The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-11 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 11, 1859.

Alexander Arnold is sufficiently established, and I
expunge his name froth the register.
The claims of the " officers" of the institution,
embracing the preacher, reader, master, &c., were
then disallowed, and the names struck from th
list of persons entitled to vote.

THE BRITISH OPIUM TRADE AND
.R.EVEWUE.

The Edinburgh Anti-Opium Committee, believ-
ing that there are few subjects of so great import-
ance regarding which the public mind is so little
irlormed as the opium trade and revenue, respect-
fully submit the following statement of the leading
faces regarding t.hoin to the serious consideration of
their countrymen,

OPIUM TRADE.
1. An immense importation of opium—prepared
expressly for the purpose of gratifying a vicious
taste by smoking it—is annually made into China
from ports in British India. This importation has
increased forty-fold since the beginning of the cen-
tury, or from 2,000 to 80,000 chests. The demand
for this article has been created by shipments origi-
nally made by the East India Company in 1735
and since 1800, chiefly by British merchants, who
have succeeded in extending it, by experimental
importations, from time to time, into new parts of
the coast—at first of a losing character, but profit-
able in the end, by creating a taste for the new vice.
Opium now forms the great bulk of the returns for
Chinese tea and silk, amounting, as it does, to
£8,000,000, while the export of all British produce
and manufactures to China average little more than
£2,000,000.

The use of this opium, so prepared, is produc-
tive of the most ruinous consequences to the popu-
lation where it is consumed. These consequences
are carefully to be distinguished from those which
result from the abuse of alcoholic beverages, melan-
choly as the latter are—the former being, in the
long run, the rule not the exception, and the result
of the use not the abuse of the indulgence.
f' The- usual demoralising influences of the opium
trade" are thus not merely incidental to it, but, in
the language of the Report of the Select Committee
of the House of Commons, " are incontestable, and
inseparable from its existence."
3. According to the most unexceptionable testi-
mony of merchants, travellers, physicians, govern-
ment servants, missionaries, and Chinese states-
men, the vice, the misery, and even the
destruction of life, resulting from this in-
dulgence, it is almost impossible to estimate
" The moderate use" of opium as it is
prepared for the Chinese, which some suppose to
be so harmless, tends to the practice of sensuality
in its grossest forms. " Moderation" leads,
with fearful certainty and speed, to " excess ;"
and excess to every crime of which its victim is
capable, until: his career is ended in a prema-
ture grave. The numbers thus cut off are variously
estimated; but although it is only along the sea-
board that the practice prevails greatly as yet, the
lowest calculation exhibits an amount of mortality

which it is fearful to contemplate.
4. Public sentiment in China is strongly opposed
to this trade. On this account it is one of the
greatest obstacles in the way of Christian missions.
Our countrymen there are known only as vendors
of opium—the curse of China—or as preachers of
Christianity. The Imperial Government set itself
against the trade for more than 60 years, and de-
clared it contraband. It was, however, utterly
unable to contend with the heavily armed vessels
in which the opium is carried, but in 1839, after
repeated warnings to the English residents (the
last being addressed to them individually) to send
away their opium then in Chinese waters, a special
commissioner from Pekin caused the owners to be
confined within their own dwellings until they
surrendered the entire quantity, amounting to
20,283 chests. He then destroyed the whole,
valued at between one and two millions sterling,
and took such measures as rendered it almost im-
possible to dispose of a chest along the coast.
5. The British Government thereupon declared
war against China ; and after the slaughter o f
nearly 40,000 of its subjects, dictated a treaty by
which the Chinese were compelled to pay more
than £4,000,000 for the opium destroyed, and for
the expenses of the war, and also to give up the
island of Hong Kong on their coast. The English
merchants had previously signed a pledge to dis-
continne the trade and the: British Government
entered into a supplementary treaty, by which they
bound themselves to discountenance all smuggling
for the future.

6. Instead of these engagements being kept, the
merchants (with, it is said, two exceptions) imme-
diately resumed the trade. After a time, the British
Government also allowed the island ceded to them
for the purpose of " careening and refitting ships,
and keeping stores there for that purpose," to be
used for warehousing the contraband opium ; and
the annual import into China has risen since that
war from less than 40,000 to 80,000 chests.

7. During the continuance of peace, the British
Government importuned the Chinese Emperor to
legalise the opium trade, but always without suc-
cess. He refused again and again, alleging
that " nothing should induce him to derive a revenue
from the vice and misery of the people ;" but a se-
cond war having broken out, they have now dictated
a new treaty, by which their former obligation to
di ;courage smuggling is abrogated, and the Chinese
have been forced to legalise the trade, with every
prospect of its indefinite extension among their
vast population of 400,000,000—more than a third
of the human race. The great rise which immpdi-
ately took place in the price of opium in Calcatta
shows what ground there is for this apprehension.