The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-07 00:00:00

(From a Digest of the Despatches on China, published by
Ridgway.)
No one will deny that the consumption of opium by the
Chinese, as an article of vicious luxury, is an evil greatly
to he deplored. It is a species of self-indulgence which,
though not perhaps, like drunkenness, leading to acts of
violence, is yet more dangerous to the moral nature, be-
cause more than any other it enervates the will and paraly-
ses the active affections. In its excess it brings on, more-
over, the most wretched of all physical sufferings from ner-
vous derangement. It is therefore a vice of the deepest
dig, for which a fearful responsibility rests somewhere.
The question is. upon whom can this responsibility be
rightfully visited?
Amongst the first in order of time of the parties who
have been concerned are the Indian Government, who
-lerived a revenue from the trade in opium, and the Com-
mittee of the House of Commons, who have advised that
that the system through which that revenue was obtained
should not be interfered with. Arc these parties, then,
responsible?
To say that they are, implies, Ist. That they had the
right and the power to prevent the production of . the drug
within the British territory and its exportation to China ;
and 2d, That the exercise of this power and right would
have checked the Chinese consumption. On the first point
.—we know not what estimate is to be formed of the rights
appertaining to our Indian despotism, or what limits are
to be placed to its powers ; but the measure of constraining
the needy inhabitants of Bengal to abandon a particular
cultivation, because the produce of it was absolutely con-
sumed in one of the countries to which it was exported,
would certainly have seemed to our subjects in those parts
a strange and unaccountable act of oppression; nor could
it. have been justified in the sight of a more enlightened
people, unless it could be shown that there were the means
of measuring the extent of production required fo' salutary
purposes, and allowing that extent, whilst we disallowed an
extent beyond that. But even if any such measured limi-
tation could have been effected, it would have remained t o
show, 2dly, That the production of opium in Malwa and
other foreign territories (which already supply more than
half the Chinese imports) would not have increased
I exactly in proportion to the decrease of British production,
and whether, therefore, the evil of Chinese consumption
I would have been in any degree mitigated by our measures.
We are disposed to think that those who impugn the
Indian Government and the Parliamentary Committee will
find it difficult to dispose of these questions. And as to
the establishment of a monopoly of the drug, and the levy
of a revenue from it, this is a strange ground on which to
bring a charge of encouraging the production, since the
only effect would necessarily be to check. both the pro-
duction and consumption by raising the price. There
would be no impropriety, but, on the contrary, a direct
expediency, in placing upon this species of produce the
heaviest imposts which could be levied without of
too much encouragement to foreign or to contraband pro-
duction. We do not know enough of the subject to state
peremptorily that the Indian Government had no means of
checking, more than they did, and with some salutary effect,
the production of opium in the Chinese market, and we
would not say one word to acquit the Indian or any other
Government or party of any responsibility with which they
could be justly visitca on such a subject as this. All that
we mean is, that the case is yet to be made out against
the Indian Government and the Parliamentary Committee,
and that we have not seen any statement which has touched
teem hitherto.
Passing from these parties, then, shall we fix the re-
sponsibility upon the trader who took the article to Cuina?
The case of the trader has one aspect previously to 1837,
and another subsequently. It is admitted (as we have
seen) on all sides, even in reports addressed to the Empe.
ror by his Ministers, that down to 1837 the edicts against
the importation of opium were not carried into effect, and
it is stated by Captain Elliot, and was notorious and indis-
putable, that fees upon its importation, strictly regulated
as to amount, and as to mode and period of payment, were
levied by the Viceroy and other local functionaries at
Canton.
A. 8., an honest British merchant trading at that port
in 1836, finds that under these circumstances opium has
come to he the principal commodity in which tea is paid
for. He finds that the only prohibition of this commo-
dity is contained in certain defunct edicts issued by a Go
vernmcnt which scorns to have any international relations
with his country, and which, refusing all intercourse with
him, or any agent of his country accredited on his behalf,
devolves on a co-partnership of native merchants the
whole responsibility for anything he may do. Who shall
blame A. B. if, thus situated, he says that, so far as his
duty to the Chinese Government is concerned, he feels
himself absolved from an obedience which is required from
no one else, and from a responsibility which is by the
very Government itself specifically shifted from him and
pl iced upon the merchants who are made to give security
fur him. With them he can communicate, and with their
conditions he must comply ; but beyond this he can have
incurred no obligations to a Government which obstinately
refuses to take any cognizance of him. The policy and
practice of the Government is, if he violates the law, to
punish not him, but the Hong merchant who gave security
for him ; thus making the excess of despotic power over
the native supply every defect of power over the foreigner,
and of amicable intercourse with his nation. He must so
Act, therefore, thrt the Hong merchant shall not be afraid
to be his surety : and there his obligations cud—so far as
the Chinese authorities are concerned,
But there are higher obligations, it will be said, than
any which are due to thrones and dominations ; awl how
does he justify to himself his traffic in this fatal drug,
knowing, as he does, that it is eating into the souls of
rni;lions of his fellow creatures? The answer is, that
he justifies it to himself by an imperfect justification—
by the rules of average morality by which mar.kind
at large are governed, and not by the highest stan-
dard of Christianity. He considers that, as the eon-
surrers are resolved to buy the article, and men will al-
nays be found to sell it to them, the effect of a scrupu-
lous man not selling it will only be that the unscrupulous
will sell more. He considers, moreover, that in the com-
plications of trade there are a hundred transactions which
promote one branch of it through another ; that, when
one article constitutes the main body of trading returns,
the merchant who rsfuscs to deal in it directly will never-
theless be the cause of others dealing in it ; that, if he in-
sists upon giving dollars for tea when opum is the:article in
f1:1-nand, his dollars will go to buy from his neighbours the
opium which he would not bring himself, and with hardly
any addition of cost or inconvenience the same mercantile
exchange v, ill be effected. Ile persuades himself, there-
fore, that it is in vain for him individually to contend
against the course of trade.
In 1837-8-9, however, A. B. is not quite in the same
situation as in 1836. The plan of legalizing the opium
trade having been at last definitively rejected by the Court
of Peking, a succession of efforts is made by that Court
to suppress it. If these efforts are likely to be attended
with success, and to eradicate a most pernicious vice from
a teeming population, it is nothing to A. B. whether the
Emperor's object is to prevent opium coming into his do.
minions, or to prevent the Sycec silver leaving them ; and
indeed he is bound to give credit to human nature, even at
the Court of a Chinese Emperor, for having some view to
moral ends, in adopting a policy which, if successful, must
necessarily promote them. So soon, therefore, and so far,
as these efforts of the Chinese Court are really operative,
he is bound as a virtuous man to go along with them, and
give them their fair chance of success. He may probably
foresee, in a speculative way, that in all probability the
Emperor's measures will fail ; he may be pretty well satis-
fied that, in a country where all the officers of Govern.
ment, high and low, are venal, and no moral forces can be
brought to bear, a vice cannot be put down by a law, nor
the means of satisfying an appetite excluded by an ;nter-
diet ; he may perceive that opium, if banished from Can-
ton, can and will be run in a thousand bays and creeks
along the coasts : but still the Government is doing its
endeavour in a good cause, and it is his duty to co.operate
with it. He may henceforth have the means of carrying
on his lawful trade unpolluted. At all events, having new
the assistance of the Chinese officers, he must make the
trial.—Such are the views which we should imagine that
a casuist might fairly take in the case supposed.
Now the facts are, that a very considerable portion of
the British merchants at Canton had been implicated in
the ODIUM trade before 1836, and that the mercantile com-
munity at large were then in the way of being driven into
it by the force of circumstances. They were not faultless
in this; but, in the circumstances in which they were
placed, it would have required a higher standard of virtue
and clearer moral perceptions than can be expected from
moat men to keep them so. Captain Elliott at that period
remonstrated in vain. :But at the end of 1837, when the
circumstances were changed, a large majority of the
o
mer-
chants, seeing the opportunity of extrication, gave
Y
Cap-
tain Elliot their support, honourabl and faithfully, an
Can
he
uld tell
was enabled to clear out the traffilfero.munthe
ton. It sterns at that period to hay f_onr
ngo aolnoeof foot._ some
time, as if in expectation of events:llld be carried through,
whether the Chinese measures w
dursintgo
hwtiarhevoesiebnteeernevovacnelho,riiettiflhelyeg
or abandoned, or reversed;
little that was done in the trade sbeemmself,
and,
in the hands of the_
him no
the highest monopoly
profits. others gave un no d
profits. But the traffic. was, generally speaking, stagnant,p?y
that the
Then came Commissioner Lin? and,. finding
opium was all stored up in receiving ships and hanging off
up all
in the outer anchorages, he cleared doubts as to the
purpose of executing the opressivepoiteno. at the same
a
time effected the confiscation of the stores. The issue was
then made manifest ; Captain Elliot' s prophecies were
fulfilled ; and, instead of repression through_ legislation
and moderate control, the trade fellinto the hands of the
lawless, the daring, the irrepressible and uncontrollable men
who had neither character nor lawful trading interests to
lose; and in their hands it throve abundantly along the
coasts and triumphed over every obstacle that Lin could
create. But the British merchants of Canton (formerly of
Canton, now of Macao, Hong Kong, Tong Koo, or where-
ever else they could take refuge) had no part in the trade
as thus carried on, and their responsibility ceased, there-
fore, with the period of 1836-7. What that responsibility
amounted to we have endeavoured to estimate.
Ilse fourth party whose responsibility is in question is
the English Government. If the Committee of the House
of Commons is to be acquitted on the principle which we
have stated in reference to them, a fortiori is the Govern-
ment to be absolved; for, oven if the Committee were
assumed to be in error, the Government could hardly ex-
pect to carry a measure of interference with a great trading
interest in defiance of an opinion reported by the Com-
mittee of the House of Commons.. But the Government
did not go a step beyond the principle of non-interference;
it refused encouragement, and Lord Palmerston instructed
Captain Elliot to warn the merchants that, if they should