British Opium Policy and Its Results to India and China

Policy of Court of China towards opium.

TO complete the researches of the preceding chapter, it is necessary to ask what the Chinese say about opium, since for so many years they have bought it while they protested against it, the people eagerly consuming, and the Government, until lately, repelling the drug. And next we must inquire what is the present experience as to the effect of this habit upon the population, now that the trade is legalized, and observation is easier. The policy of the Court of China towards opium has never once been doubtful. The grandfather of the previous Emperor of China killed his own son for smoking a pipeful of the drug; and from that date to the latest the opposition of the Chinese Governments has been secretly implacable against the traffic. When the British Envoy parted years ago from Prince Kung, the Chinese Regent said -- "We shall be good friends, if you will but take away your missionaries and your opium." This was uttered, moreover, at a date when the Peking Court was making large profits by the duty on .the drug, and when it was being grown widely in China itself. The reasons for such imperial hostility have been manifold; but certain it is that from first to last the Court and its real representatives have earnestly disliked our opium policy, and labored to save the population from the commodity which we manufactured.

Chinese public opinion on the subject.

Registering, then, this persistent condemnation of opium in the "high places" of China, let us look into popular expressions of opinion. A striking specimen is supplied in the "Chinese Repository," for April, 1837, which contains a pictorial description of what may be called "The Opium Smoker's Progress," a series of cartoons by a Chinese artist, after the idea of Hogarth. These pictures were exceedingly admired for their truthfulness by the Canton public, and though we cannot here reproduce them, the explanations translated from the artist's own language, will show what was the local judgment upon the effects of this vice. The series consists of six designs, the first of which represents the son of a mandarin newly come into the paternal fortune, in youthful health and vigor, for whom an attendant is preparing what is no doubt meant to be the "first pipe." The second cartoon represents the young man become an habitual consumer; he is reclining in the stupor of the daily dose, while the chest of treasure beside him is already half-emptied by the courtesans who are his companions. The third picture is thus described by the artist: --

"No. 3. After no very long period of indulgence, his appetite for the drug is insatiable, and his countenance sallow and haggard. Emaciated, shoulders high, teeth naked, face black, dozing from morning to night, he becomes utterly inactive. In this state he sits moping, on a very ordinary couch, with his pipe and other apparatus for smoking lying by his side."

His wife enters and finds the treasure-chest empty of gold and silver, and gazes with sad countenance upon the miserable figure on the couch. In the next design:

"No. 4. His lands and his houses are now all gone; his couch exchanged for some rough boards and a ragged mattress; his shoes are off his feet, and his face half awry, as he sits bending forwards, breathing with great difficulty. His wife and child stand before him, poverty stricken, suffering with hunger; the one in anger, having dashed on the floor all his apparatus for smoking, while the little son, unconscious of any harm, is clapping his hands and laughing at the sport! But he heeds not either the one or the other."