The truth about opium

by William H. Brereton

It is said that the receiving ships are anchored at the mouth of rivers, that British war-ships anchor alongside of them, and that the consuls know this. That is quite true. The consuls admit all this—in fact, they often send their despatches by these very opium ships to Hong Kong. How many times has it happened that the consuls have had discussions with the Chinese governors respecting these receiving ships? They say, “We do not protect these ships; why do you not drive them away?” All this, I repeat, is notorious, and it is to be regretted that it is so; because, under proper legal authorisation, opium might be introduced into the Chinese Empire with such great advantage to the Imperial treasury....

It cannot be expected that the English Government through its naval commanders should prevent its subjects from carrying on a remunerative commerce, whilst Americans, Dutchmen, Danes, Swedes, and Portuguese would continue to carry on the trade with increased profit through the withdrawal of the English.

Were the supply of opium from British India discontinued we should have a class of merchants who would form syndicates to buy up all the opium that could be found, and Macao would become the great depôt for Persian, Javanese, and Malwa opium for the China market, so that we should have probably four times the quantity of the foreign drug shipped to China that is now imported into that country, and thus the alleged evils of opium smoking in China would be intensified. By a stupid though well-meaning policy, that ultimate demoralisation, degradation, and ruin which the Anti-Opium Society allege is now being wrought upon the natives of China by the existing Indo-China opium trade would be enormously accelerated, whilst England and English missionaries would only earn the contempt of the Chinese nation and the ridicule of the whole world. I have shown you that the Government of China is not sincere in its professed desire to put down opium smoking; for if it was we should never have had the poppy grown so extensively as it is at present all over the empire. The evidence of Sir Robert Hart alone upon this point puts the matter beyond the question of a doubt. How, in the face of that gentleman’s book, this Anti-Opium agitation can continue I really cannot understand. He is an officer of the Chinese Government, and he would be the last man to publish anything damaging to the Government or people of China. Here have these Anti-Opium agitators been forty years in the wilderness without making any progress, but only getting deeper into the quagmire of error and delusion. Even now, although defeated at all points, they persist, as I shall show by and by, in obstructing public business in the House of Commons by again ventilating their unfounded theories.

As matters stand, this book of Sir Robert Hart’s must show to every impartial mind that the teaching of the Anti-Opium Society, from its formation to the present time, has been fallacious, misleading, and mischievous. Yet, in the face of this most damaging official Yellow-Book, we are still calmly and seriously told from many platforms, by dignitaries of the highest position in the Church, and by clergymen of all denominations, that we are demoralising and ruining the whole nation, because we send the Chinese a comparatively small quantity of pure and unadulterated opium, which is beneficial rather than injurious to them. But what does Sir Robert Hart, with all his official information, say? That all this opium, amounting to about six thousand tons annually, is consumed in moderation by one million of smokers, or one-third of one per cent. of the whole population of China, estimating the number of people at three hundred millions only.

The missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society, in the face of facts which directly contradict them, say that the Chinese Government has a horror of opium; but they never tell us that that Government has a horror of themselves. What was the celebrated saying of Prince Kung to the British Ambassador? “Take away your opium and your missionaries,” said he. Now the Chinese Government does not hate opium; it derives a very large revenue from the drug at present, and it is only anxious to increase the amount. I have very little doubt that Prince Kung, and all the other Imperial magnates, including Li Hung Chang, that strictest of moralists, revel in the very Indian drug they affect so to abhor. But they do detest the missionaries most cordially; so do the whole educated people of the empire, and so do Chinamen generally. None know this better than the missionaries themselves. That disgraceful book, written by a Mandarin, called “A Death-blow to Corrupt Practices,” which was, by the aid of his brother Mandarins, extensively circulated throughout China, but too plainly proves the fact. That infamous volume was aimed at the whole missionary body in China, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant; it attributed the foulest crimes, the most disgraceful and disgusting practices to the missionaries. It was, in fact, the precursor of the fearful Tientsin massacre; yet the missionaries tell us that if we will only discontinue the Indo-China opium trade the millennium will arrive. I may here observe that if opium was the terrible thing, and was productive of so much misery to its votaries, as the Protestant missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society would have us believe, it seems strange that no mention of opium or opium smoking appears in this book. If half the outcry raised against the Indo-Chinese opium trade were true, here was an excellent opportunity for the writer to have inveighed against the wickedness of foreigners in introducing the horrible drug into the country. If the Gospel is objected to because of this Indian opium, what a fine occasion for the author to have enlarged upon the iniquity. If the Chinese mind had been in any way impressed with the evils proceeding from opium smoking, can it be supposed for a moment that the author of this book, an educated Mandarin—one of the literati, in fact—would have omitted the opportunity of denouncing the missionaries and foreigners generally for introducing the terrible drug into the country and making profit by the vices and misery of the Chinese people? Does not the entire omission of opium from this book prove most eloquently that there is no real truth in the outcry raised by these missionaries against the opium trade? The real fact, believe me, is this, the Chinese dislike and distrust the missionaries not because opium is an evil but because they hate and despise Christianity. From the Anti-Opium Society one never hears anything about the removal of the missionaries; it is all “take away your opium.” I am perfectly sure that, if we agreed to exclude our missionaries from China, the Government of that country would unhesitatingly admit Indian opium into the country duty free. No greater proof can be adduced of this than the zeal and persistency with which the Chinese Government recently and successfully prosecuted the celebrated Wu Shi Shan case, which was in the nature of an action of ejectment against a Protestant missionary body at Foochow. The late Mr. French, the Judge of Her Majesty’s Supreme Court for China and Japan, tried the case, the hearing of which occupied nearly two months. It cost the Chinese Government about one hundred thousand dollars, or twenty thousand pounds; they were well satisfied with the result, although the land they recovered was not worth a tenth of the money.

It is declared by Mr. Turner and the other advocates of the Anti-Opium Society that we have treated the Chinese with great harshness; that we have extorted the Treaty of Tientsin from them, and bullied them into legalizing the admission of opium into the empire; that we began by smuggling opium into China, and ended by quarrelling with the Chinese. It must not be forgotten, on the other hand, how the Chinese have treated us. For more than a century before we introduced opium into China, and began, as it is said, to quarrel with the Chinese, we had been buying their teas and silks, and paying for them in hard cash. During all that time we were treated by the Mandarins with the greatest indignity. Our representatives and our people were insulted, often maltreated, and sometimes murdered. As to opium smuggling, about which so much is sought to be made by the Anti-Opium people, there is one point that the writers and speakers upon the subject seem to have forgotten. In the first place, I think I will show you that smuggling, in the proper sense of the term, has never, in fact, been carried on in China by Englishmen—or, indeed, by other foreigners—at all. But even admitting, for argument’s sake, that smuggling in its ordinary acceptation did, in fact, exist, how does the matter stand? It has been for centuries the recognized international law of the civilized world that one nation is not bound to take cognizance of the revenue laws of another. This principle has been carried out in past times with the greatest strictness. For instance, there was once a very large contraband trade done between England and France. When brandy was heavily taxed, and when it was thought more of than it is now, smuggling it into England was a very profitable business. It was the same as regards silks, lace, and a great many other articles before free trade became the law of this country. Our Government knew this very well, but they never dreamt for a moment of sending a remonstrance to the French Government upon the subject. Had they done so, the latter would probably have replied: “We cannot prevent our people from doing this. We give them no encouragement whatever. We have enough to do to prevent your people from smuggling English goods into our country, and you must do your best on your side to prevent our subjects from introducing French goods into yours.” For I suppose our people, carrying out the principle of reciprocity, had some contraband dealings with French contrabandists on their own account. That was the law for centuries, and it is so still.

But of late years what is called “the comity of nations” has become more understood, and there is a better spirit spreading between different states on this subject, although, as I have said, the law is still the same. If our Government knew that there was now an organized system of smuggling carried on here with France, they would, I dare say, try to put a stop to the practice, and would, at the least, give such information to the Government of France as would put their revenue officers on their guard, and I am sure that the French Government would act in the same way towards us. That would be due to the better feeling that has arisen between the two countries within the last forty years. The moment, therefore, it was found that there was a considerable demand in China for Indian opium, British and other vessels brought the article to China; and there can be no doubt that they met with great encouragement from the Chinese officials, but they got no assistance from us. The opium shippers carried on the trade at their own risk. All this has been very clearly shown by Don Sinibaldo de Mas. There was no actual smuggling on the part of the owners of these vessels. The Chinese openly came on board and bought and took away the opium, “squaring” matters, so to speak, with the Mandarins. These so-called smugglers belonged to all nationalities. There were Americans, Portuguese, and Germans, as well as English, engaged in it. According to the international law of European countries, the Chinese Government ought, under the circumstances, to have had a proper preventive service, and so put down the smuggling. But, instead of this, the practice was openly encouraged by the Chinese officials, some of them Mandarins of high position.

Now and then an explosion would occur; angry remonstrances would be addressed to the British Government, and bad feeling between the two nations would be engendered, the Chinese all along treating us as barbarians, using the most insulting language towards us, and subjecting our people, whenever opportunity offered, to the greatest indignities. The missionaries have ignored all this. They appear to have satisfied themselves so completely that we forced this trade upon the Chinese that they have lost sight both of fact and reason. The very existence of an opium-smuggling trade with China shows that the article smuggled was in very great demand in that country. People never illegally take into a country an article that is not greatly in request there. They will not risk their lives and property unless they know large profits are to be acquired by the venture, and such profits can only be made upon articles in great demand. It was because there was found to be a demand for Indian opium that this so-called contraband trade sprang up. This furnishes the strongest proof that the Chinese valued the opium highly, and that it was on their invitation that the drug was introduced. There is, I believe, a considerable contraband trade now carried on in tobacco between Germany and Cuba and England, just because the article is in demand here, and there is a very high duty upon it. The fact is, that if the arguments of the Anti-Opium people are properly weighed, they will be found, almost without exception, to cut both ways, and with far greater force against their own side.

Now with respect to smuggling, it is right that I should clear up the misconception that seems to prevail upon the subject. Whatever may have been the practice previous to the Treaty of Nankin, which was signed on the 29th of August 1842, and ratified on the 26th of June 1843—forty years ago, I say it advisedly, and challenge contradiction, that no smuggling or quasi smuggling, or any practice resembling smuggling, has been carried on in China by any British subject since the signing of that treaty. Although no mention is made of opium in that convention, it is an indisputable fact that from the time of the making of it until the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858, Indian opium was freely allowed into the country at an ad valorem duty. This is shown by Don Sinibaldo de Mas, in his book, and also by Sir Rutherford Alcock, in his valuable paper. No doubt the Chinese themselves have since then smuggled opium into their country, and are doing so still. They are, in truth, inveterate smugglers, and it has been found impossible for the British authorities of Hong Kong to prevent the practice. For the past thirty years laws have from time to time been passed in the colony with the object of checking the practice, which have not been wholly unsuccessful; for instance, some twenty-five years ago an Ordinance was passed prohibiting junks from leaving the harbour between sunset, and, I think, 6 a.m. on the following morning, and compelling every outward-bound junk to leave at the harbour master’s office a copy of the “Manifest” before starting, and I have known many prosecutions for breach of this Ordinance.

Still smuggling by Chinamen goes on more or less, but not now, I think, to any large extent. As for any connivance or participation in the practice by the British authorities or the British people, and, indeed, I may say the same for all foreigners in China, there is none whatever. I am fully borne out in this statement by the Friend of China, which you will remember is the organ of the Anti-Opium Society. It would appear that Sir John Pope Hennessy, lately Governor of Hong Kong, made a speech last autumn at Nottingham, on the occasion of the meeting of the Social Science Congress, in the course of which he made some allusion to smuggling by the British community of Hong Kong. I have not myself read the speech, but collect this from the statement of the journal in question, which I shall now read to you. This is the passage:—