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.
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 atExeter 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, ratherthan 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 fargreater 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 forthousands 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 usedlong beforeany 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, andrecentlyin 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 theintroduction 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 specialcommercial 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 anEnglish 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 thematter 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 slopes 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.
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 slopes 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, aterra 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 slopes, 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.
The poppy is now grown on all kinds of land, hill slopes, 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 ofthe 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.
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 thesketch. 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 theTadorna vulpanser.In the same district, and in no other, we met with theGrus 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.
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 thesketch. 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 theTadorna vulpanser.
In the same district, and in no other, we met with theGrus 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.”
“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 smokedin 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 mostconsumed. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 haddone 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 farmers10Small shopkeepers20Hawkers, soldiers30Merchants, gentry80Officials and their staffs90Actors, prostitutes, thieves, vagabonds95I 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.
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:—
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 fascinatingLIEfrom the mind, once its glitteringmeretricious 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:—