The real question would seem to be whether they can afford to continue receiving this revenue. Opium does not appear to be a very valuable commodity in India itself. Just as in China, it degrades the people. The profits in production, for everybody but the government, are so small that the strong hand of the law has often, nowadays, to be exerted in order to keep the ryots (farmers) at the task of raising the poppy. There are many thoughtful observers of conditions in India who believe it would be highly “practical” to devote the rich soil of the Ganges Valley to crops which have a sound economic value to the world.
But more than this, the opium programme saps India as it saps China. The position of the Englishman in India to-day is by no means so secure that he can afford to indulge in bad government. The spirit of democracy and socialism has already spread through Europe and has entered Asia. In Japan, trade-unions are striking for higher wages. In China and India, are already heard the mutterings of revolution. The British government may yet have to settle up, in India as well as in China, for its opium policy. And when the day for settling up comes, it may perhaps be found that a higher balance-sheet than that which rules the government opium industry may force Great Britain to pay—and pay dear.
Yes, the world has some right to make demands of England in this matter. China can make no real progress in its struggle until the Indian production and exportation are flatly abolished.
The situation has distinctly not grown better since the magazine publication of the first of these chapters, a year ago. If the reader would like to have an idea of where Great Britain stands to-day on the opium business, he can do no better than to read the following excerpts from a speech made last spring by the Hon. Theodore C. Taylor, M. P., on his return from a journey round the world, undertaken for the purpose of personally investigating the opium problem.
First, this:
“We shall not begin to have the slightest right to ask that China should give proof of her genuineness about reform until we show more proof of our own genuineness about reform, and until we suppress the opium traffic where we can. China has taken this difficult reform in hand. She has done much, but not everything. In Shanghai, Hongkong, and the Straits, we have done nothing at all. I want to say this morning, as pricking the bubble of our own Pharisaism, that from the point of view of reform, the blackest opium spots in China are the spots under British rule.”
And then, in conclusion, this:
“I am convinced, and deeply convinced, as every observant and thoughtful man is that knows anything of China, that China is a great coming power. I was talking to a fellow member of the House of Commons who lately went to China, and went into barracks and camps with the Chinese, and who made it his business to study Chinese military affairs, which generally excite so much laughter outside China. He spent a good deal of time with the Chinese soldier. He said to me, as many other people have said to me, ‘The Chinaman is splendid raw material as a soldier, and, if his officers would properly lead the Chinaman, he would follow and make the finest soldier in the world, bar none.’ It will take China a long, long time to organize herself; it will take her a long time to organize her army and navy; it will take a long time to get rid of the system of bribery in China, which is one of the hindrances to putting down the opium traffic; but, depend upon it, the time is coming, not perhaps very soon, but by and by—and nations have long memories—when those who are alive to see the development of China will be very glad that, when China was weak and we were strong, we, of our own motion, without being made to, helped China to get away from this terrible curse.”