29
PAPAVER
somniferum.
the Economic Products of India.
On Chinese Opium Question.
opium-smoking in China. If the supply of opium from India were to cease,
the richer classes in China would be deprived of a luxury which they prize,
but, so far as the general population was concerned, the consumption of
opium would remain much as it was before. Long before Indian opium
went to China, opium was consumed there; no one can say how long the
custom of opium-smoking has prevailed. A single province of Western
China produces more opium than the whole of India; the cultivation is
carried on, so far as the Chinese Government is concerned, with perfect
freedom, and it is constantly and rapidly increasing. The population of
China practically depends for its supply on the opium produced at home.
" If, therefore, all that is said about the ruin of the Chinese by opium
were true, the prohibition of imports from India would afford no remedy.
But it is certainly not true. Excess in opium, so far as the individual con-
sumer is concerned, may probably be as bad as excess in alcohol; it cannot
be worse, and its effects upon his neighbours are comparatively harmless.
Used in moderation, as the vast majority of Chinese smokers use it, there
is no reason to believe that opium is injurious. I do not doubt that the
people of France, and Italy, and Spain are, on the whole, better for their
wine, and that the people of England and Germany are better for their beer.
Neither do I doubt that, on the whole, the Chinese are better for their
opium.
HISTORY:
Attitude of
Indian
Government.
Effects of
Opium
Indulgence.
" It is often said that the Chinese Government views the opium trade with
dislike and desires its abolition. Whatever may once have been the case,
it undoubtedly now desires that the trade should flourish, because it derives
from duties on Indian opium a large and highly prized revenue. It has
officially disclaimed any wish to see the imports from India diminished.
Its real and reasonable object, for which it has long been striving, has been
to obtain for itself a larger share of the profit derived by a foreign State
from the consumption of opium by Chinese subjects."
One of the chief difficulties in the Chinese opium question is that which
has been briefly touched on above, in the remarks regarding the compli-
cation of the Chinese Imperial and Provincial interests. By the Treaty of
Tientsin (1860) the Imperial Government of China received 3o taels (R95) on
every chest imported. But besides that duty opium has always been made
to pay a far heavier Provincial charge known as the likin dues. These dues
were, till within the past few months, imposed by the Provincial Govern-
ments at rates fixed by them not only on imported opium but also on
what was produced in the country. The latter being greater in volume,
and that volume being increased by the decrease of the foreign imports,
the Provincial authorities naturally put greater value on local produc-
tion. Their interests were thus diametrically opposed to the Imperial
Government, since the latter obtained no revenue from local production.
But these likin dues were a never-failing source of annoyance both to
the people and to the administration, from the difficulty of collection
and the countless facilities for blackmail, over and above the authorised
charges, rendered possible in a trade which by Imperial legislation fell
under the severest bane of the law. Formerly the likin charge on im-
ported opium was not a constant one but often indeed assumed the form
of an accumulative transit charge. By the Convention of Chefoo, finally
ratified by the British Government February 1887, the likin taxes on im-
ported opium were consolidated with the Imperial import duty. All im-
ported opium by present arrangement is deposited in bond, from which it
is removed only on payment of the entire duty due to the Government.
Finding that the reform thus set on foot was by no means sufficient, the
Imperial Government of China has recently advanced further and placed
the entire traffic in opium and poppy cultivation under Imperial supervision.
Imperial
and
Provincial
Dues.
Convention
of Chefoo
in 1887.