British Opium Policy and Its Results to India and China

The perils of the opium traffic incontestably proved.

THE foregoing quotations might be repeated from the latest reports, and would show that if the immorality of our policy can be extenuated, there is no denying its risk. In his defense of opium, Major Baring, like others, bases his argument for the Bengal monopoly on two grounds, -- first, that so splendid a revenue could not be sacrificed without injustice to the Indian people; and secondly, that the reasons why it should be sacrificed are chiefly sentimental or imaginary. We have adduced ample facts to prove that opium does and must demoralize its votaries; and that, if it were possible, humanity and honor must unite to bid us be quit of the degrading traffic. And now, we have further made it clear that prudence is on the side of honor and humanity; for no one can study these or subsequent reports without perceiving that our ancient profits are in imminent peril; so much so, that an Imperial edict sanctioning Chinese poppy cultivation, or a change of national taste, might in three or four seasons annihilate the important annuity upon which Indian Chancellors keep the wolf from the door.

Its immorality equally demonstrated.

We have demonstrated that opium cannot be compared to tobacco or ardent spirits in its powers of mischief. It is wholly peculiar in the ever-increasing doses which must be taken, and in the prostrating effects of its discontinuance. Enormously in favor of Chinese opium is the fact that it does not thus ensnare the smoker in the deadly dilemma of consuming more and more, or suffering horribly. The "excellence" in quality which we maintain at Patna and Benares is not a thing to boast of; for though in fashion still with the richer Chinese, it is a ruinous fashion.

Opium a poison and scourge to China.

Our Malwa and Bengalee opium is poison! Pleasant to its victims, especially at first; slow to kill, very slow, with such as use it judiciously; it is poison all the same. And in addition to the lives which it has wrecked or cut short in China -- be they reckoned by thousands, tens of thousands, or millions -- it has also cost China much blood, much treasure, and the humiliation of her Government to the point of anarchy.

The time for wiser policy brief.

Finally, if facts are slighted, national morality disregarded, and China left to take care of herself, there arises this new warning -- the slackening of our trade, and the increase of the poppy cultivation in the Chinese provinces. There is no telling how brief the interval may be during which the nation which "ransomed the African," and gave up the Ionian Islands, has it in her power to lay aside an evil profit, before Nemesis turns it into a ruinous loss.

Conclusions from this investigation.

It will be seen, therefore, that this Essay has arrived at a double conclusion. If the opium traffic could be regarded as secure for generations to come, it would yet be the duty of the awakened conscience of England to concert means for detaching the Imperial name from it. But it is no longer secure; and prudence combines with morality to urge the search -- the careful, immediate, and unremitting search -- for something which will enable us to face the loss of our opium revenue,