The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-10 00:00:00

MADE WITH CHINA.

(From. ;the Bombay Times of the 28th of November.)
"To ALL, ASSOCIATIONS, CIIAMBZUS OF CODIMEIICg, PRO*

PRIEToRS OF INDIA STOCK, MERCHANTS, SHIP OWNERS,
A ND OTHER PARTIES IN GREAT. BRITAIN CONNECTED WITH

THE EAST INDIA AND CHINA TRADE, OR INTERESTED IN
'I.HE MAINTENANCE OF BRITISH INFLUENCE AND COM-

kIERCE IN THE EAST.
" Fellow countrymen, the necessity for decisive and in-
modiste measures on the part of her Majesty's Govern-
ment is now become so strong, that delay or vacillation
mitst prove ruinous to some of the most important interests
of the British nation, and we must, therefore, solicit your
mast earnest exertions in impressing all parties, who may
bane any influence on the proceedings !of Government,
wit h the serious importance of the actual crisis, and the
net :essity of meeting it with promptness and decision.
" Siniously as the present position of affairs in China
era barrasses the general trade of India, and therefore in-
directly affects the interest of Government, the revenue of

ELglan.'11.;;;;11a; of India, must, we few:, directly suffer
10 a greater extent than either Government seems to be
aware of, judging from their torpor in a matter where in-
terests of such mar,nitud4 are at stake. _ _ _

" As respects Bengal, we are not in possession of tha
sac me full and exact data to guide us as those regarding

ombay, to which we would now draw your attention ; but
have no d,Jubt the principle and general result will be
fo• and equAlly applicable to that side of India.
" At Bombay, the imports from China during the first
six months of the official year 1838-39, from Ist May to

file end of October, amounted, by the official returns of
( custom-house, to rB. 6,63,353 of merchandise, and

I's. 50,16,482 of treasure. The gross amount of duties,
nAlected in the same period, was rs. 23,218.

" During the corresponding months of the present year,
t7l,e imports amount to rs. 1,02,403 of merchandise, and
re . 4,51,680 of treasure, while the duties paid are only
rs . 3,584.

" In the former period, oa the exports to China, the
knernment derived a revenue of rs. 10,68,000 on opium,
a; nd about rs. 3.85,000 on cotton. This year lhe amount
I.rom opium is rs. 2,85,000, and from cotton rs. 2,00,000.
" From this it will be seen that, even while a partial
trade has been carried on with China, the Government
have already experienced a loss of rs. 8.87,634 ' • which
kns, during the expected stoppage of all trade, for the
next six months at least, must rapidly increase, while the
(Decrease in the usual supply of bullion cannot but embar-
r ass, in a corresponding degree, the Government as well
a s the mercantile community.
" If the next crop of cotton has only the English market
for its disposal, the Government must lose all the sea
tCustoms duties they now receive from the staple when
exported to China, these being all repad in the shape of
drawback to the exporter to England, and these alone
_

:must amount, annually, to three Lacs of rupees, making►,
with the loss (rs. 4,17,000) of the sea Customs on China
;imports, the sum of rs. 7,17,000, of which the Bombay
'Treasury would be deprived under a stoppage of the
'trade with China, besides twenty-one Lacs annually col-
lected, on an average, from opium passes : thus, on ex-
ports, imports, and opium passes, there must be, at the
lowest cstimatr, a direct annual loss to this Government

.alone of up vards of twenty-five hies, or one-fourth of a
million sterling.

—The mcrCfiandie imported at Calcutta, from China,
last year, amounted to 7,69,603 rs , and the bullion to

76:53,000 rs. ; exports in cotton to 21,80,000 rs., and
of opium and other goods to 1,25;00,000; so that the
Bengal Tre,asury must suffer even still more severely;

while•, even allowing the upset price to be got for the
opium %It Calcutta, which we Etbserve the Governnient has
fixed at•4oo rs., scarcely 20 lacs will be netted to Govern-

merit on that article, instead of upwards of a crore, as
iiitherto. Wes c little hope, indeed, of even this smaller
amount being realized under present circumstances.
" Viewing the question thus, merely in its immediate
;and direct effects on the Indian treasuries, and casting
aside for the moment, what is of far greater consequence,
the remote and indirect effects on British commerce and
power, its importance would seem sufficient to arouse the

governments of India to the greatest activity, and cause
them earnestly to urge the speedy settlement cf the ques-
tion on the home Government. Even in this strictly fiscal
aspect, her Majesty's Ministers must see what a serious
responsibility rests upon them, what a loss they will cause
to the revenues of the local governments, and what ruin
to thousands of her Majesty's subjects here, if they do not
at once act with energy and decision.

" Again, by means of the India trade with China,
the Court of Directors have annually received about halt-a
million sterling of their territoral remittances for the home
charges, and payment of the dividends to the proprietors
India Stock. By this channel also, these remittances
reach the Directors more profitably to themselves, as well
as more advantageously for their Indian territories, than
could otherwise be effected, and thus benefit the Treasury
of the India House, without draining bullion from India.
" This means of receiving their remittances, pending
the settlement of the China question, Rill be closed to
them, and must make the present position of China
affairs come doubly home to their feelings and interests ;
so that the Honourable Court have, also, every motive to
press upon the Home Government the urgency of the
question, and the necessity for immediate and strong

measures being adopted.
" Finally, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be
compelled, in a very few mouths, if so long blind to the
danger, to force on the attention of the Cabinet the abso-
lute necessity of taking prompt and energetic measures
for the restoration of our commerce, and the preservation
of the revenue.
" Besides the duties from silk and other China produce,
the gross amount of duty received on tea at home may be
state at three and a half millions sterling. During the
last, four or five years the imports of tea have averaged
forty-three millions of pounds weight annually, and the
'average deliveries of the United Kingdom, of the last
three years have amounted to forty millions of pounds
weight. Up to the latest, date we have from China, the
total exports of tea, from the Ist July, 1838, to the .30th
June, 1839, amounted to 40,882,566 lbs. Higher prices
may reduce the consumption, but the supply of tea now in
England, with what is on the way, will be nearly all ex-
hausted by January 1841. If, then, vigorous measures
arc not, by that time, put in execution, the English Trea-
sury and English nation will experience difficulties and
distress which the Ministry, we fear, do not now sufficiently
foresee, but which will eventually soon burst on them with
a frightful reality.
" As connected with this subject we must again request
your assistance in endeavouring to procure from her Ma-
jesty's Government a speedy adjustment of the opium in-
demnity, upon the favourable or adverse reception of which
depends the commercial stability or ruin of this port.
" It should not be too often repeated that the great mass
of this property was not in Chinese waters, and therefore
not contraband at the time; it was neither seized, nor
physically nor legally seizeble by the Chinese Government
when given up, Her Majesty',: Superintendent demanded
its surrender for her Majesty's service, conceiving such to
be the best step be could take for the general good in the
1 circumstances in which he was pieced, and on this requisi-
tion add pledged faith of her Majesty's Government the
owr,ers delivered it over to that officer.
1 " Teat the Chinese themselves knew that they had no
right to seize it, that they were conscious of wrong and in-
justice in the matter, is proved by their subsequent offer of
a paltry remuneration of 5 or 61bs. of tea for each chest
surrendered.
" From the opium trade the Honourable East India
Company have for )ears derived an immense annual reve-
nue, and through them the British Government and na-
tion have al•: •e reaped, from the same trade, an incalculable
amount of advantages, both political and financial. Its
profit.; have, not only tended to turn the balance of trade
between Great Britain and China in favour of the former,
and draw an abundant stream of capital into India, which
thus became enabled to increase tenfold its consumption of
British manufactures ; but they have contributed directly
to support the vast fabric s f British dominion in the East,
to defray the expenses of her Majesty's as well as the Com-
pany's judicial, military, and naval establishments in India,
and by the operations of exchange and remittances in Tea
and other Chinese produce, to pour an abundant revenue
into the British Exchequer, and benefit the British nation to
the extent of six millions annually (as shown in Count
Bjornstjerna's work), without impoverishing India or drain-
ing bullion from England.
" ' Hence,' says that author in his work on the British
empire in India, ' we find that England's gain from its
East India possessions amounts to no less than 6,500,000
pounds sterling a year ; a sum which would in the end
$ completely ruin this colony (or, more properly speaking,
drain it of its bullion) if it were remitted in this form. But
such is not the case : it comes to England in the following
manner :—East India Opium is sent to China, and is
there exchanged for Tea ; this is taken to England, and
covers all the exchange. Such are the phenomena of
trade,. what the one country gains is not lost by the other;
they both gain.'
" So alive has the East India Company ever been to the
advantages derived from this trade, that it has done all in
its power to foster and encourage it. The Company's Go-
vernment glew it on its own account, or restricted the
grower from selling it to any other purchaser than itself—
granted passes for its transit, had medical officers to inspect
s its quality—through its own civil officers sold it in the
markets of Calcutta and Bombay, and entered into treaty
with the French Government,whereby it secured the latter's
abstain ng from competition by an annual tribute of 300
chests. About fourteen or sixteen months ago, when the
purchasers at Calcutta bad suffered a loss from over-
speculation in the drug, the Supreme Government, as an
encouiagement to the trade, allowed them an abatement of
200 rupees per chest, amounting altogether to 30 lass of
rupees. Even at this day, and after all that has occurred,
the Calcutta Government ;Gazette announces another
Government sale at 400 rupees per chest 1
, 4 " For years the Honourable Court sent despatches to
their Governments in India, containing directions regard-
ing the management of this trade, and ordering their
officers, in their opium cultivation and exports, to .study
the tastes of the Chinese. Thesedespatches were all
seen 'and approved by her Majesty's Boardof
sanction
nl—of
these measures, had, therefore, the declared
her Majesty's Government.
" At the time the renewal of the Comp
was under discussion, the nature of thi
demoralizing tendency, its monopoly, its contraband
Charterlleged
s tra e, cts a
'racier, were all openly discussed in theißsrictiosnhtrpaabralniadmeehnat...
On the 13th June, 1833, Mr. Buckingham
i madertiittlhaer
prominent subject of invective, stigmatising n paeu
the fact that it was a trade of smuggling, and contrary to
the law of On
China (vide Hansard, vol. raid. p. 770). _
the 12th July following, Lord Glenelg, then President of
the Board of Controul, declared the subject of the opium
and salt monopolies in India was under the serious consi-
deration of Government ( Hansard. vol. xix. p. 618),
and after this serious consideration, on the 22d of July he
stated in the' House of Commons, ste its conclusive result,
that it was not to be forgotten that those monopolies, salt
and opium, produced a revenue of 2:500,0001.
'‘ After this, will it be contended that this trade was not
known, not sanctioned, not encouraged by the East India
(I,•mnanv ar:d ¶h' Br H'il Government?

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