The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-10-04 00:00:00

pose we shall avail ourselves of the interesting infor-
mation contained in the Indian papers, long extracts
from which were reprinted in the London Times of
last Friday, and which will well repay the attentive
perusal of our readers.
The subject presents itself in a threefold point of
view. It has a commercial, financial, and social as-
pect; and on each of these we propose to say a few
words. But as the most absorbing topic of interest
in the mercantile community just now connected with
it is doubtless the question of compensation to those
holders of opium who surrendered their chests in con-
sequence of the proclamation of Captain Elliot, we will
first state our opinion on this point.
A very able writer in the Friend of India of May 28
—whom, from his legal acumen and evident partizan-
ship, we should guess to be a lawyer who had adven-
tured a small speculation in the opium trade, which
has proved to many of our countrymen a source of
rapid wealth—throws the moral part of the question
overboard at once, and declaims against the " age of
cant and humbug" which could waste a thought upon
such considerations. He sneers against " moral Evan-
gelical England," as though she were inconsistent in
denouncing a wholesale traffic in a contraband and
deleterious article carried on under her flag, because
the utmost vigilance of our laws at home cannot reach
and remedy the complicated evils of our social system.
We hold a very different creed, and shall rejoice to see
—as most assuredly we shall see—England's popula-

tion assume a high moral tone in this matter ; provi-
ding always, that no injustice be done to innocent suf-
ferers, and the blame be cast on the heads of those on
whom it ought principally to fall. We say principally,
for we consider all parties who have engaged in this
traffic as more or less culpable ; and if the strict letter
of English law were to decide the question of compen-
sation, we fear the Indian merchants would sue in vain
for redress, in the teeth of the legal maxim that there
is no contribution between tort-feasors. But this is
not the way in which the question will be decided by
a British public ; and we should be ashamed of even
a Melbourne Government, if it could refuse substan-
tial justice to our fellow-merchants at Bombay and
Canton, on the paltry plea that they were "participes
crinzinis" with itself, and, though sanctioned by its
connivance, must take the whole of the risk and loss
upon themselves. We confess we lay little stress on
the fact that the agents at Macao and Canton surren-
dered their opium-chests on the faith of the Elliot
guarantee ; and for this reason—had they not done
so, they must have equally lost the profits of their
illegal speculation. Their opium had by that time
become almost as useless as ballast, for at such a junc-
ture " smuggling" was out of the question in the face
of the vigilant Chinese authorities; and, moreover,
had it not been promptly surrendered, all that was on
shore would have been taken by force, and in all pro-
bability the consignees would have been imprisoned
and maltreated. They therefore made a virtue of ne-
cessity, and doubtless regarded the proclamation as a
most opportune event in their dilemma.

We consider the claim of the parties whose opium
has been confiscated upon the Imperial Parliament to
depend upon two facts-Ist, the nature of the penal
regulations in China against its introduction; and 2nd,
the degree of connivance which the Indian, and through
it the British, Government sheaved to the traffic. If
the Custom-house laws at Canton were rigorously en-
forced, and no excuse left to the foreign traders for
asserting that the importation of opium was winked at
by the authorities, and the prohibition against it suf-
fered to grow obsolete,—and if the knowledge on the
part of the Indian Government was confined to mere
general rumour, that some portiou of the opium which
they sold to the Bombay and Bengal merchants found
its way into the interior of China,—in this case we
hold that the bold adventurer must run the whole risk,
and have as little right to claim indemnity from the
Government as he would from the Insurance-office
when he had voided his policy by engaging in an ille-
gal trade.

But we believe the very reverse of this to be the
case. The enormous amount of opium yearly shipped
to and disposed of in China, renders it impossible to
imagine that the edicts of the Celestial Empire forbid-
ding its importation were not treated by the authorities
at the various ports as little more than waste paper :
for, otherwise, how can we account for the fact, that

while, from the Ist of July, 1837, to the 30th of June,
1838, the value of imports of British manufactures at
Canton, consisting of cotton yarn and metals, amounted
only to 2,480,446 dollars, or £620,114, the value of
the .opium disposed of was 13,504,630 dollars, or
£3,376,157 ? Trade carried on to such an extent as
this can hardly be called contraband, and those who
engage in it may well plead the connivance and sanc-
tion of the Empire whose population purchases such
enormous quantities of the nominally-forbidden drug.

And with the noxious nature of the article we con.
ceive that our merchants have little or nothing to do
It would be far better if the use of brandy and gun.
powder had remained unknown amongst the wilds o:
America or the Islands of the Pacific ; but who is such
a squeamish moralist as to condemn the trader who
barters these commodities for the products of other
countries ? If a nation demands, and the laws of that
nation permit the introduction of, such articles as we
can supply, we conceive that the conscience of the
individual merchant is absolved from inquiring what
use will he made of them. In such cases it is the
State, and not the individual, which is bound to take
an enlarged view of the morality of the traffic, so far
as regards the pernicious consequences which may
flow from the exportation of its products to other
countries. Even in the case of the Slave Trade, the
strongest that can be put, and abhorrent as it is to all
our feelings and principles, it is the State which legis-
lates, and not the merchant, who avails himself of the
laws that ought to bear the load of infamy attached to
such a traffic.
The next point is the degree of connivance shewn
by the British Government to the continuance of this
trade. This involves little difficulty. The facts were
notorious, and the East India Directors knew per-
fectly well from what source their opium revenue of
£2,968,250 yearly was ultimately derived. The Board
of Control has, by Act of Parliament, a regulating
power over the acts of the Indian Government, and,
during the number of years in which the opium-trade
has been so largely carried on, must have had the
most ample information on all the statistics of the
subject. It has in no way interfered to warn the un-
suspecting merchant that it repudiated his trade, but,
on the contrary, has allowed, year after year, the offi-
cial authorities in the Indian Presidencies to derive a
large revenue from sales of opium, the avowed object
of the purchasers being to find a market in China.
We think, then, that on these grounds the opium-
holders, and all those whose capital at the time of the
seizure was invested in this article, have a fair claim
upon Parliament (which, through the Executive, has
had full knowledge of the facts of the case) for com-
pensation ; but not upon the ground that Captain
Elliot was an agent to pledge the Government at home
to indemnify those who complied with his request, and
surrendered the opium which they could no longer
safely or profitably hold.
We have devoted so much space to the question of
compensation, that we have little room to-day to enter
into the general subject of this hitherto prime staple of
Indian commerce. The financial part of it is of great
importance, and may cause serious embarrassment at
a time when the war in Candahar is draining the re-
sources of the Government. The public sales of
opium in India take place, we believe, twice a year ;
and, as we have above stated, the net revenue of the
Bombay and Bengal Governments derived from these
has averaged for the last few years £2,968,250 annu-
ally. 'The price, as might be expected, has fallen
enormously : indeed, by the sale of the 28th of May
last, it seems that the Government has suffered a loss
instead of deriving a revenue. And this can hardly
be considered as the lowest point to which opium will
fall; for, in the present uncertainty which hangs over
the question, many adventurers will be found who will
purchase on speculation, in hopes that the British
Government will by some means compel the Chinese
to permit the importation ; and as this would never
be tolerated by the people of this country, and no in-
terference of such a nature is likely to be attempted,
opium will soon become, in more senses than one, a
mere drug in the market. In 1821 a chest of Behar
opium brought 4545 rupees, and on the 27th of last
May the same quantity was sold in Calcutta for 235
rupees. We shall soon recur to this subject again,
an d place before our readers some facts as to the mag-