PAPAVER
somniferum.
HISTORY:
Attitude of
Indian
Government.
28
Extracted from the Dictionary of
Compensation
to India for
loss or Opium
Revenue.
Attitude of Indian Government
the native drug,—if they thought it were possible to deal with a great social
evil of this sort by legislation, and to coerce a large part of the population
of a vast empire into a groove contrary to their inveterate habits and the
current of their every-day life,—it is not improbable that they would gladly
see the use of opium abandoned. Mr. Fraser, the Charge d'Affaires at
Pekin, writing on the 19th October 1878, says:—' Although the Imperial
Government must undoubtedly have fixed principles, it is apt to be wanting
in definite policy; and there is no question upon which its attitude is so
uncertain as the opium question. It is impossible not to believe that the
Emperor's Ministers are convinced of the expediency of checking the con-
sumption of the drug by every available means; but it is certain that they
have not been able to satisfy the interests involved, and enforce their con-
viction in the provinces, for more and more opium appears to be produced
and used each year in China.' But, whatever be the views which the
Chinese Ministers entertain on this question in the abstract, nothing is more
certain than that they, equally with the Indian Government, are embarrassed
by the loss of revenue which would be caused by a cessation of the opium
trade; that, save on rare occasions, when some specially energetic official
may have produced a temporary effect, they have up to the present time
never earnestly endeavoured to check the use of the drug, and that they
recognise their complete inability to do so."
The despatch from which the above passages have been taken deals so
fully with every feature of the opium controversy, that it is difficult to ex-
tract a limited number of sentences with any hope of conveying even the
leading features. Adverting to the argument advanced by some writers that
India should cease to cultivate the poppy entirely, the Government of India
state in reply to Mr. Pease (who had instituted a comparison between the
suppression of the opium trade with the abolition of slavery) that he
"appears to have thought this was merely a question of money, and that
if England were again prepared to pay, the use of opium in China might
be suppressed. We submit that there is but a very slight analogy between
the suppression of the opium traffic and the abolition of the slave trade."
" Even supposing England were prepared to compensate India for the
loss of her opium revenue,— and to do so in any adequate measure, would,
we may observe, cost a great deal more than £20,000,000,—and that, in
consequence, the cultivation of the poppy in India was altogether sup
-pressed, the result would, indeed, be that a connexion, which is by some
regarded as involving a moral stigma, would be terminated, but the cessa
-tion of opium-smoking in China would be as far off as ever. India would
suffer, and China would not gain. The use of opium has taken deep root
amongst the Chinese; and we venture to think that the idea that the
habits of the Chinese people can be changed by any other means than
the slow process of education and moral training, which shall impart to
those who are vicious a power of self-control to resist their favourite vice,
is illusory and chimerical." (For a further elaboration of the policy of the
Government of India, the reader should consult Sir E. Baring's Financial
Statement for 1882-83.)
" India " by Sir John Strachey, though in no way an official publica
-tion, may be here quoted, since the utterances of that distinguished States-
man seem to be cast very much on the same lines as the declared policy
of the Indian Government. In the work mentioned Sir John gives a
brief but very pointed statement of the opium question. " The first thing,"
he writes, " to be learned is this, that, although the finest opium consumed
in China is Indian, China does not depend on India for her supply. It is
a common but complete mistake to suppose that the prohibition of the
export of opium from India would have the result of putting a stop to