New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1858-09-20
wing the siave-trcde they must be content TO take
upon themselves all the risks and all the infamy.

pear, conjured up the same wild vistss of an I'M
mense extension of trade which danced before the
eyes OF the commercial mind in lS45, after the
conclusion of the first Chinese war. Surprising
the Petersburg wires 10 have spoken truth. Is
II quite certain that an increase Of the Chinese
trade must follow upon the multiplication Of ia
emporiums' l. there any probability that the
war of 1858 will lead to more splendid results
than the war Of 1sil-2 So much is certain that
the treaty Of l5i3, instead Of increasing American
snd English exports to China proved instrumental
only in precipitsting aud sggravsting the com
mercial crisis Of l547. In similar way. by
raising dreams of an inexhaustible market and By
fostering false speculations, the present treaty
may he p preparing new crisis st the ser! mo
ment when the market Of the world is but slowly
recovering from the recent universal shock.
Beside its negative result, the first opiumwar
succeeded in stimulating the opium trade at the
expense of legitimate commerce, and so will this
second Opiuul-war do, if England be not forced By
the general pressure Of the civilized world to
abandon the compulsory opium cultivation In India
and the armed opium propaganda to China. We
forbear dwelling on the morality Of that trade,
described by Montgomery Martin, himself an
Eugishmsn, in the following terms:
why the slave trade was mercifnl compare
with the opium trade: We did not destroy the bodies
If the Africans for II was our immediate interest 70
keep them alive did not debese their nature, cor
rupt their minds, destroy their souls But the
opium seller slays the body after he has corrupted
degraded and annhilated tie moral being of unhappy
snners which every hour Is bringing victims -
n Moloch which knows safety, aud where the
English murderer and Chinese suicide vie with each
other in offerings at his shrine
The Chinese cannot take both goods and drug
under actual circumstances, extension of the Chi
nese trade resolves into extension Of the opium
trade; the growth of the latter is Incompatible
with the development Of legitimate commerce
these propositions pretty generally admitted
two years ago. A Committee of the House Of
Commons, appointed in lei7 to take into consid-
GRAFTON the state of British commercial intercourse
with China, reported thus
eve regret that the trade with tina, country hns
been for time in very unsatisfactory condition,
and that the result Of extended intercourse hd ~
realised The Jua expectations which had ma
turaly been founded in free access 10 50 nagRIa-
cent marke We find that the difficulties Of the trade
do not arise from any want OF demand IN China for
articles Of British manufactures, from the increas-
ing competition Of other nations the payment for
OPIUM absorbs the silver to the great Inconvenience OF
the general traffic of the Chinese and tea and silk
must in fact pay the rest.
The Friend Of China, of July %, 1649, gener-
alizing the same proposition, says in set terms
'The opium trade progresses steadily. The in-
creased consumption of teas and slk in Great Britain
and the United States would merely result in the in-
crease of the opium trade the case of the manufac-
turers is hopeless
One of the leading American merchants in China
reduced in an article inserted in Hunts Merchants
Magazine, for January, 1850, the whole question
of the trade with China to this point: (Which
branch of commerce is to be suppressed, the opium
:" trade or the export trade Of American or English
"produce 2" The Chinese themselves took exactly
the same view of the case Montgomery Martin
narrates: 81 inquired of the TaOutai at Shanghai
(which would be the best means of increasing our
commerce with China, and his first answer to
"me, in presence of Capt Balfourd, Her Majcstys
consul, was: Cease to send US so much opium
land We will be able to take your manufactures.
The history of general commerce during the last
eight years has, in q new and striking manner,
illustrated these positions; but, before analyzing
the deleterious effects on legitimate commerce of
the opium trade, We propose giving II short review
of the rise and progress of that stupendous traffic,
which, whether we regard the tragcal collisions
forming so to say, the axis round which it turns,
the effects produced by ton the general relations
of the Eastern aud Western worlds, stands solitary
on record in the annals Of mankind. Previous TO
l767 the quantity Of opium exported from India
did not exceed 200 chests, the chest weighing about
I33ibs. Opium was legally admitted in China on
the payment of duty of about SO r chest, as q
medicines the Portuguese who brought il from
Turkey being its almost exclusive importers into
the Celestial Empire. In 1913, Colonel Watson
and yice-President Wheeer-persons deserving to
take place among the Hermentiers, Palners and
other prisoners OF worldwide fame-suggested to
the East India Company the idea Of entering upon
the opium traffic with China. Consequently, there
was established depot for opium in vessels an
chored in bay to the southwest of Macao. The
speculation proved a failure. In l7.l the Bengal
Government sent an armed vessel, laden with
opium, to China; and, in 1874, the Company sta
toned large opium vessel at Whampoa, the an
chorage for the port of Canton. 1t seems that
Whampoa proved more convenient depot than
Macao, because, only two years after its selection,
the Chinese Government found it necessary to pass
d law which threatens Chinese smugglers of opium
to be beaten with bamboo and exposed in the
streets with wooden collars around their necks.
About 1893, the East India Company ceased 10
be direct exporters of opium, but they became
its producers. The opium monopoly was
established in India, while the Company's own
ships were hypocritcally forbidden from trafickng
in the drug the licenses it granted for private ships
trading TO China contained provision which At
4.rhed nenafy 70 them if freirhfad with nnnnn of