British Opium Policy and Its Results to India and China

Results to India financially magnificent.

THE "Results of the British Opium Policy" to India must be considered retrospectively and prospectively.

Retrospectively, it is easy to recount them. They have been financially magnificent! Year after year the poppy plant has enriched the Indian Treasury with ever-increasing returns; for, as Sir Charles Trevelyan told the Finance Committee, the annual receipts might fluctuate a little, but the revenue has never ceased to move steadily upward when estimated upon a term. Hundreds of millions sterling have accrued to the Calcutta Government from this strange source of the wounded capsules, and the brown juice which the "nushtur" scrapes away. There is hardly anywhere in commerce so great a disproportion between toils and profit as in this culture, and only a monopoly could bring such profit. Let it be added that this immense gain has poured into the exchequer of the most just and enlightened of alien Governments -- that of England in India -- treasures which have been nobly dispensed in keeping the peace of the vast country, in developing its resources, improving its intercourse, administering pure and careful justice, introducing reforms, and educating the youthful population. Those only who do not know the system of British Government in India will speak of it disloyally. The present writer accounts it the honor of his life to have served both the Company and the Viceroys of Her Majesty under that faithful and lofty Government. Opium has helped to pay for all these, and also for the less disinterested expenses of the English "raj," without costing the people of India so much as the collection of a tax. Granting that the annual amount of the Indian revenue must be raised, opium has year by year assisted, until it defrays from £7,000,000 to £9,000,000 of that amount; defrays it by a levy raised from the vice or luxury of a distant people; so that it would seem, as is indeed the case, that the Hindus have no kind of desire to complain of the opium policy.

Question of supplanting foodstuffs with the poppy.

Nor dare we allow much weight to those who urge that the poppy excludes wholesome food-stuffs, leading indirectly to such dreadful famines as lately distressed Northern Behar. It is true that over 500,000 acres are under opium; that these occupy 250,000 cultivators; and that all this land would grow the finest "atta." But forty-nine years out of fifty, Bengal grows rice and food enough to feed herself and to export an enormous balance, opium notwithstanding; and the argument is just as strong against jute and indigo, which bring her so much wealth. Field for field, of course, it would be better for Bengal to have rice and wheat, which could be eaten, and in dearth especially! But the opium land could not have grown a third as much as the opium profits can buy from Burma; and this part of their argument only weakens the case of those who justly condemn the opium trade.

Of tyrannical procedure.

Equally must the assertion of a forced cultivation, and of tyrannical procedures, be abandoned. The "contract for poppy" is sought as a privilege by those ryots who have good land, water available, and manure; and the crop being secured against civil process, and the advances being carefully made, it is remarkable how smoothly the system works. The remissions in consequence of natural failure are prompt; and it is the Government which takes the risks of a crop which may be spoiled by a single night’s hard rain.^[22]

[22] The interesting evidence of Dr. Smith (vide questions 5101-5135, Report 1871) shows that the Kattadars are venal sometimes, but confirms our general view.