William H. Brereton

The object of these lectures is to tell you what I know about opium smoking in China—a very important subject, involving the retention or loss of more than seven millions sterling to the revenue of India, and what is far more precious, the character and reputation of this great country. With respect to the former, I would simply observe that I do not intend to deal with the question on mere grounds of expediency, strong as such grounds unquestionably are, for, if I believed that one-half of what is asserted by the “Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade,” as to the alleged baneful effects of opium smoking upon the Chinese, were true, I should be the first to raise my humble voice against the traffic, even though it involved the loss, not of seven millions sterling, but of seventy times seven. But it is because I know that these statements and all the grave charges made by the supporters of that society, and repeated from day to day, against the Government of India and the Government of this country, and also against the British merchants of China, to be not only gross exaggerations but absolutely untrue—mere shadowy figments, phantasies, and delusions—that I come forward to draw aside the curtain, and show you that behind these charges there is no substance. Were my knowledge of the opium question derived merely from books and pamphlets, articles in the newspapers, and ordinary gossip, I would not venture to trespass upon your time and attention, because in that respect you have at your disposal the same means of information as I have myself. But I come before you with considerable personal experience, and special knowledge of the subject, having lived and practised as a solicitor for nearly fifteen years in Hong Kong, where I had daily experience, not only of the custom and effects of opium smoking, but also of the trade in opium in both its crude and prepared state. I had there the honour of being solicitor to the leading British and other foreign firms, as well as to the Chinese, from the wealthy merchant to the humble coolie; so that during the whole of that period down to the present time I have had intimate relations in China with foreigners and natives, especially with those engaged in the opium trade. Under these circumstances I had daily intercourse with the people from whom the best and most trustworthy information on the subject of opium and opium smoking could be obtained, and my experience is that opium smoking, as practised by the Chinese, is perfectly innocuous. This is a fact so patent that it forces itself upon the attention of every intelligent resident in China who has given ordinary attention to the subject. The whole question at issue is involved in this one point, for if I show you that opium smoking in China is as harmless, if, indeed, not more so, as beer drinking in England, as I promise you I shall do most conclusively, then cadit quÆstio, there is nothing further in dispute; the Indo-Chinese opium trade will then stand out—as I say it does—free from objection upon moral, political, and social grounds, and the occupation of the Anti-Opium agitators, like Othello’s, will be gone. It is true that the opponents of the Indo-Chinese opium trade interlard their case with political matters wholly beside the question; this they do to make that question look a bigger one than it really is, so as to throw dust in the eyes of the public and impose upon weak minds. For instance, they drag in the miscalled “Opium War” and ring the changes upon it. That war, whether justifiable or not, cannot affect the points at issue. It is an accomplished fact, and it is idle now to introduce it into the present opium question. And though I shall be obliged to go pretty fully into the whole controversy, I ask you to keep your minds steadily fixed upon the real question, which is briefly this: Is opium smoking, as practised in China, detrimental to health and morals, and if so, does the Indo-Chinese opium trade contribute to these results?

I may now at the outset assure you that I do not give expression to my views in the interests of the merchants of China, whether native or foreign, or on behalf of any party whatsoever; nor do I come before you with any personal object, because neither directly nor indirectly have I any pecuniary or personal concern in the opium question, nor, indeed, in any commercial matter in Hong Kong or China. I simply find that unfounded delusions have taken possession of the public mind upon the subject, which have had most mischievous consequences, and are still working much evil. These I wish to dispel, if I can. Furthermore, I have delivered and published these lectures at my own cost, unaided by any other person, so, I think, under these circumstances, that I have some right to be regarded as an impartial witness.

I am aware of no subject, involving only simple matters of fact, and outside the region of party politics, upon which so much discussion has been expended, and about which such widely different opinions are prevalent, as this opium question. On the one side, it is said that, for selfish purposes, we have forced and are still forcing opium upon the people of China; that the Indian Government, with the acquiescence and support of the Imperial Government, cultivates the drug for the purpose of adding seven or eight millions sterling to its revenue, and, with full knowledge of its alleged baneful consequences to the natives of China, exports it to that country. A further charge, moreover, is brought against the British merchants, that they participate in this trade for gain, or, as it is put by the Rev. Mr. Storrs Turner, formerly a missionary clergyman at Hong Kong, but now and for many years the active and energetic Secretary of the Anti-Opium Society, to enable them to make “princely fortunes.” That is the favourite expression of Mr. Turner, who finds, no doubt, that it takes with certain small sections of the public, readier to believe evil of their own countrymen than of the people of other countries, under the belief, perhaps, that in doing so they best display the purity and disinterestedness of their conduct.The Anti-Opium Society and its supporters assert as an incontestable fact that opium smoking is fatal, not only to the body but to the soul; meaning, I suppose, that the custom is destructive to the physical, and demoralising to the moral nature of its votaries, and that the opium traffic is regarded by the people of China with such horror that it prevents the natives from receiving the Gospel from those who help to supply them with this drug, viz., the British people. It is alleged that the use of opium demoralises the Chinese, that it ruins and saps the manhood of the whole nation, with a host of concomitant evils, to which I shall by and by refer more particularly, the whole involving the utmost turpitude, the greatest guilt and the worst depravity on the part of England and the English Government, and still more especially on that of the Indian Government and the British merchants in China. Here I may observe, in passing, that if the objection to opium on the part of the Chinese is so strong, it is rather remarkable that they should not only greedily purchase all the Indian opium we can send them, but cultivate the drug to an enormous extent in their own country. The Anti-Opium Society and its supporters further say that opium culture and opium smoking are of comparatively recent origin in China; and although they do not directly allege that we have introduced those practices, there is throughout all their writings and speeches “a fond desire, a pleasing hope” that the readers or hearers of their books and speeches will form that opinion for themselves. I should tell you that those who hold directly contrary views consist of all the British residents in China, with the exception of some of the Protestant missionaries (of whom I desire to speak with respect), comprising the British merchants, their numerous assistants (an educated and most intelligent body), professional men, traders of all classes, and also all the other foreign merchants and residents in the country—German, American, and others, for there are many nationalities to be met with in China, who with the British form one harmonious community.

Take all these men, differing in nationality and religious persuasions as they do, and I venture to say that you will not find one per cent. of them who will not tell you that the views put forward by these missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society are utterly preposterous, false, and unreal—who will not declare that opium smoking in China is a harmless if not an absolutely beneficial practice; that it produces no decadence in mind or body, and that the allegations as to its demoralising effects are simply untrue. Those who have taken a special interest in the subject know that the poppy is indigenous to China, as it is to the rest of Asia, that opium smoking is and has been a universal custom throughout China, probably for more than a thousand years; that this custom is not confined to a few, but is general amongst the adult male population; limited only, in fact, by the means of procuring the drug. That is my experience also; it is corroborated by others, and therefore I may assert it as a fact. I have used the adjective “Protestant” because, although there are a great number of Roman Catholic and some Greek missionaries in China, no complaint against the opium trade has ever to my knowledge been made by one of these missionaries.

Now, why is this belief so prevalent? Because those foreign residents daily mix with the Chinese, know their habits and customs, hear them talk, sell to them, and buy from them, and being aware, as they all are, of the controversy going on here about opium, and the strenuous efforts that are being made in this country to prevent the Indian Government from allowing opium to be imported into China, they take a greater interest in the subject, and examine the question more carefully than they otherwise might. They, I say, being on the ground and knowing the very people who smoke opium and who have smoked it for years, without injury or decay to their bodily or mental health, have irresistibly come to the same conclusion as I have. For myself, I may say that I have taken a very great interest in the subject, particularly during the past five or six years. I have tried in vain to find out those pitiable victims of opium smoking who have been so much spoken of in books, in newspapers, and on public platforms. Day after day I have gone through the most populous parts of Hong Kong, which is a large city, having about one hundred and fifty thousand Chinese inhabitants—in both the wealthiest and poorest quarters. I have daily had in my office Chinese of all classes, seeing them, speaking to them, interrogating them upon different subjects, and I have never found amongst them any of these miserable victims to opium smoking. On the contrary, more acute, knowing, and intelligent people than these very opium smokers I have rarely met with.

Now, Hong Kong may be said to be, and is, in fact, the headquarters in China of the opium trade. It is there that all the opium coming from India and Persia is first brought. It is, in fact, the entrepÔt or depÔt from which all other parts of China are supplied with the drug. Furthermore, it is the port whence “prepared opium,” the condition in which the drug is smoked, is mostly manufactured and exported to the Chinese in all other parts of the world, for wherever he goes, the Chinaman, if he can afford it, must have his opium-pipe. Moreover, the Chinese of Hong Kong get much better wages and make larger profits in their trades and businesses than they could obtain in their own country; and can, therefore, better afford to enjoy the luxury of the pipe than their own countrymen in China. So that if opium smoking produced the evil consequences alleged, Hong Kong is unquestionably the place where those consequences would be found in their fullest force. They are not to be found there in the slightest degree. One fact is worth a thousand theories, and this I give you as one which I challenge Mr. Storrs Turner or any other advocate of the Anti-Opium Society to disprove. I will now show you how I am corroborated. I have a witness on the subject whose testimony is simply irrefragable. Dr. Philip B. C. Ayres, the learned and efficient Colonial Surgeon, and Inspector of Hospitals of Hong Kong, confirms my statement in the strongest possible manner. That gentleman has held the important office I have mentioned for about ten years. Previous to taking up his appointment at Hong Kong he had been on the Medical Staff of India, where he had made opium and opium eating—for the drug is not smoked in India—a special study. In Hong Kong he has had abundant opportunities of studying the effects of opium smoking and making himself thoroughly acquainted with the wonderful drug, such opportunities, indeed, as few other medical men have ever had. It is part of his daily duties to inspect the Civil Hospital of Hong Kong,—a splendid institution open to all nationalities, and conducted by able medical men,—the Gaol, the Chinese Hospital, called the Tung Wah, which is under exclusive Chinese management, and all other medical institutions in the Colony. Thus a wide field of observation is presented to him. I may add here that Dr. Ayres is the only European physician who has succeeded in removing the prejudice among the better class of the Chinese against European doctors and in obtaining a large native practice. This fact speaks volumes as to his general abilities as well as to his professional attainments and his means of acquainting himself with the social life of the Chinese. In his annual Report presented to the Government of Hong Kong for the year 1881, a copy of which, I believe, is now, or ought to be, in the pigeon-holes of the Colonial Office in Downing Street, there is the following passage:—

I have come to the conclusion that opium smoking is a luxury of a very harmless description, and that the only trouble arising from its indulgence is a waste of money that should be applied to necessaries. Eight mace is equivalent to an ounce and twenty-nine grains, a quantity of opium sufficient to poison a hundred men, smoked by one man in a day, and this he has been doing for twenty years: that is to say, he has consumed in smoke in that time about one thousand pounds sterling, and for this indulgence he has to deny himself and his family many absolute necessaries. The list of admissions contains thirty-five opium smokers, and the amount smoked between them daily was eighty-four mace and a half, or seven dollars worth of opium. The result of my observations this year is only to confirm all I said on the subject of opium smoking in my report for 1880.

Again, Dr. Ayres has published from time to time in the “Friend of China,” the organ of the Anti-Opium Society, various interesting papers on medical subjects. This is what he says in an article which will be found at length at p. 217 of vol. 3 of that journal:—

My opinion of it is that it [opium smoking] may become a habit, but that that habit is not necessarily an increasing one. Nine out of twelve men smoke a certain number of pipes a day, just as a tobacco smoker would, or as a wine or beer drinker might drink his two or three glasses a day, without desiring more. I think the excessive opium smoker is in a greater minority than the excessive spirit drinker or tobacco smoker. In my experience, the habit does no physical harm in moderation.... I do not wish to defend the practice of opium smoking, but in the face of the rash opinions and exaggerated statements in respect of this vice, it is only right to record that no China resident believes in the terrible frequency of the dull, sodden-witted, debilitated opium smoker met with in print, nor have I found many Europeans who believe they ever get the better of their opium-smoking compradores in matters of business.

Let Mr. Storrs Turner refute this, if he can. If he cannot, what becomes of his book[1] published in 1876, which may be called the gospel of the Anti-Opium Society, with which I shall make you better acquainted by and by. And what should become of the Anti-Opium Society itself, which has wasted on its chimerical projects hundreds of thousands of pounds—the contributions of the benevolent British public, which might have been spent in alleviating the misery and distress in this vast metropolis, or been otherwise usefully applied.

The Government of Hong Kong, for the purposes of revenue, has farmed out the privilege or monopoly of preparing this opium and selling it within the colony, and I dare say you will be surprised to hear that the amount paid by the present opium monopolist for the privilege amounts to about forty thousand pounds sterling a year. To elucidate this, I should tell you, that opium as imported from India, Persia, and other places is in a crude or unprepared state. In this condition it is made up in hard round balls, each about the size of a Dutch cheese, but darker in colour. To render it fit for smoking it has to be stripped of its outer covering, shredded, and boiled with water until it becomes a semi-fluid glutinous substance resembling treacle in colour and consistence. In this state it is known as “prepared opium.” As such it is put up into small tins or canisters, hermetically sealed, so that it can be exported to any part of the world. Now, I have been the professional adviser of the opium farmer for at least ten years, and from him and his assistants I have had excellent opportunities of learning the truth about opium. I have thus been able to get behind the scenes, and so have had such opportunities of acquainting myself with the subject as few other Europeans have possessed. I knew the late opium farmer, whom I might call a personal friend, intimately from the time of my first arrival in China. When I call him the opium farmer I mean the ostensible one, for the opium monopoly has always, in fact, been held by a syndicate. My friend was the principal in whose name the license was made out, and who dealt with the wholesale merchants, carried on all arrangements with the Government of the Colony, and chiefly managed the prepared opium business. I knew him so intimately and had so many professional dealings with him, irrespective of opium, that I had constant opportunities of becoming acquainted with all the mysteries of the opium trade. Now the conclusion to which my own personal experience has led me I have told you of before, and I have never met anyone who has lived in China, save the missionaries, whose experience differed from mine. I have tried to find the victims of the so-called dreadful drug, but I have never yet succeeded.

Many people in this country, I dare say, owing to the false and exaggerated stories which have been disseminated by the advocates of the Anti-Opium Society, think that if they went to Hong Kong they would see swarms of wretched creatures, wan and wasted, leaning upon crutches, the victims of opium smoking. If they went to the colony they would be greatly disappointed, for no such people are to be met with. On the contrary, all the Chinese they would see there are strong, healthy, intelligent-looking people, and, mark my words, well able to take care of themselves. I don’t suppose there were five per cent. of my Chinese clients who did not, to a greater or less extent, smoke opium. I have known numbers, certainly not less than five or six hundred persons in all, who have smoked opium from their earliest days—young men, middle-aged men, and men of advanced years, who have been opium smokers all their lives, some of them probably excessive smokers, but I have never observed any symptoms of decay in one of them. I recall to mind one old man in particular, whom I remember for more than fifteen years; he is now alive and well; when I last saw him, about two years ago, he was looking as healthy and strong as he was ten years before. He is not only in good bodily health, but of most extraordinary intellectual vigour, one of the most crafty old gentlemen, indeed, that I have ever met; no keener man of business you could find, or one who would try harder to get the better of you if he could. The only signs of opium smoking about him are his discoloured teeth, by which an excessive smoker can always be detected, for immoderate opium smoking has the same effect, though in a less degree, as the similar use of tobacco, the excessive smoking of which, as I shall by and by show you, is the more injurious practice of the two. The Chinese, as a rule, have extremely white teeth—the effect, perhaps, of their simple diet, and their generally abstemious habits. They are proud of their teeth, which they brush two or three times a day, so that there is no difficulty in distinguishing heavy smokers from those who smoke in moderation. It is easy to compare the one with the other, and I may state that although the former be not often met with, he will be found to be not a whit inferior to the other in wit or sharpness. The old gentleman I have referred to, like many others of his countrymen, will settle himself down of an evening, when the business of the day is over, and enjoy his opium pipe for two or three hours at a stretch, yet, notwithstanding this terrible excess, as the Anti-Opium people would say, he continues strong and well. Nay, more, he has two sons of middle age, healthy, active men, who indulge in the pipe quite as regularly as their aged father. I have known many others like these men, but have never seen or heard of any weakness or decay arising from the practice.

Now, I have told you that the British merchants in China hold the same views as I do upon the opium question. But it may be said that the merchants are interested persons, and in point of fact Mr. Storrs Turner says as much in his book. And, of course, he would have it inferred that what they allege or think on the subject should not have any weight, because they are the very persons in whose interest this so-called iniquitous traffic is being carried on, and that, therefore, they would not say anything likely to dry up their fountain of profit. I only wish for the sake of my fellow-countrymen that all these declarations about princely fortunes were true. Hills look green afar off, but when you approach them they are often found as arid as the desert; and, unfortunately, like Macbeth’s air-drawn dagger, these splendid visions are not “sensible to feeling as to sight,” but simply princely fortunes of the mind “proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain.” Mr. Turner mentions in his book one eminent firm in particular, the oldest and probably the greatest in China or the far East, a firm respected throughout the whole mercantile world, whose public spirit, boundless charity, and general benevolence are proverbial, whom he stigmatizes as “opium merchants,” and who are, of course, making the imaginary “princely fortune” by opium. Now if that gentleman had taken the least trouble to inquire before he launched his book upon the world, he would have found that the firm he refers to in such terms had had little or nothing to do with opium for at least twenty years. That is not, perhaps, a matter of much importance. If he had taken the trouble to make further inquiry, he could have had no difficulty in ascertaining, what I tell him now as a fact, and one within my own personal knowledge, that the only merchants in China who are making large profits out of opium are just two or three firms, who, by the undulations and fluctuations inseparable from commerce, have got the bulk of the trade into their hands, and that all the other British merchants throughout China, and all the foreign merchants, Germans, Americans, and others, have really little or nothing to do with the opium trade at all. Of course, merchants now and then will have to execute orders for opium for a constituent who may require a chest or two of the drug, but that is only in the course of business, and is not attended with any profit to speak of. And I am perfectly sure that if it were possible to put a stop to this opium traffic, which is said to be the source of so much profit to many, that, saving the two or three firms I have mentioned, the suppression of the trade would make no difference to the other firms. This gross blunder of Mr. Storrs Turner is characteristic of the general inaccuracy of his book. Before casting odium upon an eminent firm common decency, if not prudence, to say nothing of good taste, should have induced him to make careful inquiries upon the subject. This, it is clear, he has not done, and, as if to make matters worse, although his book appeared so long ago as 1876, in an article published in the “Nineteenth Century” for February 1882, he has again gratuitously referred to this firm in terms as unjustifiable as they are absolutely unfounded. He couples the firm with another house now dissolved, and says, “they were legally smugglers, but the sin sat lightly upon their consciences.” Very pretty this for a minister of the Gospel and the Secretary of the Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade. The statement, even if true, was wholly unnecessary for the professed object of the writer, and why he made it is best known to himself. This is the gentleman by whose persistent efforts those fallacious and mischievous views upon the opium question have during the past eight years been mainly forced upon the public, and to whom the prolonged existence of that most mischievous organization, the Anti-Opium Society, is due. He is the Frankenstein who has created the monster that has deceived and scared so many excellent people. I will show you that this monster is but a poor bogey after all, with just as much form and substance as that with which Mrs. Shelley affrights her readers in her clever romance. On the other hand, do not let it be thought, as I believe has been said by some enthusiasts, that it is owing to the British merchants in China having discovered that opium is an unclean thing, and to their having washed their hands of all participation in the traffic, that the trade has fallen into the hands of a few, who of course would, by parity of reasoning, be set down as very unscrupulous people. That is a fallacy, and, what is more, it is an untruth. I do not believe there is a British firm, or a firm of any other nationality, in China, which would not, if the opportunity presented itself, become to-morrow “opium merchants,” as Mr. Turner expresses it, if they thought the trade would prove a source of profit, because they hold, with me, that the opium traffic is a perfectly proper and legitimate one, quite as much so as traffic in tobacco, wine, or beer; and a thousand times less objectionable than the trade in ardent spirits.

Before proceeding further, it is important that I should bring to your notice some particulars about China and its people. It is actually necessary to do so, to enable you to grasp the facts and see your way well before you. Although the opium question ought to be a simple one, yet, owing to the sophistries and misrepresentations of the Anti-Opium Society, and in particular of its Secretary and living spirit, Mr. Storrs Turner, a wide field is opened to us across which it will be necessary to lead you to chase the phantom off the plain. The public here are very apt to think of China as if it were a country like Italy, France, or England. They never dream for a moment of the immense empire which China actually is. Perhaps if they did, and could take in the whole situation, they would be slower to believe the extraordinary stories which are spread about our forcing opium upon the Chinese, and, by doing so, demoralizing the nation. We forget, as we grow old, much that we have learned in our youth, especially geography, and I daresay many a schoolboy could enlighten myself and others upon that particular branch of education. China, it must be remembered, is a country which cannot be compared with France, Spain, or England, for it is a vast empire, as large as Europe, with a population some fifty or sixty millions greater. Now, what a stupendous feat to be able to storm, as it were, that enormous empire, and for a handful of British merchants to succeed in forcing opium upon, and, by doing so, debasing the whole of this wonderful people. Yet this is what is alleged by the anti-opium philanthropists and by Mr. Storrs Turner, who is their priest and prophet, and so his enthusiastic disciples believe, to whom I would merely say,—“Great is thy faith.” These plain facts are not brought forward by the Anti-opium people. The public are addressed and pleas are put forward for their support on the ground that we are dealing with a country of the like extent as our own, inhabited by a primitive semi-civilized people. No greater fallacy, no more downright untruth could be put forward. The Chinese are not only a civilized but an educated people. Until quite recently there were more people in the British Islands, in proportion to their population, who could neither read nor write than in China.

It must be borne in mind that the empire of China comprises eighteen provinces, quite large enough to form eighteen separate kingdoms. I am speaking now of China Proper, and am leaving out Thibet, Mongolia, and Manchuria, immense countries to the West, North-West, and North of China, and also the vast possessions of China in Central Asia, all forming part of that great empire. Many of these eighteen provinces are larger than Great Britain; one of them is equal in extent to France. Although there is in one sense a language common to the whole country, yet not only has each province a dialect of its own, different from that of the others, but it has, so to speak, innumerable sub-dialects. Dialect, perhaps, is hardly the correct word; it is more than a dialect, for not only each province, but each district or county, has a dialect, differing so essentially from each other that the people of one province, or one district, can, in most instances, no more make themselves colloquially understood by those of another than a Frenchman could make himself intelligible to an Englishman, if neither knew the language of the other. You will often find people living in villages not more than fifteen or twenty miles apart who cannot converse with one another. I have seen in my own office a man belonging to the province of Kwang-tung, in the south of China, unable to speak in Chinese to a native of the adjoining province of Fuh-kien. In this case the native villages of these two were not more than ten miles apart, and the only medium of conversation was the barbarous jargon in which Europeans and Chinese carry on their dealings, called “pidgin English”—a species of broken English of the most ridiculous kind. Now, when you take into account that each province differs in language from each other—for that is really what the case practically comes to—that they have separate dialects in each province, and also, to a certain extent, different customs and certain prejudices, I ask you, does it not appear a gigantic, if not an impossible, task for England, a small and distant country, to be able to demoralize, debase, and corrupt the people of each of these eighteen provinces? Yet that is really the allegation of the Anti-Opium Society against their own country, this small and distant England!

I have said that there are customs peculiar to each of these provinces, but there are others common to all; one of them is opium smoking; another, I am sorry to say, is hatred and contempt of foreigners. They one and all agree in regarding foreigners as an inferior race, whose customs, language, and religion they despise. Among the common people every foreigner, of whatsoever nationality, is called “Fan-Qui,” or “foreign devil.” The designation of foreigners amongst the better classes of people is “outer barbarian.” No better instance could I give you than this to show the strong prejudice held by the whole nation against foreigners. “Fan-Qui” is still the term used by the lower orders to denote foreigners, even in the British colony of Hong Kong. To remedy this state of things, at the time of the making of the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 (which is the existing treaty between the two nations), Lord Elgin, the author of the treaty, had very properly a stipulation inserted that the term “outer barbarian” should no longer be applied to British subjects. Now, when you take into account that not only are these three hundred and sixty millions of people spread over an enormous empire, having a prejudice common to all parts alike against foreigners, as well as their own prejudices against each other, forming eighteen separate provinces or kingdoms, speaking different languages, is it reasonable to suppose that they would, so to speak, simultaneously adopt the practice of opium smoking when introduced by the despised foreigner? If these people still despise our customs, as they do our religion, as they do everything, in fact, belonging to us, how can it be said that we are forcing this foreign drug upon them to their destruction?

I have already mentioned that the custom of opium smoking is common to all the people of these eighteen provinces. Whether they live in the valleys or on the hills they smoke opium. Now Mr. Turner is a great enemy of opium smoking; he is its determined opponent, and I do not think I wrong him—I certainly do not mean to do so—when I describe him as a person strongly prejudiced against the practice. The best, the wisest, and ablest among us have prejudices, and it is casting no stigma upon that gentleman to say that he has his. When I make you better acquainted with his book, which I shall soon do, you will, I think, agree with me on this point. When people have those strong prepossessions they are prone not to judge facts fairly; they see things, in short, through a false medium. That which to an ordinary person appears plain and clear enough, to one under the influence of prejudice stands out in different colours, and is passed over as untrue or misleading; sometimes, however, the plain truth will leak out, in spite of prejudice. It is laid down by legal text writers that truth is natural to the human mind, that the first impulse of a man if interrogated upon a point is to tell the truth, and that it is only when he has had time to consider, that he is inclined to swerve from it. Now in this book of Mr. Turner’s, at p. 13, he confirms my statement. This is what he says. I need not read to you the previous part, because the context does not alter the sense of my quotation. He is arguing against the allegation of pro-opium people that opium has a beneficial result in counteracting the effects of malaria and ague, and he says:—

These curious arguments are two. First, that the universal predilection of the Chinese for opium is owing to the malarious character of the country; secondly, that the use of opium is a wholesome corrective to the unwholesome, even putrid, food which the Chinese consume. The reply to the first is that the country over which opium is smoked is in area about the size of Europe, and includes, perhaps, an equal variety of sites, soils, and climates, great plains level as our own fen district, and mountainous regions like the Highlands of Scotland. Ague is almost unknown in many of the provinces—yet everywhere, in all climates and all soils, in every variety of condition and circumstance throughout that vast empire, the Chinese smoke opium.

Now that is the testimony of the Rev. Storrs Turner, the most strenuous and, as I believe, the ablest advocate against the Indo-China opium trade. But then he adds:—

Well, nobody ever said they all did smoke opium. Females, as a rule, do not smoke, and children don’t smoke. It is only the grown men, and those who can afford to buy the drug, who smoke it. China, for its extent and its vast and industrious population, is still a poor country. Although its natural resources are considerable, the great bulk of the people are in poor circumstances. It is only those above the very poor who can afford to smoke opium occasionally, and only well-to-do people who are able to do so habitually. Opium smoking is, in fact, a luxury in which, every Chinaman who can afford it indulges more or less, just as English people who have sufficient means drink tea, wine, and beer, or smoke tobacco. The effects of opium smoking are no more injurious than are those articles, in daily use in England, nor is its use more enslaving. On the contrary, from my own observation, I feel persuaded that those who habitually drink wine or spirits are far more liable to abuse and become enslaved to the habit than the smoker of opium. This, as you are now aware, is confirmed by the great authority of Dr. Ayres. Yet Mr. Storrs Turner, in the face of that most damaging admission, and his disciples would have the British public believe that by supplying the Chinese with a small quantity of opium, which is used and grown largely in almost every province, district, and village of China, we are demoralizing and degrading the whole people. Now, if this practice of opium smoking has existed, and does exist, throughout these eighteen provinces, over this large and mighty empire, as Mr. Storrs Turner admits, can it be urged for a moment that England has had anything to do with it more than that Englishmen, in common with other foreigners, have imported for the last forty or forty-five years a quantity of the drug very much less than that actually grown in China itself? I say she has not. I say that opium smoking has existed for a thousand years or more, and that its use by the natives of China is simply limited by the extent of their purchasing power. But how is it that such divergent opinions can exist between Englishmen living in China and certain Englishmen here at home? My answer is, that the former, the English residents in China, derive their knowledge on the subject from actual experience formed from personal intercourse with the natives, from seeing with their own eyes, and hearing with their own ears; whilst people in England obtain their information from hearsay only. Hearsay testimony is their sole guide; and, as I shall show you by and by, this hearsay evidence is of the worst and most unreliable kind. But still the question remains why this should be so; why is it that among the educated and intelligent people of England, in an age when newspapers are universal, and books of travel cheap and plentiful, that such an extraordinary difference of opinion should exist? I will now give you the explanation of these opposite views.

The first is this:—China is ten thousand miles away. If that country were as near to us as the Continent of Europe, to which it is equal in extent, the people of England, including all these Anti-Opium advocates, would be of the same mind as their countrymen in China. The field of the imposture would then be so close to us that the delusion could no longer be sustained—if, indeed, under such circumstances it could ever have existence—it would be seen through at once. If it were sought to prove that we were corrupting and demoralizing the whole of the natives of the Continent by selling them spirits, beer, or opium, and if the persons who did so were to pity, patronize, and caress those people as if they were an inferior race, and but semi-civilized, as the anti-opium people do with the Chinese,—the persons who attempted to act in such an extraordinary manner would be scoffed at as visionaries, if not downright fools; yet the parallel is complete. Indeed, taking into account the existing prejudices of the Chinese against foreigners, the sound sense of the people of China and their frugal and abstemious habits, there should be less difficulty in effecting such wonderful results in Europe than in China. Perhaps, however, the best illustration of this is that afforded by the present agitation here in England, under the leadership of Sir Wilfrid Lawson against the liquor traffic. The evils of intemperance, unlike those alleged against opium smoking, are real evils, and are admitted to be so by all. Everyone is agreed upon this point; yet a large portion of our revenue, amounting to some twenty-six millions sterling, is derived from taxes upon spirits, wine, and beer, the abuse of which produces these evils. Sir Wilfrid Lawson is as determined a foe to the Indo-China opium trade as he is to the liquor traffic. Why does he not apply the same rule to the one as to the other? Why does he ask the Government to forego the eight millions derived from opium in India, and not demand the abrogation of these spirit, wine, and beer duties which are derived from so wicked a source here in England? He and his Anti-Opium friends would, if they could, prohibit the cultivation and exportation of opium in India, why do not he and his fellow teetotallers call upon the country to prohibit the manufacture of alcoholic liquors? Some few months ago an Anti-Opium meeting took place at, I think, Newcastle, attended by Sir Wilfrid Lawson. In the course of a facetious speech the Honourable Baronet, becoming serious, made quite light of this ridiculously small sum of eight millions sterling derived from the opium trade, and declared that he who did not believe that a substitute for it could be found was a “moral atheist”—whatever that may mean. Why does he not call upon the Government to forego the sum of twenty-six millions derived from alcohol, which is not more to England, if indeed so much, as the eight millions are to India, and declare that any person who said we could not find a substitute was a “moral atheist”? I answer thus: because the one concerns matters here at home with which he and the rest of the public are well acquainted, whilst the other relates to affairs ten thousand miles away, about which he and they know little or nothing. Sir Wilfrid and his followers very well know that if they advocated the abolition of the duties on spirits, wine, and beer, they would be simply scoffed at by the public as fools and visionaries, and that, on the other hand, if they required all our distilleries and breweries and all public-houses to be closed, they would be treated as downright lunatics; but it is quite different as regards India and China. With matters in those countries these enthusiastic gentlemen can and do disport themselves very much as they please, oblivious to the plainest facts.The second is this:—There is, here in England, that powerful association, “The Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade,” whose sole object is to attain the end which its name imports, the abolition of the Indo-China opium trade, on the alleged ground that it is demoralizing and ruining the natives of China. That Society, I deeply regret to say, is supported by some of the most influential people in England—noblemen, archbishops, and other dignitaries of the Church, clergymen of all denominations, people justly and deservedly commanding the respect of their fellows—but who, on this opium question, simply know little or nothing, who implicitly believe all that is told to them by the agents of that Society, but otherwise have no knowledge of the facts. When it is taken into account that this body has immense funds at its command, that it has the support of a large part of what is known as the “religious world,” and that the Society has branches and agencies ramified throughout the whole country, the reader will not fail to perceive how this extraordinary hallucination, these false and unfounded delusions respecting opium smoking, have got possession of the public mind. In former times we have had associations formed for the purpose of carrying out great public objects and of disseminating knowledge necessary for the country to comprehend those objects; but you will find that for the most part these societies have dealt with acknowledged and existing facts. For instance, there was the “Anti-Corn Law League.” The purposes of that league were understood by everyone; the main facts were admitted because they existed here in England and were patent to all. It was only a matter of opinion between two great political parties whether they should be dealt with in one particular way or not. That league was formed for a great national object; but the Anti-Opium Society of which I am speaking has been got up to carry out the opinions of a few individuals, most respectable, I admit, but at the same time most enthusiastic—I may say, indeed, fanatical—holding views the most incorrect and delusive upon a subject with which they are most imperfectly acquainted.

Meantime, this Society, through its ubiquitous and indefatigable Secretary, who may be called the “Head Centre” of the confederacy, and its other agents, is for ever on the alert. Let any gentleman who has bad experience of opium smoking, whether in India or China, write to the newspapers; let him read a paper at a meeting of any of our scientific bodies disputing the alleged facts of the opium-phobists, and he is marked out as a prey. Sir Rutherford Alcock, whose high character, thorough knowledge of China, and great abilities are well known, with a view of putting the opium question before the public in a correct and proper light, published an able and, indeed, unanswerable article in the “Nineteenth Century” for December 1881 (“Opium and Common Sense”), when Mr. Storrs Turner plunged into print with a counter article in the number for February 1882 of the same Review (“Opium and England’s Duty”), to which I have already alluded. This article purports to be an answer to the former one, but it is nothing of the kind, for it is a mere rechauffÉ of his book, and wholly fails in its alleged purpose. Again Sir Rutherford Alcock, with the same laudable object, early in 1882, read an able and interesting paper on the opium question before the Society of Arts. It was listened to by many scientific gentlemen and others. Sir Rutherford knows the truth about opium, and he told it in his paper. The Rev. Storrs Turner was there; he knew the damaging revelations which Sir Rutherford Alcock had made, and so much afraid was he of the effects of the fusillade, that to rally his dismayed followers he improvised a meeting of his most devoted disciples two or three days afterwards at the Aquarium. I venture to say there was not a pro-opium advocate present at his meeting I do not think the meeting was ever advertised—I certainly saw no advertisement of it in the newspapers—and Mr. Turner, on that occasion, exhorted his followers to hold fast to the true faith, refuting in the way, no doubt most satisfactory to himself and his audience, the facts, figures, and arguments of Sir Rutherford. So it is with articles and letters in the newspapers. Many gentlemen well-informed upon the opium question have published letters dealing with this question on the pro-opium side; whereupon Mr. Turner and other anti-opium advocates at once pounce down upon them, and repeat the same old stale exploded stories about demoralization and what not. But latterly, and since the first edition of these lectures was published, Mr. Turner has preferred to carry on the anti-opium agitation more quietly, for I think I have thrown cold water upon the zeal of him and his friends. His plan now is to get together in private conclave a few medical gentlemen and others whose opinions he has first made sure of; certain resolutions are then produced ready cut and dry, which are passed with acclamation and inserted in the newspapers. This sort of thing deceives nobody but the infatuated dupes of the Anti-Opium Society, for whose edification they are principally intended; just as the American orator, though speaking to empty benches in Congress, made what his constituents at Bunkum considered a capital speech.

All these anti-opium articles, speeches, and resolutions are based upon the same model. They assume certain statements as existing and acknowledged facts which have never been proved to be such, and then proceed to draw deductions from those alleged facts. This style of argument can scarcely be praised for its fairness; it certainly places those who hold contrary views, and who object to employing similar tactics, at a disadvantage. This is especially remarkable in Mr. Storrs Turner’s article in the “Nineteenth Century.” There the writer, taking all his facts for granted, plunges at once in medias res, and proceeds to enlighten his readers with all the confidence of the pedagogue who, strong in his axioms and postulates, explains to his admiring pupils the mysteries of the “Asses’ Bridge.” The English people have hitherto had little or no knowledge of the opium question, save what they hear through the Anti-Opium Society, in whose teaching some of them put faith, if only for the reason that they are mostly clergymen and others of high character. And here I may observe that, supposing the pro-opium advocates, or perhaps I should more correctly say the general public, had a counter society to disseminate their opinions, that they had organised a committee with command of ample funds, and had officers to carry out their views, this Anglo-Oriental Society would be strangled in three months; for fiction, however speciously represented, cannot hold its own against fact. There is an old saying that “what is everybody’s business is nobody’s business,” and so it has been with the pro-opium side of the question. The foreign merchants in China, as a body, have no interest in the Indo-China opium trade. They would not care if the trade were to be suppressed to-morrow, and therefore they take no active part in opposing the Anti-Opium Society. The general public also take little or no interest in the matter, and it is really only those who are actuated by a sense of duty, or who, like myself, have followed the question, and who, from practical acquaintance and a thorough research into all its bearings, take more than ordinary interest in the subject, who think of refuting the monstrous misrepresentations of the anti-opium people. Therefore it is that the other side have had practically the whole field to themselves. Upon the like conditions any imposture could for a time be successfully carried on. The days of the anti-opium agitation are, however, happily drawing to a close. A flood of light from various sources has within the past year been thrown upon the subject. The unwholesome mists of ignorance, prejudice, and fanaticism are clearing away, and the truth about opium is becoming visible at last. And here I would observe that in using the word “imposture” I do not mean to impugn the motives of any of the good and benevolent people who support this Society. I speak of the thing, not of those who have created or are supporting it.

I have before slightly touched upon the charges brought against the British Government and the British nation respecting opium. I will formulate them more particularly now; as the subject cannot, I think, be thoroughly understood unless I do so. I have read Mr. Storrs Turner’s book and his reply to Sir R. Alcock, very carefully; I have read anti-opium speeches delivered in London, Manchester, Leeds, and London upon the subject; they all come to the same thing—one is a repetition of the other. As I understand the matter, this is what the charges of the Anti-Opium Society amount to. It is alleged that opium smoking, once commenced, cannot be laid aside, that it poisons the blood, reduces the nervous and muscular powers, so that strong men under the use of opium speedily become debilitated and unfit for labour; that opium smoking paralyses the mind as well as the body, and produces imbecility, or at least mental weakness; that it so demoralises the people using it, that it converts honest and industrious men from being useful members of society into lazy, dishonest scoundrels; that it saps the manhood and preys like a cankerworm upon the vitals of the Chinese people, injuring the commonwealth and threatening even the existence of the nation if the custom of opium smoking be not stopped, which, it is alleged, can be effected only by the supply of opium from India being discontinued. It is urged, in fact, that the sale of Indian opium to the Chinese is a crime not only against the people of China but against humanity; that much, if not all, of the misery and crime prevalent throughout China are due, either directly or indirectly, to the use of opium; and for all these fearful results England is held responsible. It is further said, that the sale of British opium to the Chinese interferes with legitimate commerce, creating, it is alleged, so much bitterness in the native mind against the English nation, that the Chinese refuse to buy our goods. And, above all, it is contended that the Indo-China opium trade impedes the progress of Christianity, the Chinese refusing to accept the Gospel from a people who have such terrible crimes to answer for as the introduction of Indian opium into China. Since the days of Judge Jeffereys never was there such a terrible indictment, nor one so utterly unfounded as happily it is. In fact, all the objections that in old times were made against negro slavery have been brought forward against this harmless and perfectly justifiable Indo-China opium trade. Indeed Mr. Storrs Turner, in his article in the “Nineteenth Century,” coolly places the two in the same category, and modestly proposes that the revenue from opium should be discontinued, and that England should compensate the Indian Government for the loss, just as she did the slave owners. It is astonishing how liberal your political philanthropist can be in the disposal of other people’s money. Well, I had always thought that the Government of India, for the past sixty years at least, had been actuated by one great and prominent object—the amelioration, the happiness, and prosperity of the teaming millions committed to its care, and I think so still. I have always believed that the Imperial Government, no matter which party was from time to time in power, had the prosperity, honour, and dignity of their country at heart, and were influenced by a sincere desire towards all the world to be just and fear not, and to diffuse as much happiness as possible amongst our own people, and all other nations and races with whom we became associated all over the world, and I remain of that opinion still. Some fifty years ago we washed the stain of slavery from our hands, performing that great act of justice from a pure sense of duty, without any outside pressure, and also without shedding a drop of blood. This act was unique, for at the time slavery existed in every country, and had so existed for thousands of years. We know that, thirty years later, a similar achievement cost a kindred nation a long and bloody war, and an aggregate money expenditure far exceeding our own national debt—the growth of centuries. That feat of ours showed what the mind and heart of this great nation then were, and I do not believe that we have since degenerated. Since then we have spent many millions of money in sweeping slavery from the seas and in endeavouring to put an end to that accursed evil throughout the world. In doing this our pecuniary loss has been the least of our sacrifices. We have spent more than money. We have lost in the struggle the lives of some of the best and noblest of England’s sons. These are acts worthy of a great nation; compared with them the objects of the Anti-Opium Society sink into utter insignificance. The sublime and the ridiculous could not be brought more vividly face to face.

For the last fifty years there has been one feeling predominant in the minds of the people of England, and that is a manly, generous anxiety to protect the weak against the strong all over the world. Yet these foul and untenable charges against England are now spread broadcast by this Society, whose only warrant for doing so are the statements made to them by a handful of fanatical missionary clergymen, whose unfounded and fantastic views are accepted as so much dogma which it would be heresy to doubt. Why, if we were guilty of but half the wickedness attributed to us, it would not require this Anti-Opium Society to cry it down; the nation would rise as one man to crush it for ever. There is not a British merchant in China who would not raise his voice against it, aye, though he was making that princely fortune which Mr. Turner refers to in his book; for let me assure you that your fellow-countrymen in China, who are but sojourners in that land, as they all hope to end their days at home, have as warm a love for their country and as keen a sense of their country’s honour and dignity as any set of Englishmen residing here at home, however high their station and great their wealth.

To prove to you, if indeed further proof is necessary, that I have not overstated the case as regards the extreme views of the missionaries and the Anti-Opium Society, I will give you their latest production. It comes from the fountain-head, and takes the form of a petition of “the Ministers of the Gospel in China” to the House of Commons. This petition was prepared by the Missionaries of Peking, and is a gem in its way. It would never do to put the reader off with a mere extract, so I give it in extenso. It was drawn up and sent round for signature during the past summer, and appeared in the Shanghai and Hong Kong newspapers. This is the document:—

The thoughts that occurred to me after reading this petition were these:—First it struck me that the missionaries, like the unfortunate Bourbons, “had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.” I thought next of the wonderful solicitude shown by these missionaries for the mercantile interest. “By the ill name the opium trade has given to foreign commerce,” they say, “the trade in foreign manufactures and general commerce has been retarded, and must continue to suffer while the opium traffic lasts.” Well, it is remarkable that this complaint is not made by the people whose interests are alleged to have so suffered, but by missionary clergymen, who ought to know little or nothing upon the subject; they are not merchants, and associate very little with mercantile men, either native or foreign, and certainly, if they minded their own business, could not possibly have that knowledge of mercantile affairs with which they appear to be so familiar. The persons who ought to know whether foreign manufactures or foreign trade have fallen off owing to the opium traffic, are the foreign merchants resident in China, whose especial duty it is to look after those interests, yet these gentlemen, strange to say, have made no complaint of the kind. Those merchants are directly concerned in foreign manufactures and general commerce either as principals or as agents for absent principals in England and elsewhere; they, in fact, exclusively manage foreign trade in China. There is a chamber of commerce in Hong Kong and another in Shanghai, whose members are all keen men of business, actively alive to their own and their constituents’ interests, and in constant communication with similar mercantile bodies at home; moreover, there are excellent daily papers published in both these places, where such grievances, if they existed, could be freely ventilated; yet the missionaries of the Gospel in Peking would have the House of Commons and the world believe that the foreign merchants in China, who are always wide-awake, are blind to their own interests and slumbering at their posts. Now why have not these merchants ever complained that commerce has suffered from the opium traffic? Why, simply because there is no foundation in fact for such complaint. I am afraid that with the missionaries who make this most unfounded statement the “wish was father to the thought.” Every man ought to know his own business best, and you will generally find that when a stranger professes great interest in your affairs, and presses upon you gratuitous advice upon the subject, he is not really actuated by a desire to promote your interests, but has some other and totally different object in view. So it is with these missionary gentlemen at Peking. There is just one other point connected with this remarkable Petition to which I would call attention. Evidently feeling the ground slipping from under their feet, the framers, adding another string to their bow, extend their sympathies beyond China, and take British Burmah under their patronage. Indeed, it seems to me that these missionary clergymen of Peking would, if they could, not only supersede the Viceroy of India in his management of the Indian Empire, but even Her Majesty the Queen and her immediate Government.

I should here, however, in justice to the entire missionary body, say, that all of them are not so deluded as their brethren at Peking. There is one bright, particular star, at least, which shines through the Egyptian darkness that enshrouds the rest. The Reverend F. Galpin, of the English Methodist Free Church, is a respected missionary clergyman at Ningpo, an important port on the east coast of China. He, unlike most of his brethren at other places in that country, when asked to sign this curious petition, very properly declined to do so. All honour to Mr. Galpin. He was not afflicted with the midsummer madness of his brethren at Peking. Were all the Protestant missionaries in China like him, we should not have heard of these absurd and monstrous stories respecting the Indo-China opium trade, and there would, perhaps, be larger and better results from the missionary’s labours. This is the manly, sensible, and dignified reply of Mr. Galpin:—

No doubt these most estimable and respectable but infatuated gentlemen suppose that their petition will have some weight with the Legislature. I believe and hope it will, but not exactly of the kind expected; for I shall be surprised indeed, if it be not treated as it deserves, i.e. as a downright contempt of the House of Commons; for it seems to me to be an insult to the common sense not only of the House in its collective capacity, but of every individual member. In saying this I am far from attributing to these missionary clergymen a wilful intention to state what they knew to be untrue, nor to insult or mislead the Legislature, for I am assured that one and all of them would be incapable of so doing. I am sure they thoroughly believe every word they have stated to be true; but then it must be remembered that the effect upon the public mind and the injury done to society by the publication of fallacious and untrue statements, are in no way lessened because their authors suppose those statements to be, in fact, true and correct.

I have shown you that Mr. Turner admits that opium smoking is common all over China. But, he says, the Chinese do not all smoke. In his book he affirms that it is only in recent years that opium has been grown in China. This is the passage, it occurs at page 2:—“Indigenous in Asia, the first abode of the human species, the poppy has long been cultivated in Egypt, Turkey, Persia, and recently in China and Manchuria. It is well known in our gardens, grows wild in some parts of England, and is cultivated in Surrey for the supply of poppy heads to the London market. From the time of Hippocrates to the present day it has been the physician’s invaluable ally in his struggles against disease and death.”

This is about the most remarkable statement I have ever read. The greater includes the less, and if the poppy is indigenous to Asia it is, of course, indigenous also to China and Manchuria, which with the other dominions of China comprise fully one-fourth of the entire Asiatic continent. This, indeed, Mr. Storrs Turner does not deny in terms, but it is plain he wished his readers to believe that the poppy was not indigenous to those countries, and was only recently introduced there. The passage involves that sort of fallacy which Lord Palmerston termed “a distinction without a difference.” As to the poppy being indigenous to the whole of Asia and notably to the most fertile parts of it, e.g. China and Manchuria, there can be no doubt, and therefore no difference, but the distinction is that it is only of late years that it has been cultivated in those countries. The poppy may grow wild over a continent, but be cultivated only in a part. I will show you by-and-by, upon excellent authority and by the strongest grounds for inference, that the poppy is not only indigenous to China, but has been cultivated there for various purposes other than for medical ones and for smoking, certainly for two thousand, and probably for four or five thousand years. An ordinary reader, especially one not familiar with the geography of Asia, would conclude from this passage in Mr. Turner’s book that China and Manchuria were not in Asia at all, but that of late years the poppy had been introduced into those countries from that continent. Thus much for the Gospel of the Anti-opiumists.

I now confront Mr. Storrs Turner with another book, which everyone must admit is of greater authority than his. It is a book published towards the close of 1881 by a high official of the Chinese Government, then Mr. but now Sir Robert Hart, G.C.M.G., the Inspector-General of Chinese Customs, a man who knows China and the Chinese better, perhaps, than any living European. That gentleman tells a very different tale about opium to what the Anti-Opium Society has hitherto regaled the world with. This book is an official one, issued from the Statistical Department of the Inspector-General of Chinese Customs at Shanghai for the use and guidance of the Chinese Government. It stands upon a very different footing to the volume published by Mr. Turner, the paid secretary and strenuous advocate of the Anti-Opium Society. Sir Robert Hart has entire control over the revenue of China as far as regards foreign trade. At every treaty port open to foreign vessels there is a foreign Commissioner of Customs, and Sir Robert Hart is the supreme head of these commissioners. He is a man deservedly trusted and respected by the Chinese Government; a man of learning and talents, and I need hardly add of the very highest character, and, I believe, he is one of the most accomplished Chinese scholars that could be found. He says that opium has been grown in China from a remote period, and was smoked there before a particle of foreign opium ever came into the country. This is the passage from his—the now famous yellow-book:—

So much for Mr. Storrs Turner’s bold assertion that it is only recently that opium has been cultivated in China; the obvious inference which he wished the reader to draw from it being that it was the importation of the Indian drug into China that induced the natives to plant opium there. Now, with respect to that most unfounded charge of the Chinese disliking the English for introducing opium into their country, and British commerce declining in consequence, I assure you that all that is simply moonshine. These statements are not merely false assumptions, they are simply untrue. No one who has had any experience of China and its people, does not know perfectly well, that of the whole foreign trade with China the British do at least four-fifths; not only have we the lion’s share of the trade, but it is an unquestionable fact that of all the nations who have made treaties and had dealings with China, the British are and have been for many years the most respected by the Chinese people. It is, I say, an indisputable fact, that notwithstanding all our past troubles about smuggling and our wars with China, which Mr. Turner is so fond of dilating upon, that at this day, by high and low, rich and poor, from the mandarin to the humble coolie, England is held in higher regard than any other nation. If trade with China has in any way declined, the fact is traceable to other and different causes, which it is not my province to enter upon.

Now, why are England and Englishmen thought so well of by the Chinese? It is simply because the British merchants and British people in China have acted towards the Chinese, with whom they have been brought into contact, with honour and rectitude—because in their intercourse with the natives they have been kind, considerate, and obliging—because, instead of resenting the old rude and overbearing manners of the Chinese officials and others, they have returned good for evil, and shown by their conciliatory bearing, and gentlemanly and straightforward conduct, that the British people are not the barbarians they had been taught to believe. By such means the British residents in China have gone far to break down the barrier of prejudice towards foreigners behind which the people of that country had hedged themselves, thus preparing the way for the labours of the missionaries and making, in fact, missionary work possible. If further proof were wanting that the British are held in high estimation by the people and the Government of China, it will be found in the fact, that our own countryman, Sir Robert Hart, who before entering the service of the Chinese Government had been in the diplomatic service of his own country, now occupies the high and honourable position of Inspector-General of Chinese Customs, and is, I may add, the trusted counsellor of the Government of China.

It is not very long since the Governor of Canton paid a visit to the Governor of Hong Kong; such an act of courtesy to Her Majesty’s representative on the part of so great a Chinese magnate was until then, I believe, unprecedented. The constant exclamation of the great mandarin as he was being driven through the streets of Hong Kong was—“What a wonderful place! What a wonderful place!” in allusion to the fine buildings, the wide and clean streets,—a strong contrast to those of Canton—and the dense and busy population around him. And yet more recently, that is during the summer of 1882, a greater personage still paid an official visit to the Hon. W. H. Marsh, who during the absence of Sir George Bowen, the Governor, worthily administers the affairs of the colony—I refer to the present viceroy of the provinces of Kwantung and Kwangsi, commonly called the “two Kwangs,” an official only next in importance to His Excellency Li Hung Chang, the Governor of Petchili. Do you think we should have such a state of things if we were demoralizing and ruining the people of China, as is alleged by the Anti-Opium Society, or if, indeed, the Chinese people or Government had any real grievance against us.

Upon this point I cannot refrain from mentioning an incident that occurred soon after I arrived in China. A respectable Chinaman asked me to prepare his will. He gave me for the purpose, written instructions in Chinese characters, which I had translated. On reading the translation I found his instructions very clearly drawn up, but what was gratifying to me, and what is pertinent to my subject, was the following passage, with which he commenced them:—“Having,” said he, “under the just and merciful laws administered by the English Government of Hong Kong, amassed in commerce considerable wealth, I now, feeling myself in failing health, wish to make a distribution of the same.” There are thousands like that Chinaman in Hong Kong, and also in Shanghai, and in all the treaty ports of China. In speaking as this man did, he was only giving expression to the feelings of all his countrymen who have had dealings with the English in China. Are such feelings on the part of these Chinese consistent with the consciousness that we are enriching ourselves by ruining the health and morals of their countrymen, as is most wrongfully put forward by the Anti-Opium Society and its allies the Protestant missionaries? No; they bespeak perfect confidence, respect, and gratitude towards us; for oppressed and plundered as the Chinese have been by their own officials, there is no other people on the face of the earth who more thoroughly appreciate justice and equity in the administration of public affairs; thus it is that they respect the British rule, which they have found by experience to be the embodiment of both.

There are very few, perhaps, in this country who know what Hong Kong really is. It is now a flourishing and beautiful city, standing upon a site which, but the other day, was a barren rock. Commerce with its civilising influence has transformed it into a “thing of beauty,” “an emerald gem of the eastern world.” Forty years ago, the English Government sent out a commissioner to report upon the capabilities of the place for a town or settlement. He sent home word that there was just room there for one house. He little dreamt that upon that barren inhospitable spot within a few years would be realised the poet’s dream when he wrote:—

He little thought that on that very site there would soon be many thousands of houses, some of them palatial buildings, including many Christian churches and some heathen temples, for liberty of conscience reigns there supreme; with a Chinese population of over one hundred and fifty thousand. These people are all doing well. Some of them are wealthy merchants; many of them are shop-keepers; others are artificers; and a very large number of them are labourers or coolies. There is no pauperism in the colony. The people there are all well-to-do, or able to live comfortably, and, what is more, they are all happy and contented. A comparatively small body of police preserves the peace of the colony; for, thanks to a succession of wise and able governors, local crime has been reduced to a minimum; serious offences are very rare amongst the regular inhabitants. It is the criminal classes from the mainland which really give trouble, for Hong Kong labours under the disadvantage of being close to two large cities on the Pearl River—Canton and Fatchan, notorious for piratical and other criminal classes. You might send a child from one end of the town to the other without fear of molestation. Indeed, the natives themselves are the very best police; for, take the Chinese all round, they are the most orderly and law-abiding people in the world. They respect the British Government as much as the British people do themselves. They bring their families to Hong Kong, settle down there, and make themselves perfectly at home, finding more security and happiness there than they ever could attain in their own country; because in Hong Kong there is and has always been perfect equality before the law for every man, irrespective of race, colour, or nationality. The life and property of every man there is secure. This is not the case in China.

These are the fruits of commerce which brings peace and plenty in its train, which sweeps aside the dust of ignorance, fanaticism, and superstition—which has reclaimed the deserts of Australia and North America, and spread flourishing cities there, where law and order, truth and justice, peace and happiness, religion and piety are established. These are the achievements of British merchants who have won for our Sovereign the Imperial diadem she wears, and made their country the mistress of the world. These are the people who have done all this, and better still, made the name of England honoured and respected throughout the whole world, and sent the Gospel into every land. Yet those very men Mr. Storrs Turner and other anti-opium fanatics would cover with obloquy, because, forsooth, some British merchants have been concerned in this perfectly justifiable Indo-Chinese opium trade.

Mr. Turner in his book speaks of the Chinese Government as a paternal Government, which, the moment it finds any practices on foot injurious to the people, at once takes steps to put them down. I tell you, as a fact, that a more corrupt Government,[2] so far at least as the Judges and high Mandarins downwards are concerned, never existed in the whole world. There is no such thing as justice to be had without paying for it; if it is not a misnomer to say so, for this so-called justice is bought and sold every day. Corruption pervades the whole official class. I could detail facts as to the punishment of the innocent and the escape of the guilty, which came under my own observation, that would make one’s flesh creep. This is why the Chinese of Hong Kong respect so much the British Government, whose rule is just and equitable.

Now there is another point which I wish more particularly to impress upon you, it is this: Anyone hearing of the alleged dreadful effects upon the Chinese of opium smoking, and our wicked conduct in forcing the drug upon them, and making them buy it whether they wish to do so or not, would think that these Chinese were a simple, unsophisticated people, something like the natives of Madagascar,—a people lately rescued from barbarism by missionaries; that they were a weak race, without mental stamina or strength of mind—a soft simple, easily-persuaded race. These are some more of the erroneous views which the Anti-Opium Society tries to impress upon the public mind, and which its Secretary, Mr. Storrs Turner, in particular, artfully endeavours to inculcate. To prove that this is so, I have only to read you a passage from his work. But before doing so, let me assure you that there is not a more astute, active-minded, and knowing race of people under the sun than the Chinese. For craft and subtlety I will back one of them against any European. At page 3 you will read:—

More opium is consumed in China than in all the rest of the world, and nearly the whole of the opium imported into China is shipped from Calcutta and Bombay. The East and the West, England, India, and China, act and re-act upon each other through the medium of poppy-juice. Simple mention of the relations which these three great countries bear to the drug is enough to show that a very grave question is involved in the trade. England is the grower, manufacturer, and seller; India furnishes the farm and the factory; China is buyer and consumer. The question which obviously arises is this, Is it morally justifiable and politically expedient for the English nation to continue the production and sale of a drug so deleterious to its consumers? Before, however, we enter upon a consideration of this question, we must explain how it has come to pass that the British nation has got into this unseemly position. Otherwise, the fact that the British Government is actually implicated in such a trade may well appear incredible. If, for instance, any minister could be shameless enough to suggest that England should embark on a vast scale into the business of distillers, and with national funds, by servants of Government, under inspection and control of Parliament, produce and export annually ten or twenty millions’ worth of gin and whisky to intoxicate the populous tribes of Central Africa, he would be greeted by a general outcry of indignation. Yet the very thing which we scout as an imagination, we consent to as a reality. We are maintaining our Indian Empire by our profits as wholesale dealers in an article which, to say the best of it, is as bad as gin.