world alone,
   The friend of every country--save his own."

Of the missionaries themselves, beyond this opium craze that has
unfortunately possessed them, I have nothing to say except to their
credit. A more conscientious and deserving body of men this world has
never produced; under hardships, troubles, and unspeakable difficulties,
they have sped their way with courage and cheerfulness, undeterred by
dangers, great privations and hardships which nothing but their strong
faith and unflagging zeal in their sacred mission could have enabled them
to surmount. Of their ultimate success I entertain, perhaps, as little
doubt as they do themselves; but on this opium question the "zeal of their
house hath eaten them up," and they have unconsciously been playing the
game of the crafty heathen. Let them pursue their good cause, and not
allow themselves to be cajoled by their bitterest enemies; above all, let
them keep clear of politics. No clergyman ever improves by intermeddling
in such matters, but, on the contrary, by doing so he invariably becomes a
bad politician and a worse priest. Let these vast sums, subscribed for the
promotion of a chimera, be transferred to the missionaries' fund, so as to
improve the lot of these missionaries and give them a little more comfort
in the hostile climate and the bitter fight that is before them. "The
labourer is worthy of his hire," and it is starving the missionary work
not to pay its servants liberally, I should say most liberally. With
respect to the Rev. Mr. Storrs Turner, whose name I have so often
mentioned, and whose writings I have so frequently animadverted upon, I
had the pleasure of knowing him in China. No worthier or better gentleman,
and no more able and zealous missionary clergyman ever set foot there. In
referring to him and his writings as I have done, nothing was further from
my thoughts than to impute to him for a moment an unworthy motive. He is
in the first rank of the missionary clergymen who stood the brunt of the
battle, and is deserving of praise and honour. As yet the missionaries
have been like husbandmen tilling an unkindly soil, trying to produce
wholesome fruit where only gross weeds grew before; and although small
apparently has been the fruit as yet, the unfriendly soil has shown signs
of yielding, and I feel assured that the day will come when their labours
shall be rewarded with a plenteous harvest.

I have now told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on
the opium question; certainly such has been my intention. In doing so I am
afraid I may have given pain to many good and excellent people; I know
that I have given pain to myself. I can only repeat that I have never
intended to impute a wrongful or unworthy motive to any of them. Those who
are and have been engaged in the Anti-Opium agitation are, I admit,
influenced by the best motives. I have myself throughout been solely
actuated by a desire to remove the unfounded delusions that have got
possession of these worthy people, which have done great injustice to our
fellow-countrymen in China, as well as to the benevolent British public,
which has kept this Anti-Opium Society provided with the funds that have
enabled them to carry on their operations, to the embarrassment of the
administration of our great Indian Entire. Personally, I say again, that I
have no interest whatever in the matter, nor have I any leaning towards
the interests of any of the merchants now engaged in the opium trade. My
hands in this matter are absolutely clean. In the preface to the first
edition of these lectures I have explained how and why I came to deliver
them; that is my explanation without any mental reservation whatsoever. I
have, I admit, a very strong feeling upon the subject, but so also have
those who differ from me; and I would ask those most excellent and
honourable people to remember that there are two sides to most
questions,--to imagine, if they can, that there are other persons, totally
opposed to their views, who are quite as honest in their convictions as
they are themselves,--to look upon me as one of those persons, and to
measure my feelings by the strength of their own. I say this because I
have heard that a rumour to the effect of my being in some way personally
interested in the Indo-China opium trade has been circulated. If such is
the case, this rumour has no foundation in fact. I cannot prevent the
dissemination of such reports; but they are, I repeat, utterly groundless.
Honest in my purpose, I can afford to treat them with unconcern, and can
justly add, whilst far from setting myself up as better than my
neighbours, that--

  "I am arm'd so strong in honesty,
   That they pass me by as the idle wind,
   Which I respect not."




APPENDIX.




APPENDIX.

_Being an Official Letter from the Hon. Francis Bulkeley Johnson, of the
firm of Jardine, Matheson, & Co., Chairman of the Hong Kong Chamber of
Commerce, to Charles Magniac, Esq., M.P., President of the London Chamber
of Commerce._


  Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce,
    Hong Kong, 22nd November, 1882.

SIR,--The attention of the Committee of this Chamber has been called to
certain statements recently made in the United Kingdom regarding this
Colony, on what must unfortunately appear to the public mind to be
competent authority, but which are nevertheless unwarranted and
misleading.

The statements referred to are, in the opinion of the Committee,
calculated not only to affect injuriously the reputation of the Colony,
but to damage its interests by prejudicing the policy of the Home
Government and the Imperial Parliament, when dealing with the settlement
of questions arising out of the close political and commercial relations
which the Island of Hong Kong from its juxta-position must necessarily
hold with the Empire of China.

The Committee offers no apology for addressing you on this subject as it
ventures to believe that the promotion of British Commercial enterprise
abroad in all legitimate channels is one of the objects the London Chamber
of Commerce has in view, and, to that end, it is clearly desirable that a
true appreciation should prevail, not only among the members of your
influential Committee, but throughout the United Kingdom, as to the
position and character of British trade and traders in the Colonies and
foreign countries.

In the course of an address on the Repression of Crime delivered at the
Social Science Congress, recently held in Nottingham, Sir John Pope
Hennessy, Governor of this Colony, now on leave of absence in England, is
reported to have said--I quote from the _Nottingham and Midland Counties
Daily Express_, of the 22nd September:--"In the little Colony under my
government one million sterling changes hands every month in the article
of opium. But, with commercial activity and profits, there comes an
increase of crime from opium, from its consumption, and from its
smuggling. Hong Kong wages a chronic opium war on a small scale with
China. A desperate class of men, the opium smugglers make the Colony the
base of their operations--they purchase cannon and ammunition there, they
fit out heavily armed junks and engage, within sight of the island, in
naval battles with the revenue cruisers of the Emperor of China. Sometimes
the Emperor's revenue officers are killed, sometimes the smugglers. Not
unfrequently wounded men of both sides are brought into the Colony. All
this gives rise to a class of crimes difficult for the Governor to
repress, difficult on account of the influence of those who profit by it,
whether they are local traders or the financiers of a Viceroy."

The picture thus sensationally drawn is one which, from its great
exaggerations, gives an untrue representation of the state of things
prevailing in these waters, and cannot fail to lead to the formation of
wholly incorrect inferences as to the relations existing between the
population of this island, for the most part law-abiding and pursuing
honest and industrious callings, and the authorities of the neighbouring
mainland.

Sir John Hennessy states that opium, to the extent of a million sterling,
_changes hands_ in this Colony every month, and this assertion as to the
magnitude of the trade was obviously made in order to show the vast and
wide-spread interests involved in it, and the influential protection
therefore likely to be afforded to a traffic which the general tenour of
the remarks just quoted cannot fail to lead ordinary readers to suppose is
to a very large extent, if not mainly, contraband.

Your Committee will be able to judge from the following facts how far the
injurious imputation, thus plausibly insinuated, if not directly stated,
is to be justified by the actual position of affairs.

The import of opium from India and Persia to Hong Kong and _the whole of
China_, for the year 1881 was--

  Of Malwa, from Bombay      35,729 chests.
  Bengal, from Calcutta      44,124   "
  From Persia                 6,763   "
                             ------
                 Total       86,616 chests.

of an approximate value of L10,000,000 sterling.

With some slight and unimportant exceptions the whole of this opium, the
trade in which it is worthy of note is now practically monopolized by
British Indian firms, passes through this harbour, but by far the larger
proportion of it can only be classed under the head of Hong Kong trade in
the sense in which the traffic through the Suez Canal can be considered as
Egyptian trade. About one half of the quantity of opium I have named as
the entire import, is immediately sent on either in the original foreign
vessels conveying it here, or by other vessels, also foreign, to Shanghai,
where it is entered regularly at the Custom House under official foreign
superintendence.

Of the remainder, about one half, that is to say, one quarter of the
whole, is shipped by foreign vessels to other treaty ports open to foreign
trade, where it is duly entered at the Customs. The local trade proper of
the Colony, whether for shipment to Macao or Canton by foreign and native
vessels, or in native bottoms, to non-treaty ports,--_i.e._ to ports and
places with which foreign vessels cannot trade,--for consumption on the
island, and for re-export in a prepared state to California and Australia,
or for smuggling purposes, embraces therefore about one fourth of the
entire export to China from India and Persia, or say, in quantity about
21,000 chests of an approximate value of L2,500,000, or about L200,000 per
month instead of L1,000,000 per month as asserted by Governor Hennessy.

There being no Custom House at this port, it is impossible to obtain
thoroughly accurate statistics as to the disposition of the 21,000 chests
of opium which form the local trade of the Colony. As regards the local
consumption and export in a prepared state, it may be estimated that from
2,500 to 5,000 chests are boiled in the Colony every year, leaving a
balance of 16,000 to 18,500 chests to be accounted for. To suppose that
this quantity is taken into China by smugglers would be to disregard all
the known conditions of the trade and the fact that the preventive service
of the Chinese Empire is probably in point of espionage the most carefully
organized one in the world. On every road, in every village bordering on a
river or waterway, at every port, village, and fishing station along the
coast, there is a watchful Customs Station rendering it very difficult for
a boat of the smallest size to touch the shore without being overhauled
and made to pay levies purporting to be imperial or local dues. To what
extent such dues are honestly levied and declared, there is no means of
ascertaining. The Customs Stations are believed to be farmed out by the
provincial authorities to officials who pay for their appointments, and
although a service thus organized would be considered as a demoralized one
and its system unreservedly condemned according to Western ideas, it is
probable that the receipts of perquisites, and the partial remission of
duties by Customs officials who farm the revenue, is a _quasi_ recognized
practice acquiesced in by all classes throughout the Empire.

With this system, however, the Colony and merchants of Hong Kong have no
concern, and for its results they are in no way responsible. As the vast
majority of the junks which leave the mainland with produce or arrive
there with imports, undoubtedly obtain from the local Custom Houses port
clearances and bills of entry, the large trade, whether in opium or other
goods, carried on between this port and places on the coast in native
bottoms, being thus subjected to the ordinary fiscal dues levied on the
China coast according to the practice of the Empire, is for the most part
a strictly legal one.

Smuggling between this island and the mainland in goods other than opium
scarcely exists, as an evasion of the low _ad valorem_ duty of five per
cent. which is payable on entry at the treaty ports, and is probably the
maximum similarly leviable at other ports, would not compensate for the
heavy charges which must be incurred by transit over unusual routes even
if the ubiquitous Customs officials could be avoided. Opium, owing to its
portable character, the facility with which it can be hidden beneath water
without serious deterioration, and the high duty imposed upon it, is more
readily and profitably smuggled, but the returns which have been received
through the Native Custom House at Canton make it nearly certain that the
quantity which evades the payment of duty, either at the treaty ports or
the ports and places not open to foreign trade, is not greater than 2,000
to 3,000 chests per annum. (See Parliamentary Papers--China No. 2, 1880.)
And the quantity thus estimated to be smuggled is not conveyed, as alleged
by Governor Hennessy, in junks heavily armed for the purpose, fighting
their way to the mainland through the revenue cruisers, but is concealed,
a few balls at a time, about the persons, and in the luggage of Chinese
passengers by the steamers plying between this port and Canton, and other
places on the coast, or in ordinary trading junks and fishing boats of
unpretentious character, or fast pulling boats propelled by a number of
rowers, or by various devices such as are practised by the persons who
evade the duties on tobacco in the United Kingdom. That the revenue
cruisers which surround this island keep up an effective blockade which
prevents the smuggling of opium on a much larger scale than at present
takes place, is probably true, and it is also true that Chinese junks and
boats in the estuary of the Canton river, which do not promptly submit to
be overhauled by the cruisers, are chased and brought to for examination,
if necessary, by being fired upon. The propinquity, however, of this
island to the mainland, so far from being a cause of injury to the Chinese
Customs Revenue, operates most advantageously for the collection of fiscal
levies upon the foreign trade of the southern coast of the Empire. Were
the island situated at a greater distance from the mainland than it is, or
did not exist in its present conditions as a free port under a foreign
government, the difficulties which would be placed in the way of the
Chinese authorities, when engaged in checking smuggling in opium, would be
much greater than they now are. Opium in that case would probably be
shipped in native vessels from more distant depots, such as Singapore,
Saigon or the French mediatized territory of Tonquin, to Chinese ports and
places, and it would be impossible for the revenue cruisers to watch the
entire line of their own coast as effectively as they are now able to
blockade this island in which the trade is centred and controlled.

There is, therefore, no ground for Governor Hennessy's statement that this
Colony is engaged in chronic war with the neighbouring mainland, or for
his implied imputation that the course of its trade is injurious to the
Chinese fiscal revenue. On the contrary, the facts of the case show that
the physical conditions of the island of Hong Kong not only afford the
ready means by which the Chinese Government is enabled to protect its
legitimate revenue, but also unfortunately place it in the power of the
authorities of the province of Quangtung to surcharge the trade in foreign
goods, carried on in native vessels between Hong Kong and the southern
ports of China, with additional taxation in excess of that authorized by
the foreign treaties.

With the view to make a representation to H.M. Government in support of
which it may hereafter be necessary to invite the good offices of your
Committee, this Chamber is now engaged in an investigation into the facts,
so far as they can be ascertained, relating to this alleged surcharge of
duties upon the Colonial trade for the collection of which, as well as for
the prevention of an illicit traffic in opium, there is reason to believe
the blockade of this island by Chinese revenue cruisers is maintained.

So much as regards the general conditions of the trade of the Colony which
evidence the grave misrepresentations contained in the Nottingham address,
but in order to show conclusively, by official returns on matters of fact,
the groundlessness of the specific accusation made by Sir John Pope
Hennessy, your attention is invited to the annexed copies of
correspondence, with its enclosures, between the Colonial Government and
the Committee of this Chamber.

In response to the request of the Committee, the Acting Colonial Secretary
under the direction of His Excellency the Administrator has furnished the
Chamber with the following documents, viz.:--

    1. Extracts from a Report by the Colonial Treasurer and Registrar
    General upon the Opium Trade of the Colony.

    2. Return from the Harbour Master, showing the character of the native
    vessels engaged in Opium Smuggling and the number of cases of alleged
    smuggling brought before the Marine Court since April 1877.

    3. Return from the Captain Superintendent of Police, showing the total
    number of attacks and seizures made by Customs Revenue Cruisers in the
    neighbourhood of the Colony and reported to the Police since 1st
    January 1877.

The Colonial Treasurer's Report on the Opium Trade for 1876, confirms the
figures of the approximate estimate made by this Chamber from independent
sources and given above, as to the probable quantity of opium smuggled
into China from this Colony.

The Harbour Master's Return shows that there is no special class of
vessels fitted out in the Colony and heavily armed for the purpose of
opium smuggling, as alleged by Governor Hennessy, and in the five cases
cited in the report which comprise the whole number brought before the
Marine Court in the course of five years, it will be seen that the
quantity of opium found in the vessels charged with being engaged in
illicit trade was so inconsiderable, as to make it obvious that the
concealment of opium took place in each case in an ordinary trading junk.
It is also clear from this Return that nothing is known in the Harbour
Master's Department of the armed organization for the purpose of opium
smuggling which is stated by Governor Hennessy to carry on a chronic war
with the Empire of China.

The return from the Captain Superintendent of Police dealing with the
entire number of cases reported to the police authorities during the years
1878 to 1882 (inclusive) of seizures by Chinese Revenue cruisers and
affrays between the cruisers and native vessels on the neighbouring China
coast, is instructive.

The number of cases is 23, but of these only 6 are reported to be
connected with the opium trade and the value of the opium seized varies
from $3 in one case to the maximum amount in another of $800, showing, in
confirmation of the Report by the Harbour Master to a similar effect, the
comparatively unimportant character of the opium smuggling which prevails
in these waters, and the absurdity of the allegation that there is a large
contraband trade conducted in heavily armed junks fitted for the purpose
in this harbour.

The remaining 17 cases of seizures by revenue cruisers during five years
do not appear by the returns to have been connected with opium; 7 of them
were salt junks, 1 sulphur and saltpetre, 3 general cargo, and 2 sugar. In
4 cases the particulars of cargoes are not stated.

The return shows the number of casualties with fatal results reported to
the police as having occurred in affrays between native vessels and the
revenue cruisers during the period of five years under review. Such
casualties have been 8 in number, but not one of them appears to have had
any connection with opium smuggling, or to have arisen out of any case of
contraband trading with which this Colony was concerned.

In August 1878, a fisherman on the Hong Kong shore was accidentally killed
by a shot fired by a revenue cruiser when pursuing a junk ultimately
seized for some breach of Chinese regulations with general cargo on board.

In May 1879, three men of a revenue cruiser were killed in an affray with
a junk carrying salt. As salt is not produced or prepared in this island,
this affray was not generated in the Colony or within Colonial waters. The
preparation of salt in China is conducted as a very strict monopoly by
means of Government licenses, and trade in it other than by duly
authorized persons is contraband. Serious affrays between salt smugglers
and revenue officers are well known to be common throughout the Empire,
they are frequently alluded to in the _Peking Gazette_, and in the case
referred to in the Police Report, the junk must have been passing from one
part of the territory of China to another part outside of British waters.

On 28th November 1881, a man was killed in a boat which was conveying two
gentlemen of this Colony who were returning from a shooting expedition on
the mainland. Passing by a Customs Station on the Chinese side of the
channel the boat was ordered to heave to; not doing so promptly, musket
shots were fired at it and one of the crew was most unfortunately killed.
In this case there appears to have been no smuggling attempted.

In April this year a man was killed on board a rowing boat in the narrow
channel separating Hong Kong from the mainland, and in June last two men
were killed outside British waters in a trading junk carrying sulphur and
saltpetre, which are contraband articles of trade in China. In neither
case does it appear that opium was concerned.

With reference, therefore, to Sir John Pope Hennessy's allegations, which
were to the following effect:--

    _a._--That this island is the base of operations for a class of
    desperate men who carry on a large contraband trade in opium with
    China;

    _b._--That for the purpose of carrying on that trade, junks heavily
    armed with cannon are fitted out here and wage a chronic war with the
    neighbouring Empire;

    _c._--That these junks engage, within sight of the island, in naval
    battles with the Chinese Revenue cruisers resulting in large loss of
    life on both sides;

The facts are:--

    _a._--There is no large contraband trade in opium carried on between
    this Colony and the China coast. On the contrary, the opium smuggled,
    considering the extent of the trade, is inconsiderable, and for the
    most part is carried into China in small quantities, portable and
    easily concealed, just as parcels of tobacco are smuggled into the
    United Kingdom.

    _b._--That within the knowledge of the Harbour Master and the Colonial
    police authorities no armed junks have been fitted out in this harbour
    during the last five years for the purpose of opium smuggling.
    Smuggling of opium, when attempted at all otherwise than by passengers
    in the various steamers trading to the coast of China, is carried on
    in ordinary trading junks or in rowing boats dependent for success in
    their illicit trade upon their swiftness and small size.

    _c._--No such contests as those referred to in allegation _c_ have
    taken place within the last five years, and no loss of life in
    connection with opium smuggling during the same period has come under
    the notice of the police. Any serious affrays attended with loss of
    life which have occurred in the neighbourhood of this Colony between
    native vessels and revenue cruisers, have been in connection with
    contraband traffic in other articles on the adjacent China coast with
    which, so far as is known, this Colony has had no concern. The only
    instance reported by the police in which revenue officers have been
    injured, was the case of the salt junk referred to above and shown to
    be a purely Chinese affair.

It may be added that on goods other than opium there is very little, if
any, illicit trade carried on between the Colony and the mainland, and
that no allegation has ever been made that foreigners are engaged directly
or indirectly in smuggling of any kind.

In conclusion, the Committee cannot refrain from expressing regret that
Sir John Pope Hennessy having had the fullest opportunities, as Governor
of this island for five years, of obtaining accurate information with
regard to occurrences taking place and the state of affairs prevailing
here during his term of office, should have been led to make statements,
unfounded in fact and misleading in the inferences they are calculated to
raise, which could not fail to damage the character of the Colony, the
legitimate interests of which it might justly have been expected he would
have been most anxious to defend.

Copies of this letter will be sent through His Excellency the
Administrator to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the
Colonies, and to the various Chambers of Commerce in the United
Kingdom.--I am, Sir, your most obedient Servant,

      (Signed) F. BULKELEY JOHNSON,
        _Chairman_.

  Charles Magniac, Esq., M.P.,
    President of the London Chamber of
    Commerce, London.




  LONDON:
  PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE.




FOOTNOTES:

[1] "British Opium Policy, and its Results to India and China."

[2] The loose control possessed by the Emperor over his officials was well
described by one of the most trusted ministers of the great Emperor Keen
Lung. He said to one of the Jesuit missionaries at Pekin, that "the
Emperor himself cannot put a stop to the evils that exist in the service.
To displace those officials who have misbehaved themselves, he may send
others, but instead of removing the evil they generally commit greater
exactions than their predecessors. The Emperor is assured that all is
well, whilst affairs are at their worst and the people are oppressed."

[3] "China: a History of the Laws, Manners, and Customs of the People."

[4] "The Middle Kingdom." A Survey of the Geography, Government,
Education, Social Life, Arts, Religion, &c., of the Chinese Empire, and
its Inhabitants.

[5] As a matter of fact the skull of a Chinaman is fully double the
thickness of that of a European.

[6] "The River of Golden Sand; the Narrative of a Journey through China
and Eastern Thibet to Burmah," by Capt. William Gill, R.E.

[7] "The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence," by Alfred
Swaine Taylor, M.D., F.R.S.

[8] I have a distant recollection of a syllogism with which schoolboys
once used to exercise the minds of their juniors, which ran, I think,
thus:--

  Epimenides said all Cretans were liars,
  Epimenides himself was a Cretan,
  Therefore Epimenides was a liar,--therefore he was not a liar.

[9] "L'Angleterre, la Chine, et l'Inde." I am indebted for a transcript of
the chapter in question to Mr. H. Henry Sultzberger, Merchant, of No. 10
Cannon Street, City, who has taken such an interest in the opium question
that he had the chapter printed at his own expense; and also to M.
d'Audlan, a teacher of modern languages, for a translation of it.

[10] "Annals of Chemical Medicine, including the Application of Chemistry
to Physiology, Pathology, Therapeutics, Pharmacy, Toxicology and Hygiene."

[11] In those days about L100 sterling.--W. H. B.

[12] The unfounded charge of smuggling by British merchants and foreigners
in Hong Kong has been completely refuted by the Honourable Francis
Bulkeley Johnson, the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of the Colony,
in a very able letter to Charles Magniac, Esq., M.P., the President of the
London Chamber of Commerce. This letter, which reached me just before
going to press, will be found set out _in extenso_ by way of Appendix. It
is full of valuable and interesting information on the Indo-China opium
trade, and is well worthy of careful study.

[13] In a recent number of the _Temps_, England was flouted with playing a
humanitarian, hypocritical part towards Tunis, whilst we oppressed the
natives of China by forcing them to smoke opium, in order to augment the
revenue of the Indian Government.






End of Project Gutenberg's The Truth about Opium, by William H. Brereton

*** 