What a modest proposition! The Queen’s Ministers, it appears, cannot be trusted in their negotiations with the Government of China, and Her Majesty in consequence is to be asked to ignore her constitutional advisers, and personally inform the Chinese Minister that his Government shall be treated as an independent state, and so forth. In fact, this proposal is tantamount to a vote, pro tanto at least, of want of confidence in the Government, which, I have little doubt, would be rejected by an overwhelming majority of both sides of the House. I only hope it will be pressed to a division, as the result, I believe, will show to the country in an unmistakable manner, once and for all, the utter insignificance of the Anti-Opium confederacy as a political body, the falsity and mischief of its teaching, and prove the knell of its existence. If motions like this were to be passed, it would be impossible to carry on Her Majesty’s Government. The matter is really too absurd to be seriously dealt with by Parliament, and I bring it before my readers more for the purpose of showing the downright folly, infatuation and fanaticism which characterize this Anti-Opium confederation than for any other purpose. To these political philanthropists and amateur statesmen I would recommend these lines, which seem to me to meet their case exactly:—
“No narrow bigot he, his reasoned view
Thy interest, England, ranks with thine, Peru;
War at our doors, he sees no danger nigh,
But heaves for all alike the impartial sigh;
A steady patron of the world alone,
The friend of every country—save his own.”
Of the missionaries themselves, beyond this opium craze that has unfortunately possessed them, I have nothing to say except to their credit. A more conscientious and deserving body of men this world has never produced; under hardships, troubles, and unspeakable difficulties, they have sped their way with courage and cheerfulness, undeterred by dangers, great privations and hardships which nothing but their strong faith and unflagging zeal in their sacred mission could have enabled them to surmount. Of their ultimate success I entertain, perhaps, as little doubt as they do themselves; but on this opium question the “zeal of their house hath eaten them up,” and they have unconsciously been playing the game of the crafty heathen. Let them pursue their good cause, and not allow themselves to be cajoled by their bitterest enemies; above all, let them keep clear of politics. No clergyman ever improves by intermeddling in such matters, but, on the contrary, by doing so he invariably becomes a bad politician and a worse priest. Let these vast sums, subscribed for the promotion of a chimera, be transferred to the missionaries’ fund, so as to improve the lot of these missionaries and give them a little more comfort in the hostile climate and the bitter fight that is before them. “The labourer is worthy of his hire,” and it is starving the missionary work not to pay its servants liberally, I should say most liberally. With respect to the Rev. Mr. Storrs Turner, whose name I have so often mentioned, and whose writings I have so frequently animadverted upon, I had the pleasure of knowing him in China. No worthier or better gentleman, and no more able and zealous missionary clergyman ever set foot there. In referring to him and his writings as I have done, nothing was further from my thoughts than to impute to him for a moment an unworthy motive. He is in the first rank of the missionary clergymen who stood the brunt of the battle, and is deserving of praise and honour. As yet the missionaries have been like husbandmen tilling an unkindly soil, trying to produce wholesome fruit where only gross weeds grew before; and although small apparently has been the fruit as yet, the unfriendly soil has shown signs of yielding, and I feel assured that the day will come when their labours shall be rewarded with a plenteous harvest.
I have now told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on the opium question; certainly such has been my intention. In doing so I am afraid I may have given pain to many good and excellent people; I know that I have given pain to myself. I can only repeat that I have never intended to impute a wrongful or unworthy motive to any of them. Those who are and have been engaged in the Anti-Opium agitation are, I admit, influenced by the best motives. I have myself throughout been solely actuated by a desire to remove the unfounded delusions that have got possession of these worthy people, which have done great injustice to our fellow-countrymen in China, as well as to the benevolent British public, which has kept this Anti-Opium Society provided with the funds that have enabled them to carry on their operations, to the embarrassment of the administration of our great Indian Entire. Personally, I say again, that I have no interest whatever in the matter, nor have I any leaning towards the interests of any of the merchants now engaged in the opium trade. My hands in this matter are absolutely clean. In the preface to the first edition of these lectures I have explained how and why I came to deliver them; that is my explanation without any mental reservation whatsoever. I have, I admit, a very strong feeling upon the subject, but so also have those who differ from me; and I would ask those most excellent and honourable people to remember that there are two sides to most questions,—to imagine, if they can, that there are other persons, totally opposed to their views, who are quite as honest in their convictions as they are themselves,—to look upon me as one of those persons, and to measure my feelings by the strength of their own. I say this because I have heard that a rumour to the effect of my being in some way personally interested in the Indo-China opium trade has been circulated. If such is the case, this rumour has no foundation in fact. I cannot prevent the dissemination of such reports; but they are, I repeat, utterly groundless. Honest in my purpose, I can afford to treat them with unconcern, and can justly add, whilst far from setting myself up as better than my neighbours, that—
“I am arm’d so strong in honesty,
That they pass me by as the idle wind,
Which I respect not.”