16. That opium was inserted into the Schedule to the Treaty of Tientsin at the express desire and request of the Chinese authorities; that Lord Elgin wished and proposed to those authorities by his Secretary, Mr. Laurence Oliphant, to place a higher duty than thirty taels on the drug, but that the Chinese officials declined to do so, fearing that, if the duty were raised, an impetus would be given to smuggling.
17. That the career of the Anti-Opium Society has been signalized by a continuous series of mistakes and blunders—commencing with the monstrous figment (the invention of an American missionary) that there were twenty millions of opium smokers in China supplied by the Indian drug, and that two millions of these smokers died annually from the practice,—and that the Anti-Opium confederacy is only kept alive by the continued reiteration of exploded fallacies, sophistries, and mis-statements of the same nature.
18. That the British merchants connected with China in the past and the present were and are wholly free from the stigmas cast upon them by the Anti-Opium Society, anent smuggling and the opium trade;[12] that, so far from having acted wrongfully towards China and the Chinese, their conduct towards both has been, and still is, emphatically characterized by honour and rectitude, and by uniform courtesy and kindness; and that those merchants, have deserved well of their country.
19. That the Anti-Opium Society, from its formation to the present time, has wrought nothing but mischief, crippling by its pragmatical efforts the action of Her Majesty’s Government, both here and in India and China, abstracting by its mis-statements enormous sums of money from the charitable and benevolent, and squandering that money in the propagation of unfounded theories and injurious reflections against our fellow-countrymen in China; and that the public should withdraw their confidence from the Society, and cease to supply it with one farthing more.
20. That, save in respect of the blockade of Hong Kong by the armed cruisers of the Hoppo or Revenue Farmer of the provinces of the two Kwangs, which inflict great and bitter hardship upon the Chinese merchants of Hong Kong and the junk owners who trade to that place, the British nation, by its Government and people, has amply redeemed the promises made to the people of China by Her Majesty’s representative, Sir Henry Elliott, on taking over Hong Kong, which is amply verified by the flourishing state of that Colony, and its large, thriving, and contented Chinese population.
21. That, whilst it is desirable to maintain the most amicable and cordial relations with the Government of China and its various viceroyalties, that most unjustifiable blockade by the Hoppo or Revenue Farmer of Canton should be promptly suppressed; a matter which has only to be taken in hand by Her Majesty’s Consul at Canton, supported, if necessary, by the British Minister at Peking, and firmly but courteously pressed upon the Viceroy of the two Kwangs, who cannot but acknowledge the gross injustice and cruel wrong inflicted on Hong Kong and its native merchants by those cruisers, and who has the power and only wants the will to let right be done.
In the course of these lectures I have spoken of some of the vices of the Chinese, and of our own also. The people of England have, however, many virtues, the growth of centuries; one of these is a broad and liberal charity, that pours forth a continuous stream of benevolence over the whole world. It is a virtue that pervades all classes, from our honoured Queen to the humblest of her subjects. It is not without a swelling heart that one can walk through the streets of London and see the noble charitable institutions surrounding him upon all sides, such as hospitals, convalescent institutions, homes for aged and infirm people, educational institutes, and such like, supported by voluntary contributions—living evidences of the charity and benevolence of our people in the past and present. Yet these splendid monuments but faintly testify to the flow of munificence perpetually running its course around us. Observe how liberally the public respond to the appeals made to it almost daily. Look at the case of the persecution of the Jews in Russia, the famine in the North of China, the distress and troubles in Ireland. Then, again, there is the charity “that lets not the left hand know what the right hand doeth,” of which the world sees nothing, but which is known to go on unceasingly, and which probably is the most liberal of all. The history of the world, so far as I am aware, does not record a parallel to this in any other nation or people. With such an active and unceasing charity going on amongst us, we should take care that this beneficent stream is not diverted into worthless channels, for that would be a matter concerning the whole public.
Now, though I hold in respect all the officers and supporters of the Anti-Opium Society, who are actuated, I admit, by the best motives, and whose characters for benevolence and good faith I do not question, I cannot forbear from repeating that their crusade against the Indo-China opium trade is as unjustifiable as it is mischievous, and is well calculated to produce the results I have deprecated. It encourages the Chinese Government to make untenable demands upon us, under false pretences, and it is an unwarranted interference with an industry, wholly unobjectionable on any but sentimental grounds, affording subsistence to millions of our fellow-subjects in India. It aims, also, at cutting off some eight or ten millions sterling from the revenue of that vast dependency, now expended in ameliorating the condition of its dense population. Furthermore, it offers to useful and legitimate legislation an opposition and obstruction of the worst kind, seeing that it obtrudes upon the Legislature its unfounded and exploded theories, to the displacement or delay of really useful measures.
I say that the Anti-Opium Society, in the course of its agitation for the abolition of this Indo-China opium trade, is vilifying its countrymen and blackening this country in the eyes of the whole world, so that the foreigner can convict us out of our own mouths, and jibe at us for hypocrisy and turpitude we are wholly innocent of, and for crimes we have never committed.[13] I say that the history of this Society presents nothing but a dreary record of energies wasted, talents misapplied, wealth uselessly squandered, charity perverted, and philanthropy run mad. The members of this Society never think, perhaps, of the mischief they have done and are doing. Here has our Government been trying for the past seven or eight years to agree upon a revised commercial treaty with the Government of China, and here also, side by side, is an irresponsible political body doing its utmost to cripple, paralyse, and defeat our Government in its efforts, taking up, in fact, a downright hostile attitude to the action of the Imperial and Indian Governments, by carrying on an unauthorized unofficial correspondence with Li Hung Chang, the Prime Minister, and the most influential public man in China, who is a master of the arts of diplomacy, and who is doing his utmost to get the better of us if he can in the matter of the Chefoo Convention. Here, I say, is this society putting forward Li’s audacious and misleading letter to its secretary, Mr. Storrs Turner, as an embodiment of truth and justice. Is this patriotic or proper on the part of this Anti-Opium Society? Should that body, instead of setting itself up as a junto, with a quasi-official standing, having a monopoly of all the virtues, be allowed by the Government to carry on its mischievous organization any longer? I think not. I believe there is no other country in the world—not even America, where liberty has run to seed—where such an intermeddling, anti-national and mischievous confederacy would be permitted to exist. Instead of trying to thwart Her Majesty’s Government, as it is doing, it should be the duty of its members, of every Englishman interested in China, and, indeed, of the whole country, to strengthen as far as possible the hands of the Government in its endeavour to bring the pending negotiations for a commercial treaty with China to a successful close. Yet what are the present plans of this pragmatical body? In its latest publication, a compilation of the most fallacious and misleading matter, bearing a title meanly plagiarized from this book, it is announced that the following motion stands upon the Order Book of the House of Commons, and is intended to be moved in the Session for 1883, viz:—
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that in the event of negotiations taking place between the Governments of Her Majesty and China, having reference to the duties levied on opium under the Treaty of Tientsin, the Government of Her Majesty will be pleased to intimate to the Government of China that in any such revision of that treaty the Government of China will be met as that of an independent State, having the full right to arrange its own import duties as may be deemed expedient.