Chapter 2

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, andmountainous 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? Isay 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 SirWilfrid 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 thealert. 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 mererechaufféof 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 agitationmore 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 oncein 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 takeno 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 thecustom 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 negro 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 itin 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 HonourableThe 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 glaringinconsistency, 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.

To the HonourableThe 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 glaringinconsistency, 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 whoought 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, thatallof them are not so deluded astheir 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:—

TheRev. J. Edkinsand 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.

TheRev. J. Edkinsand 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 someweight 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, andrecentlyin 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 dayit 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 wasnotindigenous 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 beencultivatedin 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 quantityproduced. 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 andoverbearing 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. Arespectable 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 theeasternworld.” 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 foronehouse. 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 ownIn 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 Englandhonoured 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 itsSecretary, 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:—

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