the Economic Products of India.
PAPAVER
Opium-smoking at Peking.
somniferum.
HISTORY:
Chinese.
Opium-
smoking in
Peking,
1790 A.D
Prohibition
against
import of
Opium, 1800.
Chinese war,
1841 A.D.
Power to
control
Opium
Traffic.
as a medicine." Thus the opium monopoly was a legacy from the Mu-
hammadan rulers of India to the British conquerors at Plassey in 1757,
but the external traffic in it was not taken up until some time after when
its direct control became a necessity in the administration of India.
The habit of opium-smoking had reached Peking in 1790 and assumed
there so alarming proportions as to call forth fresh edicts against it. At
about the same time the local authorities at Canton began to complain of
rapid increase in the trade in opium. In 1800 there was an edict issued
prohibiting opium from being brought to China in any ship. It was from
this time that the more distinctly smuggling period commenced. It was a
contraband trade, but connived at by Viceroys and Governors; they felt
a difficulty, and concluded not to touch the evil with any firm intention
to heal. How to treat it they knew not. The evil grew beyond their
power of control. They regarded it as the "vile dirt of foreign countries;"
they feared it would spread among all the people of the inner land, wasting
their time and destroying their property; they advocated the prohibition
of the trade, and the Government consented to their advice, and frequently
issued prohibitory edicts, but too often some of the officials themselves
smoked, or their nearest friends smoked, and so the hand of interference
was paralysed, and the demand for opium continuing, the import was
never seriously checked till the time of Lin Tsê-hsü, and the war of 1841."
The unconstitutional and unauthorised action of the provincial Com-
missioner Lin in destroying £ 2,000,000 sterling worth of opium, the pro-
perty of British traders, while the Imperial negotiations were proceeding
which were intended to meet the wishes of the Chinese Government, could
have resulted in nothing but war. It was clearly not the duty of external
Governments to superintend the commerce of their subjects, on the stand-
point of what they conceived should be the moral character of the Chinese
people, even if the perniciousness of opium-smoking be admitted. It would
have been the duty of these Governments, however, to see that their traders
did not violate the treaties made with China. Had the Chinese Government
taken the course open to it, and that too without arbitrary injury to a trade
of large proportions which had been fostered by the governing com-
mercial principle of demand, to impose a gradually increasing taxation on
imported opium; had it exercised also the power, which it should have
possessed if it did not do so, of restricting or prohibiting the cultivation of
the poppy within its own territory, little would have been heard of the per-
plexing opium question of the present day. But that the Chinese Gov-
ernment was either helpless against the popular desires of its people or
never earnestly intended to combat the evil there seems no doubt. Matters
were therefore left to drift along in a state of lawlessness, and the con-
flicting interests of the Chinese Imperial and Provincial Governments
encouraged rather than prevented the spirit of high-handedness and
robbery which culminated in a violation of international law. The Chinese
Government had thus to pay 21,000,000 dollars towards the war which its
vacillation and weakness entailed, as well as the further sum of £ 1 , 2 5 0 , 0 0 0
in compensation to the British merchants whose property had been con-
fiscated or destroyed. But even losses of such severity did not teach the
Chinese Government that the suppression of the opium traffic (if that was
actually its object) depended on a reform in its own fiscal administration.
In spite of all the prohibitory measures which had been taken, the habit of
opium-smoking became firmly established, and that, too, long before British
commerce had anything to say to it. But the foreign supply, at no
period since the introduction of opium-smoking, has been able to keep
pace with the demand. Local production has accordingly grown into in-
finitely greater importance. Had the Indian Government desired, did it
desire now, to repress Chinese production, and competition with Indian
opium, a reduction of the export duty would very probably have the