INDIA AND CHINA—THE OPIUM TRAFFIC—RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 25 June 1875 vol 225 cc571-622

MR. MARK STEWART

,^* in rising to call attention to the evidence given before the East India Finance Committee, 1871, with reference to the Opium Traffic; and to move— That this House is of opinion that the Imperial policy regulating the Opium traffic between India and China should be carefully considered by Her Majesty's Government with a view to the gradual withdrawal of the Government of India from the cultivation and manufacture of Opium, said, that the subject was so wide in its scope, so comprehensive in its grasp, and so important in its many bearings on our Eastern interests and possessions, that he wished the cause had got a better advocate than himself. He was well aware how comparatively uninteresting questions relating to foreign politics were to many hon. Members; but when a question of this magnitude came before the House, which affected the the misery or the happiness of millions, it not only deserved, but de- manded the most serious attention. It should be borne in mind that in proportion to the greatness and glory reflected on Great Britain by her Eastern Empire, a corresponding amount of responsibility was incurred. Personally, he had nothing to gain by raising this discussion, nor, as far he knew, were any of his constituents interested in it beyond sharing the feeling that this Opium Traffic had been productive of great evil; that what was morally wrong could never be politically right; and that if it was possible in these later days for the Government to withdraw from a hateful monopoly, to revise our Treaty rights, or to regulate and restrict the trade, it was the duty of the Government to take a wise and statesmanlike course for the purpose of securing the end in view. Happily this was not a Party question, and he could therefore reasonably look for support to both sides of the House. He had to thank his noble Friend the Under Secretary of State for India for having assisted him in his search for Papers, and for having laid on the Table of the House some arcana of the India Office. A long time had elapsed since there had been a discussion in this House on the opium question. Except the Motion of the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) in 1870, which was preceded by the discussion on Lord Ashley's in 1843, the question had not been brought before the House for a long time. He should endeavour in the remarks he was about to make to draw the attention of the House to what he considered to be the blot in the present system—namely, the Government monopoly in India. In doing so, it would be necessary not only to draw attention to the present aspect of affairs, but to review briefly the history of the past, in order rightly to understand this particular question. Before the year 1773 the only opium imported into China came from the hands of the Portugese. In that year the East India Company, possessing very little knowledge of China, entered slightly on this trade. Overtures to extend our general mercantile transactions were made by Lord Macartney in 1798, and by Lord Amherst, in 1816. They were, however, courteously received, and as discourteously dismissed. Our intercourse had not been of a beneficial, but of a very unpromising character in its moral and social consequences. The Celestial Empire was capable of producing everything in itself. It possessed great variety of clamate, and a hardy, frugal, and industrious population, who were, for Orientals, in a high state of civilization. In 1833 the exclusive commercial privileges of the East India Company ceased, and the trade of Canton was thrown open. The provincial authorities declined to treat with Lord Napier, the political agent of the British Government, and would only carry on negotiations through the Hong merchants, a body of privileged traders. Accordingly all communication was suspended with the British envoy. Hostilities were forthwith commenced; Lord Napier ordered the Chinese ships to be fired upon, and was compelled to retire. Shortly afterwards, his death at Macao resulted in the appointment of Sir George Robinson, who took up his residence at Lintin Island, at the mouth of the Canton River. During his period of office a great smuggling trade was carried on, but his policy was very unacceptable to the British merchants. He would not (as ordered by the Home Government) insist that all trade transactions should come under the superintendence of the political agent, because, now that the trade was thrown open, such an agent woald have so little control (as compared with the supercargo of the East India Company) over the ships employed. Consequently, in 1836, he was succeeded by Captain Elliott as Chief Superintendent of Trade. And now let the House observe the rapid increase of the opium trade. The quantity of opium smuggled into China in 1800 was 4,570 chests; in 1824, 12,023 chests; and in 1834, 23,902 chests, representing in value £1,111,038. Nine-tenths of this unlawful trade was carried on by foreign merchants. With regard to the statements that the Chinese Government connived at the trade, the edicts which had from time to time—1800 to 1870—been issued would prove that they tried, but in vain, to suppress it. In 1830 the Emperor issued an edict declaring that— The injury done by the influx of opium, and by the increase of those who inhale it, is nearly equal to that of a conflagration, and that the waste of property and the hurt done to human beings is every day greater than the preceding. In 1832, Le, Governor of Canton, issued a stringent "chop" proclamation, or order, against the importation of the "opium dirt," declaring it "a spreading poison inexhaustible, and in its injurious effects extreme." Councillor Choo-Tsun, in one of his communications, has said— The wide-spreading and baneful influence of opium when regarded simply as injurious to property is of inferior importance, but when regarded as hurtful to the people it demands most serious consideration, for on the people lies the only foundation of the Empire. A deficiency of property may be supplied, and an impoverished people improved, whereas it is beyond the power of any artificial means to save a people corrupted by luxury. …. and if the camp be once contaminated, the baneful principle will work its way, and its habit will be contracted beyond the power of reform. When the periodical time for the desire comes round, how can the victims, their legs tottering, their hands trembling, their eyes flowing with childish tears, be able in any way to attend to their proper exercises? How can such men form strong and powerful legions? After unceasing protests, in 1839, Lin-the Chinese Commissioner from the Pekin Court, arrived at Canton, and demanded from the foreign ships all the opium to be given up. A cordon of armed Chinese boats surrounded the receiving ships. No assaults were committed, but all ingress and egress prohibited except by coolies to procure provisions. The opium was given up under protest, and after being mixed with oil and lime in conjunction with sea-water it was destroyed. The quantity thus destroyed amounted to 20,283 chests, representing a value of between£2,000,000 and £3,000,000 sterling. This was A solitary instance in the history of the world of a pagan Monarch preferring to destroy what would injure his subjects rather than to fill his pockets with the proceeds of the sale. Hence arose the first war with China, known, whether wrongly or rightly, as the Opium War. In January, 1840, an Imperial edict appeared, directing that all trade with England should cease for ever. In 1842 the Treaty of Nankin was concluded. That treaty was most humiliating in the eyes of the Chinese, because not only had large sums for the smuggled opium to be paid, amounting to some 6,000,000 dollars, but large compensation had to be made to private merchants to pay their contracted debts, besides the expenses of the war, and the cession of the island of Hong Kong to the British. One would naturally have supposed that after what had occurred, some steps would have been taken to stop this opium smuggling. For 14 years, however, the quantity of opium went on increasing. The number of chests exported to China from India in 15 years, ending 1859, amounted on the average to 74,091 chests, valued at £4,484,147, all of which were smuggled. In 1856 the smuggling and piracy had become much worse, and Hong Kong, a barren rock, inhabited by a population of 200 to 300, was at that time the receptacle of 40,000 to 50,000, the scum of the heathen and civilized world. This was the place of which Sir Henry Pottinger said, in 1842— Its pure and noble institutions would stand one day as a model whereby to work the regeneration of the Chinese Empire. Chinese vessels changed their registration for the purpose of carrying opium, and were registered under the British flag. On October 8th, 1856, the lorcha Arrow and her crew of 12 men were seized, although she had lost the right of carrying the English flag on the 27th September previous. Nine of the men were first given up by the Chinese, and the remaining three afterwards, but no apology was offered. Satisfaction was demanded for this outrage, as it was termed—although the crew were noted smugglers, if not pirates—and in 1858—in the second Chinese war, soon after—Canton was taken, and the forts of Pei-Ho captured. In 1860, Lord Elgin with Baron Gros carried the Takoo forts, burned the Summer Palace, and concluded the Treaty of Tien-tsin. That treaty was to the Chinese still more humiliating than the previous one, and he (Mr. Stewart) called the attention of the House to the fact that it was only by this Treaty in 1860, after the most vigorous protests from the Chinese, that the importation and sale of opium was legalized with a duty of 10 per cent. How true it is, as Mr. Mitchell puts it— We bring the Chinese nothing that is really popular amongst them except our opium. Opium is the 'open sesame' to their stony hearts; woe betide the trade the day we meddle with it to its injury. Having given this brief history of the opening of the trade, without which, he maintained, no one could properly understand the subject, he would proceed to deal with the present Indian system. There were two great systems in existence—the Bengal, and the Bombay or Malwa. The latter referred to the opium grown in the free Native states of Holkar, Scindia, Rewah, and some of the petty Rajpoot states. The Malwa portion of the opium was weighed in the Government scales at Indore, and the Guzerat portion at Ahmedabad, and passes were issued which cleared the drug until placed on ship-board. Re-cently, scales had been established at two other stations—namely, at Oojein and Oodaypoor. The chests, which weighed 112 pounds, were sent down carefully guarded to Bombay, where a heavy pass export duty of 600 Rs. per chest was imposed. The duty was practically levied before it was sent down, and paid by bill, when the pass was given to cover it to Bombay. The Government had nothing to do with its manufacture, and in strength it excelled the opium of Bengal. With regard to the Bengal monopoly system, there were two Government agencies, Patna for the North Western Provinces, Behar district and Chota Nagpore, and Ghazeepore or Benares for Bengal Proper—including the Benares division, Allahabad and Oude. Under the sub-agents native establishments were appointed to look after the cultivation of the poppies. A ryot desirous of entering into the cultivation had to wait on the sub-agent, get his land measured, a cultivation licence, and the usual advance before the sowing season. On the plant appearing above ground a second advance was made, if the usual conditions had been fulfiled. When the pod has arrived at maturity, it is cut vertically across with three lines, the juice collected in vessels, and the produce subsequently taken to the office of the sub-agent, who pays the full price for it, subject to a further adjustment. This takes place in the month of April. The opium is then forwarded to the factory—where the final payment is given—and exposed in large masonry tanks till reduced to an uniform consistency, when it is packed in chests of 140 pounds weight, for home and foreign consumption—chiefly the latter—as only some £300,000 worth is sold in India. The following year, these are sold by auction at periodical sales in Calcutta by the Government official. The House would observe that from first to last the matter was entirely in the hands of the Government, who fostered its cultivation, and, with that object in view, made advances to the ryots. In the Punjab a good deal of opium was consumed, and a tax of two rupees per acre imposed. It would appear from the Returns, however, the cultivation was diminishing in that district, as in 1870–71, 13,229 acres were cultivated, and in 1871–72, 6,225. Opium was not necessarily fatal in its operation, but the habit could not be left off, and was very degrading. In China no one confessed to its use, and those in the habit of taking it concealed from shame their finger and thumb, which became stained by the use of the pipe. It produced its worst effects among the lower classes. If left off suddenly, dysentery followed, which the upper classes could take remedies for. In Assam the cultivation was prohibited, because it was found that the people were gradually dying out from opium consumption. In the debate in 1870, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone) said—"An inquiry hardly touched upon"—by Sir Wilfrid Lawson—"was the nature of opium and its use, and whether the use of opium is necessarily connected with its abuse." Mr. T. T. Cooper, in his evidence, stated that his bearer-coolies could go a long way on opium, but that the effects were terrible, if, for a single day, the pipe was discontinued. He further stated, he had often seen naked dead bodies of the opium-smokers—unable to procure the drug—lying on the streets in the morning. It had been calculated that the proportion of opium-smokers at Canton was, in the case of the mercantile classes, 30 per cent; in the case of the Yamun officials, 90 per cent; and in the case of the soldiers 40 to 50 per cent. It was almost impossible to restrain the taste for it, and it was found necessary to increase the quantity to be smoked, in order to gain the same amount of satisfaction. So the House will see that the abuse is mixed up with the use. Mr. D. P. Broadway, Missionary, Patna, stated that— Its demoralizing influence on those who use it is certain, and so keen is the appetite when they become addicted to taking opium, that, unless the craving is satisfied, it results in the prostration of the whole bodily system, and even dissolution; …. nearly all those who indulge in the drug are prevented from attending to their proper sphere of work, and are ultimately reduced to poverty. The Rev. Mr. Shackell, Church Missionary Society, North India, declared that— Physically, the habit weakens the man, and renders him unfit to labour; morally, it seems to put him into a kind of lethargy, so that he apparently almost loses the sense of right or wrong. Dr. Kerr was of opinion that 10,000 deaths occurred annually from the use of opium. He had many other quotations from gentlemen of great experience, but he refrained from quoting more. He now came to the question of the Bengal monopoly. All persons must admit that a monopoly was not in any sense a useful or sound policy, and it would be found that the Bengal monopoly was exceptionally bad. It was bad considered on the grounds of political economy, for the following reasons:—The Government carried on the manufacture itself, and substituted paid officials who might lack knowledge and—what was perhaps the greatest stimulant to success—self-interest. In the case of indigo cultivation, which was freed from Government control, success was obtained. Again, traders' profits were more than counterbalanced by traders' risks. There must also be taken into account the question of establishment, expenses, and plant. Then there was an immense sum of capital, calculated at £2,750,000 sterling, locked up for the best part of two years by reason of the advances, and nothing was deducted for interest. A private firm would only push increased cultivation when a demand rose for it. The monopoly also encouraged smuggling; and official pressure was also assuredly used. Mr. Hollings informed the Indigo Commission on this point, that— All the members of the Department are constantly engaged in using their best endeavours to extend the cultivation (of opium) with the consent of the parties engaging, and everything in the way of fair inducement and persuasion is not only permitted but encouraged. There was no principle or standard to guide the fixing of the pass duty at Bombay. In 1864, on account of the oscillation of trade caused by arbitrarily glutting the market, the house of Sassoon and Co petitioned Government to lower the duty from 600 to 400 rupees. They stated that opium which cost from 1,500 to 1,600 rupees in Bombay, one year had not exceeded 1,575 in the China market, involving heavy losses on firms in Malwa and Bombay. That was another proof that the monopoly was bad. Sir William Muir, a great autho- rity on Indian finance, in his Minute of 1860, recognized this, and went on to say— The uncertainty it produced has gone a long way towards stimulating the spirit of unsound speculation and gambling which characterizes the trade, and has ruined many a firm in Western India. The monopoly was also bad from a moral point of view. It was said that the Government controlled the trade and restricted it; but they found that, although Sir Cecil Beadon, in 1865, forcibly urged that 45,000 chests should be the limit for the Bengal monopoly, in 1867 it amounted to 48,000 chests. Then take the case of British Burmah, where every effort was made to push the traffic, as we read in the evidence of the Select Committee— In the Indo-Chinese districts of British Burmah, the action of the Departments in promoting the sale of opium has long been a public scandal. … Prior to the introduction of British rule into Aracan, the punishment for using opium was death. The people were hardworking, sober, and simple-minded. Unfortunately, one of the earliest measures of our administration was the introduction of the akbari rules by the Bengal Board of Revenue. Mr. Hind, who had passed the greater part of his long life amongst the people of Aracan, described the progress of demoralization. Organized efforts were made by Bengal agents to introduce the use of the drug, and to create a taste for it amongst the rising generation. The general plan was to open a shop with a few cakes of opium, and to invite the young men and distribute it gratuitously. Then, when the taste was established, the opium was sold at a low rate. Finally, as it spread throughout the neighbourhood, the price was raised, and large profits ensued. Sir Arthur Phayre's account of the demoralization of Aracan by the Bengal akbari rules is very graphic; but Mr. Hind's statements were more striking, as he entered more into detail. He saw a fine healthy generation of strong men succeeded by a rising generation of haggard opium-smokers and eaters, who indulged to such an extent that their mental and physical powers were alike wasted. Then followed a fearful increase in gambling and dacoity. He asked the House—Can any worse description be found of a system under Government control? In fact, the trade was found invaluable on financial grounds, apart from all considerations of morality, to replenish an exhausted exchequer when any possible deficit might be apprehended: so cannot be given up. Again, the monopoly was bad on international grounds, because the Chinese hated us for it. They did not like parting with so large a revenue as £9,000,000 to get in return nothing but smoke. It had been enforced at the point of the sword, and was degrading to the Government. Hon. Members might ask what was the opinion in China about opium? It was this, and he gave it on the authority of gentlemen who had spent more than half their life their. No one would take a servant who was an opium-smoker. The people were so addicted to the habit, so powerful were its enticing influences, that it was impossible, they said, they could resist it; and if it had not been introduced at the point of the sword, and afterwards under a treaty forced "upon China, the Chinese Government would long ago have banished it from their shores. He should be met at once with the argument that the Chinese Government were not sincere; but a good deal could be done now on their part which never could have been done before. The House must recollect that there has been a great advance of civilization in China. They were building on the different stations gunboats equipped with some of the best rifled guns in the world; before this they were comparatively powerless. This force could greatly prevent smuggling; besides this, they had large forces in training now under European officers. They were bringing hardy men down from the north who could fight, and whose frames had not been enervated by opium-smoking. Well, they had civilization in this respect, although his hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle would hardly agree that that was real civilization. Now, to say that the Chinese Government were not sincere was surely not correct. There was a very important conversation related in the form of a Minute by Sir Rutherford Alcock, in 1869, to the Indian Government. So important did he think this that it was especially laid before the Council in Calcutta by himself. That Minister was no mean authority, for the House would remember he was our Ambassador at Pekin. Sir Rutherford Alcock based his belief on reports of merchants in China, delegates of the Chamber of Commerce, such as Sassoon and Co.; and the Consul's reports—quite disinterested evidence; and he came to the conclusion that there was a great deal of sincerity on the part of the Government. He pointed out that if we were determined to bring opium into the country, the Chinese were determined to grow it themselves, and so outbid us, by withdrawing the prohibition on its growth, which by the present law is death. The official Note further urged that some joint action should be taken by both Governments to prohibit the growth of the poppy. It was found between 500 and 600 miles south from the capital no opium was grown, but it was grown on the western side, where the Government have less authority. He held in his hand many extracts as regards its effect on the population, but he intended to trouble the House with only one. Evidence of the most conclusive character—evidence which he believed could not be contradicted—had been supplied on this question by persons who had lived 20, 30, and 40 years in China; and although he knew it was sometimes a matter of reproach to quote a missionary, still he would say that those gentlemen had greater opportunities of knowing what was going on in the country by their familiar intercourse with the people, who naturally pour out their complaints to them, than persons merely engaged in trade. Rev. E. H. Graves, M.D., 13 years Medical Missionary at Canton, says— The effects of opium-smoking are:—1st. Physiologically; excitement, evinced by nervous restlessness and talkativeness; and as one becomes more and more addicted to the habit, loss of appetite, emaciation, a dull leaden hue, stiff movements and gait, obstinate constipation, and occasionally skin diseases. 2nd. Socially; loss of time, resulting from the time required for smoking, and the subsequent sleep; expense, gradually exhausting a man's means, and driving him to the greatest shifts to satisfy his craving; the gradual sapping of the strength and vigour, rendering a man more and more unfit for the duties of life. 3rd. Morally; manifestation of anger under provocation; and I may add that the Chinese say, that as the use of alcoholic stimulants tends to make men hot-tempered and violent, so that of opium makes them given to lying, duplicity, and trickery. The habit of opium-smoking is more dangerous than that of taking alcohol, on account of the insidiousness of its approach, and the difficulty of escaping from its clutches. This vampire seems to suck all the moral courage out of a man. As to deeds of violence, opium must yield the palm to alcohol. What, then, was the material difference between opium and alcohol? They were all agreed as to this—that the influences of alcohol were bad, but the material difference was, that if you once commenced opium-smoking, you could not leave it off; you are all but com- pelled to go on to excess. You may begin with a drachm or two a-day, and you may go on until you can consume no less than nine drachms a-day; and in that case it was positive death for it to be taken away. Thousands went to the opium hospital at Hangchow who had astringents given them in order to assist them to leave off the terrible habit of opium-smoking. Some could be cured in about three weeks, but there was no doubt very many went back to their former habits. Mr. Cooper was asked before a Select Committee of East India Finance, in 1871— Do you think, from your own experience in travelling over China, and investigating these matters, that the use of opium there causes as much public injury as the consumption of drink in England, as far as you can see?—Yes; I think that the effects of opium-smoking in China are worse than the effects of drink in England, as far as my experience goes. At the same Committee, Sir Rutherford Alcock was asked— Can the evils, physical, moral, commercial, and political, as respects individuals, families, and the nation at large, of indulgence in this vice be exaggerated?—I have no doubt that where there is a great amount of evil there is always a certain danger of exaggeration; but looking to the universality of the belief among the Chinese, that whenever a man takes to smoking opium, it will be the impoverishment and ruin of his family—a popular feeling which is universal both amongst those who are addicted to it, who always consider themselves as moral criminals, and amongst those who abstain from it, and are merely endeavouring to prevent its consumption—it is difficult not to conclude that what we hear of it is essentially true, and that it is a source of impoverishment and ruin to families. He felt he need not trouble the House with further evidence on this point. He thought in its moral effects there could be no doubt that' he had proved opium-smoking was bad. Not only the abuse, but the use of the drug was bad, because if a man once took to smoking he could not leave it off. He had shown how degrading a habit it was, and therefore there could be no doubt, he thought, that it was liable to all the censure thrown upon it. On that score he thought he had shown that the Bengal monopoly must be injurious to the Government working it. Then there was the mercantile and international argument, what effect had it on our commercial relations with China, although our trade was improving, and was nothing compared to what it would have been if our policy harmonized with that of the Chinese Government. In return for their tea and silk we gave opium. This traffic affected our trade relations with 400,000,000 of men, and it could not give them a very high idea of those who forced the traffic upon them. For the sake of the amount of revenue derived from this opium traffic, were they content to alienate their trade from the great Empire of China? Did they forget the other side of the picture; that they had to pay large sums to stay famine in India, calculated on an average in amount of £1,000,000 sterling per annum, and yet they were content to give up vast tracts of the best land in India, some 750,000 acres, to the growing of opium? Suppose a new war was to break out, did they suppose what had been done could ever be done again? Would it be possible to do it? Would not Russia or America step in and say—"You have no right to impose these Treaties on foreign Powers which are weaker than you are; although you are stronger, you must not force your trade upon an unwilling people." Did they not see that this source of revenue rested on a very precarious basis? The crop was precarious. A shower of hail might destroy it; a peculiar blight—as actually happened in 1871—or three days' rain, falling at a particular time, would injuriously affect a sixth portion of our Indian Revenue, not to speak of the undoubted fact of the large increased area of cultivation in China. He thought, considering all these things, they had some right to ask the Government to thoroughly investigate this matter; not only to consider it with a view to make some small alterations in detail, but to make up their minds that this painful monopoly should cease, and that it never should again be repeated. His belief was that if gradually withdrawn the monopoly would not be found so productive of loss to the Revenue. The Indian opium, by its peculiar qualities, would always bring a high price in China, and a high export duty would limit the trade. We stood before the world on our trial. We must not only teach morality by precept, but by example. There was a general feeling throughout the world that something ought to be done in regard to this Bengal traffic, and that this was the time to do it. We were professedly the bearers of "peace on earth and goodwill towards men;" but in reality we were "sowing the wind," and leaving to others to "reap the whirlwind." We ought to throw off this odium, which must attach to the Indian administration as long as the Bengal monopoly was maintained. Imagine the Government of this country being the great distillers. Would the Government like to be in that position; would it be allowed to be in that position? No; the country would not allow it, because from a moral as well as an international point of view the monopoly was bad. Could we not confer with the Chinese Government as to regulating and restricting the trade? His hon. Friend who had an Amendment on the Paper (Sir George Campbell), and who had had so much experience in Bengal, appeared to him very nearly to meet his views. He hoped he would see his way entirely to do so. He also hoped his noble Friend the Under Secretary of State for India had not been long enough in office to have his ears deafened and his eyes blinded to the facts which had been laid before him. He heartily thanked the House for listening to him. He had quoted high authorities, and he should only quote one more, but that authority was higher than all the rest, and one they were all bound to obey, whose words were Gospel truth, and applicable to nations as well as individuals: "Offences must come, but woe to him by whom they do come." The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution.

MR. PEASE

, in seconding the Re-solution, said,^* he was not insensible of the difficulties of this question, difficulties from which successive Governments had recoiled, and from which the late Government turned away in despair. New evidence and new light, however, had been thrown on the whole question since it was last discussed, and he hoped this new evidence would be brought to bear on the question by the present Administration. He was convinced from what he had read in the Reports and in the Papers, so kindly laid on the Table by the Government, that this was a question which every Government must face; because, if the Government refused to face it now, the difficulties would increase as years rolled on, and it would in the end face the Government. He had read the documents laid before the House from time to time on this subject, and he trusted in looking at them and in bringing the facts before the House, he would receive credit for not being actuated by any desire to use them merely to support his own preconceived views, or, indeed, any other than the most obvious deduction from the facts and figures which the Indian Papers and correspondence disclose. That the opium revenue had been a very increasing portion of the Indian Revenue had already been proved by his hon. Friend the Mover of the Resolution (Mr. Stewart). It now amounted to 16 per cent of the gross Revenue of India; but, as had already been described, that Revenue was drawn from two sources, and these two sources of a decidedly opposite character. First, there was the revenue which had been described as coming from the Bengal drug—that which the Government itself cultivated and sold, and, he was going to say, forwarded to China for the Chinese market, and which was subdivided into Behar and Benares, and the second source, a pass duty of £60 or 600 rupees per chest, on that which was shipped from Bombay, called generally Malwa opium. It was principally to the Bengal revenue that he wished to direct the attention of the House. He should have something to say about the other, but it was to that cultivated by the Government itself to which he wished at first to call attention. The manner in which the Government dealt with the trade, and the way in which the Bengal opium revenue was raised, were given in a few words by Sir Cecil Beadon in his evidence— 2871. CHAIRMAN: Will you kindly state what offices you held in India?—I was Secretary to the Board of Revenue, Secretary to the Government of Bengal, and afterwards Lien-tenant Governor of Bengal. 3195. Has the existing mode of raising the revenue from opium been in force for a very long time in Bengal?—Yes; almost ever since the commencement of our rule in Bengal. 3197. You know that the production of opium in Bengal has been gradually growing for a number of years?—Yes. 3198. Will you state, in the first instance, as the system has been the same, what is the system generally under which this revenue is collected, and the administration under which it is collected ?—I will endeavour to be as brief as possible. The Government have established two agencies, one at Patna and the other at Ghazeepore, which are usually called the Behar agency and the Benares agency; the head-quarters of the one being at Patna, and of the other at Ghazeepore. 3199. In what mode is the land then selected for cultivation?—When any ryot wishes to cultivate opium he goes to the sub-agent, and asks to have his name registered, his land measured, and to get a cultivation licence, and the usual advance. The sub-agent makes inquiries, ascertains that the man is really bonâ fide an owner of land which he proposes to cultivate with opium, has the land measured, and then makes the advance upon the security of the person himself, to whom the advance is made, and his fellow-villagers. The advance is made shortly before the sowing season. The ryot then sows his land, and when the plant is above ground, the land is then measured by one of the native establishments, and if the ryot has sown all that he engaged to sow, he gets a second advance; if he has not sown so much, he gets something less in proportion; or, if more, he gets a little more. There is a sort of rough settlement at the second advance. Nothing further takes place till the crop is ripe for gathering, and when the ryot has gathered the crop he collects it in vessels, and takes it to the sub-agent's office; there he delivers it to the sub-agent, as the agent of the Government, and receives the full price for it, subject to further adjustment when the opium has been weighed and tested and examined at the agent's factory. The opium is then collected at the sub-agency and forwarded to the factory; there it is exposed for a considerable time in large masonry tanks; it is reduced to a uniform consistency, and made fit for the market, some for home consumption, and some for sale in Calcutta for exportation—the greater quantity for exportation. It is then packed in cases and sent to Calcutta, and in Calcutta it is sold by auction at periodical sales, and exported by merchants for consumption abroad. 3205. Is there any regulation by which the Government limit the extent of the land so cultivated, or do they always accede to every request?—It is limited according to the financial needs of the Government; it is limited entirely upon Imperial considerations. The Government of India, theoretically at least, if not practically, decide how much opium they will bring to market; and, of course, upon that depends the quantity of land that they will put under cultivation and make advances for. 3210. Are great precautions taken to prevent any person cultivating the land with opium without a licence?—It is absolutely prohibited. 3213. So that you have no reason to suppose that there is any illicit cultivation?—There is no illicit cultivation at all. The largest portion of the whole of this opium, grown in India—Bengal opium—goes direct to China. In 1866, out of 8,604,000 lbs exported, 8,505,000 lbs were exported to China, costing £8,860,000 to the Chinese people. This trade had grown up within comparatively a few years. In 1834–5 the net opium revenue was £838,450; in 1844–5 it was £2,181,288; in 1854–5 it was £3,333,602; in 1864–5 it was £4,984,424; in 1872–3 it was £6,870,423; and in 1873–4 it was £6,333,597. So that it was now double what it was 20 years ago, and it was eight times what it was 40 years ago. He should next show how this revenue was divided.

Year.	Cultivation.	Pass Duty.
1834	£694,279	£144,171
1844	1,808,345	372,943
1854	2,232,411	1,101,191
1864	2,883,542	2,100,882
1872	4,259,162	2,611,261
1873	3,594,763	2,738,841

This clearly showed that the proportion of revenue derived from pass duty was steadily increasing. The quantity of land occupied was annually more. In the case of Bengal, in 1848–9 it was 388,000 beegahs; in 1858–9, 467,000; in 1868–9, 694,000; and in 1872–3, 828,000 beegahs, a beegah being five-eighths of an acre. The Revenue of India had become more and more dependent on the poppy trade, for whereas in 1800 to 1820 the gross opium revenue was £15,165,564, the gross total of receipts was £317,651,837—proportion 4.77 percent; in 1860 to 1872 it was £101,920,436, the gross total of receipts was £607,780,270—proportion, 16.77 per cent; and the net opium revenue which in 1834 to 1844 was in Bengal, £10,261,927, Bombay, £1,975,300; total £12,237,227; percentage from Bengal, 83.88; percentage from Bombay, 16.12, had risen in 1873 and 1874 in Bengal to £7,853,925, and in Bombay to £5,350,102; total, £13,204,027; percentage from Bengal 59.48; percentage from Bombay 40.52. He was sorry to trouble the House with figures, but they were necessary to prove that more opium had been produced; that more land had been occupied; that India had become more dependent on this trade; and that the proportion derived from pass duty, had steadily increased. This history of the trade in this drug—he did not wish to use language too strong—was one of the darkest pages on the trading annals of a Christian country. So far as India was concerned, taking Bengal alone, the revenue was £3,594,673, and it was to that part of the trade that he wished to draw the noble Lord's attention. He did not propose to deal with the whole question, but with that part of India of which the Government was the direct cultivator, and the supplier of the money to cultivate. This question of the opium trade with China was by no means a new one. It was raised in the House of Commons by Lord Shaftesbury (then Lord Ashley), in 1843, in a speech showing great research, reflecting great honour both to his head and to his heart, replete with those benevolent feelings towards the human race which have ever marked his Lordship's character; and the noble Lord pointed out then its demoralizing effect upon the Chinese. His Lordship went through the whole question of the Indian trade with China, and though it must be frankly admitted that circumstances were wonderfully different now, yet the arguments then brought forward as to its demoralizing effects, applied with equal if not greater force in the present day. The importation of opium into China was then strictly forbidden, and Englishmen and English ships were engaged in smuggling it into China against the efforts of the Chinese. Lord Ashley at that time also moved a Resolution to the effect that the trade with China Was damaging to our legitimate commerce, and utterly inconsistent "with the honour and duty of a great Christian country.

The revenue at that time was £2,181,000, and the only argument brought forward against the Motion was one of money. The argument as to the demoralizing tendency of the trade was very much strengthened now, inasmuch as it now applied to a revenue of £6,000,000. Sir Robert Peel neither attempted to refute the facts nor the arguments of Lord Shaftesbury in that discussion, but asked that the matter might be left in the hands of the Government, and moved, as the late Government had since done, the Previous Question. In those hands it had since remained, in those hands it still remained, and in those hands the revenue derived from debauching the Chinese had doubled. Sir Robert Peel asked that it should be left in the hands of the Government, and pointed out that treaties were in course of negotiation which involved a considerable amount of delicacy, and that it would be inconvenient to interfere with the pending negotiations with China. The matter there ended, Whig had succeeded Tory, and Tory Whig; and every successive Administration, during the 32 years that had passed away since that time, had allowed this traffic to go on, damaging as it was to the English name throughout the world.

He hoped that the noble Lord would look into this state of things, and do what some of the ablest statesmen in England had urged preceding Governments to do, to set this matter right. In 1870 his hon. Friend who sat behind him (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) again called attention to this question in an excellent speech, which would bear repetition, but he would not now trouble the House with the allegation it contained, and moved that "This House condemns the system by which a large portion of the Indian Revenue is raised from opium." A remarkable speech was made in reply by the hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs (Mr. Grant Duff), who again moved the Previous Question. His speech was one of the most successful ever made in the House. He would not for a moment say it was insincere. He reminded him of the Yorkshire horse-dealer's boy: with his foot in the stirrup he asked his master—"Do I ride to buy or sell?" His hon. Friend rode for his money and he rode well. He could not admit that he washed the blackamoor white, but he half hid him in the soap-suds. The hon. Member almost endeavoured to prove that the article was good for the Chinese and for everybody else, and that it would be unkind to deprive them of it, and that it was one of the greatest blessings a kind Providence had showered amongst us. He (Mr. Grant Duff) certainly did prove one thing, and that was that India stood in need of the money—that he (Mr. Pease) admitted. The hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs was backed up by the right hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone), with the many financial arguments which that right hon. Gentleman was so well able to bring forward. The right hon. Gentleman said— That the Chinese Government arrived at the wise resolution, that, under the circumstances of the case, it was not possible for them to struggle against an appetite so strong and a tendency so decided as that which possessed a large portion of the Chinese people, and, consequently, they determined to deal with opium as a commercial commodity, and to admit it into the country upon payment of a duty."—[3 Hansard, cci. 516.]

The right hon. Gentleman then proceeded to draw a parallel between whiskey, tobacco, and opium, and finally concluded by stating that they wanted the money. It would be in vain for him (Mr. Pease) to point out inconsistencies in the House, because no one could be a good judge as to that, until he was aware of what was passing through the mind of another, and what another's previous convictions were on a subject; but he certainly was amazed that anyone who so well knew the history of the matter could have made such a speech as that. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly cognizant of the whole of our dealings with China on this matter. The Christian man knows that in this trade, and in the effect of this trade, every precept of his religion is violated—that it prevents the introduction of his religion into thousands of homes where it would be a blessing. The moral man knows that the consequences of this trade outrage every principle of morality and virtue. The statesman knows he is resting on a revenue on which he can place no reliance on a support on which he has no right to bear. Would any hon. Member in the House get up and say that the Chinese people spent £8,000,000 annually in the purchase of this drug as a medicine? It was absurd on the face of it. Lord Ashley produced in the House a great many statements relating to the effects of opium on the Chinese, and he would read one or two of them. Mr. Majoribanks, President of the School Committee of Canton, stated— That opium can only he regarded, except in the small quantities required for the purposes of medicine, as a pernicious poison. To any friend of humanity it is a painful subject of contemplation that we should continue to pour the black and envenomed poison into the sources of human happiness. The misery and demoralization are almost beyond belief.

Mr. Medhurst stated— Calculating, therefore, the shortened lives, the frequent diseases, and the actual starvation which are the results of opium-smoking in China, we may venture to assert that this pernicious drug annually destroys myriads of individuals.

Mr. Squire, Church Missionary Society, said— Never, perhaps, was there a nearer approach to hell upon earth than within the precincts of these vile hovels, there every gradation of excitement and depression may be witnessed. Let it never be forgotten that a nation possessing Christianity supplies the means.

The Rev. Howard Malcolm, United States, remarked— No person can describe the horrors of the opium trade. That the Government of British India should be the prime abettor of this abominable traffic, is one of the grand wonders of the 19th century. The proud escutcheon of the nation which declares against the slave-trade is thus made to leave a blot broader and darker than any other in the Christian world.

He would not weary the House with the repetition of authorities which were quoted in 1870. But there were fresh authorities at hand on whose words and evidence they could rely, and these he would be obliged to give, because if they did not prove that the drug was demoralizing to the Chinese, they had no locus standi. He would read to the House an extract from an essay written by a Chinese on the subject. The author wrote— China is in the centre of the world. It has been a very rich country, and powerful in arms. Now that it has fallen into poverty and weakness, though you say this is caused by the revolutions of destiny, under the direction of heaven; it must he admitted that opium has had much to do with it. A most base substance is exchanged for silver, the dearest of commodities. In a year, how many hundreds of thousands of millions of ounces are wasted in enriching foreign countries, and impoverishing China? 'The courtier and the noble, as well as the poor scholar and the labourer; the high and low, without distinction, all love opium as if it were their life. Opium is a most injurious evil. The full and fleshy, if they indulge in it, become thin; the strong become weak, though they do not at once die, they suffer the equivalent of death. Trade with foreign countries, originally intended to increase our wealth and supply the needs of the Government, has brought in opium, which costing several thousand million strings of money, it has supplied to the people to smoke, thus drying up our sources of wealth and exhausting our means of living. Daily the evil grows. How can our energy and our muscle fail to be wasted? Faults and failures, how can they he wanting?'

These were the sentiments of a Chinese. Allusion had been made to a statement signed by 16 missionaries, which stated that the Empire and people of China are daily becoming more and more demoralized and impoverished by the increasing use of the drug. The moderate use of opium, granting that such a use is possible, is uniformly regarded by Chinese Christians as a sufficient reason for refusing admission to the Church, and though none of us enforce such a rule in regard to the use of spirits, we do all believe that the danger of excess is so much greater in the case of opium, that this rule in regard to it is necessary. The moral sense of the people of China, whether addicted to the vice of smoking opium or not, is opposed to the traffic, and condemns all concerned in the importation of the drug. These missionaries were often thought to be very good, but at times not very prudent men, and yet there was no question of their devoted- ness, and in many cases of their knowledge and ability. These men were paid by our constituents—many Members of this House subscribe largely to the funds which support them. They said to those people who used this drug which this country was sending in from India to China—"You are not to be admitted to the Christian Church." This country is deriving £6,000,000 sterling in India for the sale of the drug, the use of which kept its votaries outside the pale of the Christian Church. This seemed to him a strange consistency. Every one who had looked into this question must admit that it was nothing more than an immoral trade that we were carrying on with China. Every minister who had been called upon to deal with the matter, had resolved it into one question alone, that of money. It was idle to say that they must not attempt to reform the Chinese until they had begun reforms at home. It was for them to take care that their own hands were clean, and he was not attempting to argue the question of commencing reforms at home, or of reforming the Chinese. The only question he attempted to raise was as to the duty of Englishmen in reference to this particular trade. And on that point he said fearlessly, that as long as England followed this trade she was doing a huge moral iniquity, and that from the lowest of all motives—the sake of gain. As a nation they were pandering to the vices of the Chinese, and for money they were debauching a whole people. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Chinese Government adopted a wise policy when, finding they could no longer keep opium out of China, they put on a duty so small as practically to be no duty at all. Mr. Stewart had pointed out that in 1840 we went to war with China, and why was this done? Simply because the English were smuggling large quantities of opium into the country, and the Government was distinctly winking at the fact—nay, almost encouraging the practice. The Chinese blockaded our merchants at Canton, and seized 20,000 chests of opium, which they mixed with lime, oil, and rubbish of various kinds, afterwards trampling the whole mass under their feet, in order to show their detestation of the traffic; they knew, if they did not destroy, it would destroy them. England took her revenge by bombarding and destroying the town of this so-called fanatical people who hated and desired to put an end to the traffic in a poisonous drug. England gave the Chinese a lesson in Christianity by destroying them because they would not be poisoned, and then, after compelling them to pay for the smuggled opium which they had intercepted, Mr. Gladstone said the Chinese Government had adopted a wise policy. No statement or inference could have been more unfair to the wisdom of the Chinese Government. Three years after the war to which he had referred, Sir Robert Peel said, in reply to Lord Ashley, that he was endeavouring to obtain from the Chinese assent to a treaty under which opium would have been admitted; but it was not until 13 years later that the Heathens began to learn Christianity, and under the Treaty of Tien-tsin admitted opium at a duty to their country. What, however, did Mr. Wade, our Ambassador in China, say with reference to the business? Writing to Lord Clarendon, in May, 1869, Mr. Wade wrote as follows:— We are generally prone to forget that the footing we have in China has been obtained by force alone, and that, unwarlike and unenergetic as we hold the Chinese to be, it is in reality to 'the fear of force alone' that we are indebted for the safety we enjoy at certain points accessible to our force. … 'Nothing that has been gained, it must be remembered, was received from the free will of the Chinese; more, the concessions made to us have been, from first to last, extorted against the conscience of the nation '—in defiance, that is to say, of the moral convictions of its educated men—not merely of the office-holders, whom we call mandarins, and who are numerically but a small proportion of the educated class, but of the millions who are saturated with a knowledge of the history and philosophy of their country. To these, as a rule, the very extension of our trade must appear politically, or what is in China the same thing, morally wrong, and the story of foreign intercourse during the last 30 years can have had no effect but to confirm them in their opinion.

Later on, in May, 1869, there was a conference between Sir Rutherford Alcock and the Chinese Foreign Board, presided over by Wan Chang. Mr. Chapman, in his Minutes of the Conference, stated with regard to the Chinese Board, that— They proceeded to describe the horror entertained by all good Chinese, and by all the influential classes, of the effects of opium upon the Chinese nation; and said that real friendship was impossible, while England continued responsible for the drug to the Chinese people.

Wan Chang repeated that the Chinese Government did certainly hope and desire that the British Government would agree to some arrangement for giving effect to the wish of China, for the discouragement of the consumption of opium by the Chinese people. He had also in his possession a very remarkable memorandum written by the Chinese Minister, but time prevented him from reading it to the House. It showed additional evidence of the fact that the Chinese Government had from first to last protested against the traffic in a drug which was sapping the vitals of their nation. Let the House think what would have been the effect of England endeavouring to force whiskey or gin, for instance, upon an European nation, as she did opium in the ease of China, and compelling them to take the liquor at a nominal duty. It was probable that the result of such a course would be to involve England in a war with the country upon whom she attempted to force her spirits. But as China was a weak nation, almost to use Mr. Wade's words, England had introduced opium into the country by fraud, and was keeping it there by force. He therefore asserted strongly that the consumption of opium was destroying the people; that the Government of China desired to stop its importation. He would now proceed to deal briefly with the question of the Indian Revenue, as it was affected by the growth and export of opium. As a practical man, he thought nothing could justify his stating to Parliament what he thought should be done, unless he also pointed out how, in his opinion, it could be accomplished. Many persons would say that the character of the trade was so doubtful, that the revenue arising from it was so uncertain, and that there were so many things to be said against it, that if we could do without the money it would be better to abandon the trade; and so put a stop, as far as in us lay, to the evils by which it was accompanied. This was all very well as far as it went, but he wished those who could use this language to go a step further. There was a great difference between a State doing the trade themselves, and the same State receiving a revenue from those of its citizens who chose to cultivate and manufacture the drug. In the one case, the revenue resulted from the ordinary laws of supply and demand, and, in the other, it was derived from merchandize which we forced, as it were, upon the Chinese market. What was the position of our Indian Government with regard to the drug? They were in exactly the same position as the miserable victims of the drug themselves. They said as soon as they felt the pangs of hunger coming upon them in the shape of pecuniary want, "more opium," and the more the hunger came upon them, the more strong their craving for opium became. They found Indian Governors telegraphing to their subordinates to grow more opium; it was only the growth of opium would make our revenue easy. On the 22nd of April, 1869, the Hon. W. Grey, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, writing from Barrackpore to Mr. C. H. Campbell, said— I have a telegraphic message from Simla, urging that every possible expedient that you can approve should be used even now to extend the opium cultivation next season to the greatest possible extent.

Sir Richard Temple, in a Minute dated 27th April, 1869, wrote— I am clear for extending the cultivation and for ensuring a plentiful supply. If we do not do this, the Chinese will do it for themselves. They had better have our good opium than their own indifferent opium. There is really no moral objection to our conduct in this respect.

He might remark that the last sentence of Sir Richard Temple's Minute showed that he was struck with the idea that after all there might have been a moral objection to the business. Mr. Grey, again, on the 29th of April, 1869, urged increased cultivation, remarking—"This would just suffice, and no more, to put us on smooth ground again." Thus they had the spectacle of a Christian Government ruling in India, and sending more opium into China: and just in proportion as our financial needs require, we raised our revenue by debauching the Chinese people. Let the House look at a parallel case. Imagine England, which levied duty on Irish whiskey, having all the Scotch distilleries in her own hands, and telegraphing to Scotland that, having compelled France by force to consume our whiskey, and to admit it at a very low rate of duty, more grain must be grown, and more whiskey distilled. Such a thing would not be tolerated in Europe for a moment. There might be degrees in morality, but this forcing Indian opium upon the Chinese was many degrees worse than would be the forcing of Scotch whiskey by England upon France, because, as the House had already heard, the consumption of spirits was not nearly so deleterious to a people as the consumption of opium. This was not the first time that this view of the question had been brought before the House. On the 10th of May, 1870, the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Law-son) moved a Resolution on the subject, and on that occasion the hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs (Mr. Grant Duff), who was then Under Secretary of State for India, admitted that— Of course, there was a great deal to be said against this Bengal monopoly on politico-economical grounds. He supposed no one would invent such a system now-a-days; but we did not invent the system—we inherited it.

After some further observations, the hon. Member went on to say— As it was, no one, except those who had been working the system all their lives, was, so far as he was aware, particularly enamoured of the Bengal monopoly."—[3 Hansard, cci. 507–8.]

He had been told that if it was immoral in a State to cultivate opium, it was also immoral for a State to allow it to be grown under a pass duty. He agreed with this proposition, but he had rather to do with the State than with individual members of it; and if the trade was an immoral one, the question was only one of degree and of the State getting out of an awkward scrape. The first step to be taken then was to get rid of the Bengal monopoly, by putting the trade all under one system of pass duty, and then to go on raising the duty until India was prepared to do without the revenue, and the trade could be got rid of altogether. Of late years the Indian Revenue had shown increased vitality, and he sincerely hoped it would go on in the same direction until the Government would be able to dispense with the income derived from opium altogether. As a State we stood in a somewhat difficult position. We might say to the cultivators—"You may cultivate as long as you like; we desire to suppress the trade." Knowing at the same time that if the growth of opium was put an end to, the ground used for the purpose would be applied to the growth of things that, instead of destroying, would sustain life. 'With regard to the financial effects of a system under which the Government would desist from the growth of the poppy and discourage its cultivation, by private planters various opinions had been expressed. Sir William Muir, in a Minute dated February 22, 1868, described the probable finances of an experiment under which the Government should abandon cultivation and leave the production to private individuals, imposing a pass duty on the drug in entire substitution for the Bengal monopoly. He pointed out that in Bengal the production was 48,000 chests, and in Bombay 35,000, upon which a duty of 700 rupees per chest would yield £8,500,000, which, allowing £2,000,000 for correction, would leave a net revenue of £6,500,000. After stating these figures Sir William Muir concluded with this remarkable sentence— The change would relieve the British Government from the odious imputation of pandering to the vice of China by over stimulating production, overstocking the market and flooding China with a drug in order to raise a wider and more secure revenue to itself, an imputation of which at least on one occasion I fear we are not wholly guiltless.

Mr. Reid, Chief Commissioner of Customs at Bombay, held the same opinion in very clear language. He said— The disadvantages of the Government monopoly are so clearly pointed out that its further retention will surely find no advocacy, and its death knell may well be sounded.

In 1869, too, Sir R. N. C. Hamilton wrote— My recommendation is that Government should withdraw from the cultivation and throw it open to the public, to anybody who chose to cultivate it.

If further evidence were needed, he might go into the evidence in which Dr. George Smith, when examined before the India Finance Committee, described the means he would recommend for working out the Government system of cultivation. In 1870, Lord Sandhurst—then Sir William Mansfield—wrote— We are now certified that the cultivation of opium has immensely increased of late years, and is increasing in many provinces of China.

Further on the same authority wrote— We gathered from Sir Rutherford Alcock, when sitting with us in Council, that the Chinese look on this raising of duty as but the first step of the policy of exclusion of Indian grown opium. I arrive then at the conclusion that, whatever the cause, whether it was the moral one or the economical one, the Chinese have commenced a policy which is very hostile to British interests. As a matter of policy, I believe it would be wise for the Government to relieve itself of the burden of the manufacture and sale of Bengal opium.

These were all strong opinions on the part of leading men in India, and he trusted their advice would have its due weight with Parliament and the Government as represented by the noble Marquess at the head of the India Office, and the noble Lord his junior. He felt that if the Government did not face the matter at an early date, the matter would come again so prominently before them, that it would not be by any means easy to deal with. The cultivation of opium in China had been alluded to, and he believed it was the fact that the Chinese had determined to throw the Indian opium trade back upon India. They said, in effect—"If our people are to become demoralized by the use of opium, we may as well grow it ourselves, for we can grow it 40 or 50 per cent cheaper than it is grown in India." Sir Rutherford Alcock's statement on this point amounted to the fact that— He had found that the Chinese authorities had come to the resolution that unless steps were taken by the British Government to check the importation of opium, to drive the Indian drug out of the market, both by absolute prohibition of its import and the encouragement of the poppy cultivation and the manufacture of indigenous opium, he was convinced that these were their intentions and that they had power to carry them into effect.

These opinions were expressed by Sir Rutherford Alcock in his report to the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal on the Treaty of Tien-tsin, and in the same document he referred to Mr. Gubbay's letter of the 29th of November, 1869, which showed that in the Province of Seehuen, the opium crop had risen from 3,500 piculs to 50,000. Again, Sir Henry M. Durand went at length into the question of Chinese growing opium, and expressed his opinion that it must in the end drive Indian opium out of China. He (Mr. Pease) thought, then, he had proved how odious the traffic was to the Chinese, how steadily it had increased from year to year until recently; how the cultivation had been pushed; how steadily the pass duty on opium had increased; and how the Indian statesmen had agreed that the duty system should be the only system, and the Government should altogether abandon the cultivation of opium. He therefore trusted that recommendations which had been made would be carried into effect. It was clear that the Chinese could produce opium cheaper than it could be produced and exported from India; and he hoped he had also proved that for the sake of our Indian Revenue the State was pandering to Chinese vices; that the Revenue was becoming more and more dependent upon this vice, and that it was becoming daily more and more precarious in its character. He thought everyone would agree with him that there was a very decided difference between the State cultivating and selling the drug, and the State leaving the cultivation in the hands of private individuals, taking a duty upon the export merely. Lord Sandhurst had expressed an opinion, that as a matter of policy it would be wise for the Government to relieve itself of the burden of the manufacture of Bengal opium. He would like much to see this done and the trade swept away root and branch; but he was bound to admit that at present there were causes which would render this impossible, from the point of view of policy. He maintained, however, that we could do as a matter of duty that which Lord Sandhurst referred to in the light of policy. Let them follow up this policy by steps, in order to destroy a trade which was only profitable in proportion as it destroyed. There was no man who could look back upon the history of our dealings with China without agreeing with him that it was one of the blackest pages in our trading history. He could only, in conclusion, express an earnest hope that our future policy towards the Chinese might not be one of feeding their depraved appetites, but might be one of aiding the good and enlightened among them to stamp out a vice that both the Christian religion and the axioms of heathenism alike condemned.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House is of opinion that the Imperial policy regulating the Opium traffic between India and China should be carefully considered by Her Majesty's Government with a view to the gradual withdrawal of the Government of India from the cultivation and manufacture of Opium,"—(Mr. Mark Stewart,)

—instead thereof.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

said, he had recently had some official connection with the opium traffic, and he therefore considered it proper that he should express his views to the House regarding it. He had placed an Amendment on the Paper to the Resolution of the hon. Member for the Wigton Burghs (Mr. Stewart), which by the forms of the House he was unable to move; but he would read it to the House, as it stated the views he held upon the question. It affirmed that the House was of opinion that the system under which opium was manufactured and sold by the British Government in India should not be extended, but, on the contrary, should, as far as circumstances permit, be gradually restricted. He had sympathized very sincerely with much that the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution had said; and would at once admit the perfect fairness which both hon. Gentlemen had evinced in placing the subject before the House. It seemed to him, however, after all, that the question was a practical one. It was not whether the evils attending the consumption of opium were great—undoubtedly they were—the question was, how those evils could be remedied. Large sums were derived from opium by the Indian Government; but he maintained that the Indian Government had had nothing whatever to do with forcing the traffic upon the Chinese. If forced it was upon them, that Government had totally dissociated themselves from the transaction. Both in the past and at present the matter was one between the British merchants and the Chinese, and the Indian Government had had no part in it for many years. Looking at the matter from an Indian point of view, the question was a more simple one. He had considered the subject a good deal, and it appeared to him that the relative evils of opium and alcohol were very much on a par. Both undoubtedly were very bad; the one was the vice of the West, and the other the vice of the East, and it was impossible for any man to say that one or the other was the worst. He thought that they might treat this simply as a matter of race, and that as the Aryan races preferred alcoholic drinks, so the Turanian consumed opium. It had often been urged that, as regarded the opium traffic, it was a cursed thing, from which they were bound to withdraw altogether as speedily as possible. He would venture to say that that was not a practical view of the matter, and he would ask how were they to shake themselves free? Only by one of two courses—they could either allow the trade in opium to be free, or prohibit it altogether. Now, what would be the result of allowing free trade? He maintained that the sale would be greater, that enormous injury to the population would be produced, and that there would be a loss in the Revenue. The other course was to prohibit the cultivation altogether. He was not prepared to say that was a wrong course; indeed, a great deal might be said in favour of it. But was the House prepared to take that course? When the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) had not only carried his Permissive Bill, but when the manufacture and use of alcohol were entirely prohibited, it might then be possible to suggest the prohibition of the cultivation of opium; but it was totally impossible that the poppy cultivation should be prohibited, and our Indian Revenue should be sacrificed, for the benefit of the Chinese, while the alcohol of Britain was allowed free scope. We did not leave the traffic in alcohol free, but we checked it by a very heavy taxation. Opium was one of those things upon which the imposition of a heavy duty enabled us to serve God and Mammon at the same time—doing good to our neighbours by checking its consumption and raising a large Revenue for ourselves. That was a view that was really accepted by hon. Members who had dealt with the subject, and until they were prepared with another system they must continue to tax the drug, and the only question that then arose was the form in which it was to be taxed. He would say that after all, whether the tax was imposed in the shape of an export duty, or by a monopoly like the tobacco-monopoly in France, or other systems of a similar kind, it was a tax raised upon an article of consumption. He had no hesitation in saying that, if he saw his way to do so, he would do his utmost to get rid of this monopoly system, and confine himself to the duty only. At the same time, he would say, from a long and intimate acquaintance with this system, and having seen both sides of the question, that he believed that the monopoly did in practice work well, and it was more unseemly than injurious. The Gottenburg system, under which the public authorities regulated the liquor traffic so that as little harm as possible should be done to the community, was precisely analogous to the system followed in Bengal with regard to the opium traffic. Before the present system was abolished they ought to be shown a better one to substitute for it. The opium revenue was of very great importance to India, and there would be much risk attending changes. We derived a large revenue from opium, and the financial condition of India at the present time was not such as would justify us in running great financial risks for the sake of an idea. So far from being in a flourishing state, our Indian Revenue barely sufficed to make both ends meet, and it certainly was not in a condition that would enable them to sacrifice any part of it. As to the position of the ryots, there was no pressure whatever put upon them to grow opium, and under a different system they would probably fare worse than they did at present. In the same districts as those in which opium was grown the manufacture of indigo was carried on by private speculators, and the ryots engaged in that industry were not by any means free, for they were under a sort of feudalism. If a system of duties were adopted in regard to opium it would probably be necessary to interfere with the course of free trade—to lay down strict regulations as to where opium ought to be grown, and to take great precautions against smuggling. Thus, the proposed change involved other than purely financial considerations, and it would be most injudicious to take any hasty step in the matter. If it could be proved that good would be done by the sacrifice, he would assent to it; but he did not think that any good would be done if the income they derived from opium were swept away. At the same time he would not extend the monopoly system, and when some years ago it was proposed to extend it, he had opposed the suggestion, and it was not carried out. He would restrict the system to the places thoroughly well accustomed to it, and carry out the duty system whenever it was possible. That was the view which he held formerly as an Indian official, and which he had now to urge as a Member of the House of Commons. The Government of India would, he hoped, take the matter into their consideration. The truth was, the greater part of the opium revenue was derived from those districts in which monopoly was established, and it was necessary in any action which might be taken that great caution should be observed. In the case of Behar and Benares it would, he thought, be better to wait until we had seen the result of a change in other parts of the country, where the revenue to be risked would he very much smaller in amount. If the change proved successful in those quarters, then it might be extended, and we might thus ultimately be enabled to get rid of monopoly altogether, although he did not think the time when we could do so had yet arrived.

MR. RUSSELL GURNEY

said, he supported the Resolution, which he thought exceedingly mild and cautious. He thought there was no necessity for warning the House not to proceed with too great haste in the matter, seeing that this was the advice given more than a quarter-of-a-century ago, and that the result of the action which had been taken with respect to it was, that the evils of the trade had increased something like four-fold. It was, he might add, idle to contend that there was no difference between the two modes employed for levying a revenue from opium—one of which was to lay a heavy duty on the export of the article, thereby discouraging the trade; and the other the cultivation of the article by the Government itself. There was all the difference between the two modes that existed—between the nation becoming a distiller, and levying a tax on spirits when in the still. As to perfect free trade in opium in India, no one had suggested it. In former debates in that House it had been admitted that great evils sprung from the manufacture of opium and its compulsory exportation to China, on the inhabitants of which country it was forced, according to Mr. Wade, against their conscientious convictions. A very serious responsibility rested on this country in the matter, and it was, therefore, our duty to do, as soon as possible, everything that lay in our power to clear ourselves from the effect upon the nation and the world of a belief in our criminality in this trade—a trade which was contrary to the feelings and to the interests of the whole Chinese people. Our prestige did not rest upon mere physical force, but also upon moral grounds, and he urged that something ought to be done at once to show that we were taking the subject into our serious consideration, with a view, at any rate, to clearing ourselves from the responsibility which hitherto attached to us. The Chinese had been resisting this traffic with all their power, whilst England had been doing everything it could to force it upon them; and the only intelligible argument he had ever heard advanced in support of such a course on our part was that the traffic was yielding us a large Revenue. It was simply a question whether our moral reputation was not worth more than even the large sum we were deriving from the opium trade.

MR. LAING

said, that having given that question much anxious consideration when he was Finance Minister in India some 12 years ago, he wished to address a few observations upon it to the House. Those observations, fortunately, would be short, because much of what he had intended to say had been said already very ably by the hon. Baronet the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), who from his former position as Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, spoke with great authority on that subject. He might say generally that he agreed to a very great extent with the remarks and the line of argument of that hon. Member, only he felt somewhat more strongly than that hon. Member did the impolicy of any attempt to interfere in accordance with English ideas or English sentiments with the practical administration of affairs in India; and he had more confidence than, perhaps, that hon. Gentleman had in the good sense of the House and of the English people, when fairly appealed to, not to attempt to import English ideas into the Government of that great Empire, and, above all, into its financial administration. He had great respect for philanthropy which was philanthropy at its own expense, but little for philanthropy which was philanthropy at the expense of others. If they endeavoured, on account of some conscientious scruple, to force measures on the Government of India which would cause a sacrifice of between £6,000,000 and £7,000,000 of Revenue, they ought to say whether they were prepared to make up for that loss, or for any part of it. How was it proposed to supply the deficit? Were they prepared to pay the bill, or any part of it? If not, who was to pay it? Surely not the poor Hindoo ryot. If the Government of India were to double or even treble the salt duty it would not suffice, and he did not suppose any philanthropist would recommend such an expedient as that of taxing a necessary article consumed by the people for whom we were responsible, for the sake of those who indulged in a drug, and for whom we were not responsible. After repeated attempts to impose it, the income tax had been withdrawn, to all appearance finally; and as to that tax, it had not at the very highest produced more than a fourth of the sum derived from opium. Was it desired that they should unsettle the land settlements and break faith with all the cultivators of the soil in order to increase the Land Revenue—which it would be necessary to do to the extent of 25 or 30 per cent. if they wanted to make up the amount of the revenue from opium? Or were they prepared to allow a heavy import duty on Manchester manufactures? They would not by that means get nearly what they sacrificed, but it would be an evidence of sincerity. No one could suppose, however, that such a duty would be tolerated by this country. Some practical substitute must be shown, and it must be a substitute which would not fall upon the vast and poor population for whom we were trustees. For his own part, his opinion was identically the same as that of the hon. Baronet, for he had arrived at the conclusion that the case of opium and that of alcohol stood substantially upon the same footing. The same arguments that were used against opium might be used against gin and whisky. As to the prevalent idea that a man who took a small quantity of opium felt compelled to increase the indulgence to an extent utterly ruinous, it was no more true than it would be to say that every Scotchman who drank a glass of whisky became a confirmed drunkard. Of course, there were opium smokers in the large towns in China as there were whisky drinkers here, who ruined themselves, but when they came to regard the consumption of a great nation, £8,000,000 sterling worth of opium being consumed every year by the population of China, would any one say that that enormous quantity was consumed by men in this deplorable condition? He had often heard it said that it was common to see the Chinese workman, when his dinner hour came, sitting down under a tree and taking his meal, and, after it, swallow a minute quantity of opium—just as an English labourer might smoke a pipe—and in 10 minutes more get up and resume his work. If a man did a great deal of hard work in the open air a little opium, like a little alcohol, did not seem to have much effect; but, no doubt, it was a very different case in the stews of great cities, where the indulgence was carried on to a ruinous extent. The truth was that there was much to be said upon both sides. The intoxication caused by opium was less violent in its character than that occasioned by alcohol, and less crime was committed in Singapore under the influence of the former than there was in this country under the influence of the latter. It was very easy, of course, to get up evidence as to the frightful effects of opium, but such evidence could not always be implicitly relied on. At Singapore, while the Chinese took their opium, the Europeans drank arrack, and the Native population took tobacco and betel nut. It was found that the Chinese were worth three of the Natives, and therefore it could not be said that the human frame deteriorated under the influence of the nervous stimulant which they so freely used. Under the circumstances were we in a fit of virtuous indignation to destroy so productive an Indian industry for the sake of moral considerations, while we continued to raise the greater part of our own revenue from alcohol? It would be most unjust if we were to be thus cheaply virtuous at the expense of 200,000,000 of the poor toiling wretched ryots of India, for whom we were the trustees, and whom we ought to endeavour to raise in the scale of comfort and of civilization. As to the mode of collecting the revenues, he disapproved altogether of the proposal to abolish the Government monopoly on opium, and to raise a revenue from the drug by means of an export duty. A very important argument in favour of maintaining the present monopoly was, that it was the means of regulating the supply and consequent price of the article in China. If they abandoned the Government monopoly there would be great variations in the price of opium. In the event of their running the price up exceedingly high, in the first instance the Government of India might gain by it, but the inevitable effect would be to lead to the ruin of the trade by occasioning vast fluctuations in the price of the drug and by encouraging Chinese competition, and it would give rise to a large amount of smuggling. The revenue which we derived from opium was not a precarious one, but was a continually increasing one, being based on the growing demands of a large portion of the human race. Having by the accident of circumstances almost a monopoly of that article in India, we wisely and properly took advantage of that fortunate circumstance to alleviate the burden of taxation upon our immediate subjects in India. Those who wished to abolish this source of revenue ought to show what other practical course they proposed to substitute for it. He regarded the great danger to our Indian Empire as being not Russian aggression, nor Indian disaffection, nor another Mutiny; it would arise from the wish to govern India from home in accordance with Indian ideas and English sentiments. As far as he knew, every time that English public opinion had been so brought to bear as to interfere and overrule with the action of those who were responsible in India for the government of India, the result had been disastrous. He asked the House, therefore, to beware how they did anything of that sort in the dangerous matter of Indian finance. His experience showed him that, however much to be applauded were the motives of hon. Gentlemen who brought forward Motions like the present, in nine cases out of ten they did harm rather than good. Let the best men be selected for the government of India, then let the responsibility rest on them, and they would find those gentlemen infinitely more likely to be right than hon. Members here at home could possibly be. He deprecated any attempt to prescribe to the Government of India a course the practical effect of which must be inevitably to lay a further heavy burden upon the already severely-taxed people of India.

SIR JOHN KENNAWAY

said, the House ought to accept with all respect the caution given it by the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, experienced as he was in the affairs of India. At the same time, he (Sir John Kennaway) asked himself whether the hon. Gentleman had not gone too far in deprecating any interference in the affairs of India on the part of the House of Commons. The policy recommended would be a retrograde policy from that which was adopted when England took the responsibility of governing India out of the hands of the East India Company. He quite admitted that the present was a great financial question, and that the loss of Revenue would be a very serious matter. But the moral reputation of England ought to be dearer to the House than her financial reputation, and if the system under discussion was wrong, it ought to be terminated, no matter what might be the consequences. Whilst we took a high moral tone with the Sultan of Zanzibar and with other foreign rulers, we could not well ignore the question of whether what was being done was morally right or wrong. The objection made was not to the raising of a revenue from opium, but to the mode in which it was raised, the Government undertaking all the functions of trader and speculator, and encouraging the growth of what was admitted to be a noxious drug when money was not abundant. With regard to the Chinese, an unjust distinction was, he thought, drawn between the responsibility of the Government of India and of the Imperial Government. That responsibility was one, and could not be divided. There was a very strong feeling amongst the Chinese on the subject, for they regarded the English as responsible for the drug coming into their country by the peculiar mode in which its growth was encouraged and fostered, and would not do anything towards admitting our trade and manufactures whilst we continued our present course of proceeding. Moreover, the time had come when the Chinese might demand a revision of the Treaty of 1860, and insist upon closing their ports, and we should have great difficulty in resisting their demand. In such a course they would be backed by the Americans who, at that time, sent their Navy to protest against the opening of the ports, and it was very likely that Russia might back up such a demand. What was asked of the Government of India was that they should gradually withdraw from the production of opium, and limit their experiment to the raising of revenue by a licence, and surely that experiment could be tried in one portion of the country. The House had now before it a moderate proposal which, as it did not ask for the entire abrogation of the duty, was not open to the charge of rashness in sacrificing a large revenue, but which asked the Government to proceed tentatively to redress a moral wrong. Upon the grounds, therefore, both of the immorality of the thing and of the possibility of the opium revenue being brought to an end, it was advisable that the Government should cease to regard the opium traffic as a permanent source of revenue, and he thought that, under the circumstances, the House would do well to support the Motion.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, that having been employed in the first War of 1840 with China, and usually, but unfairly, called the Opium War, and having gained some information when employed in that country subsequent to the War as Consul, upon the opium trade, he felt much confidence in saying that as the Chinese had never shown a real and sincere wish to prevent opium from being conveyed into that country, he considered it right to be cautious how we forced our reforms on a nation disinclined to the reformers. He happened to be present in 1843 at Hong Kong after the first war with China, when an offer was made by the two Chinese Commissioners, Keyung and Whang, who, after their visit to Hong Kong, and on their return to Canton, wrote out on board the steamboat, and sent the written proposal by our then able Chinese Secretary, Mr. John Morrison, to Sir Henry Pottinger, stating that if the British Government would agree to pay the sum of $3,000,000, we might introduce into China any quantity of opium that we liked. He recommended Sir Henry Pottinger to avail himself of that offer, because he foresaw the difficulty which would be caused by the opium traffic. [Mr. MARK STEWART: When was that offer made?] It was made in July, 1843. The document relating to it, and which was submitted to Sir Henry Pottinger by Mr. Morrison, containing the translation of the Commissioners' proposal, was written in his house, and was now a part of a Parliamentary Paper, laid before Parliament so far back as 1857. He (Sir George Balfour) a few months afterwards sailed for the North of China, and established the port of Shanghai, which was one of the five ports allowed to be opened under the Treaty of Nankin. He selected this port in spite of the disadvantage of its being then a great mart for the sale of opium, which was introduced into China by Chinese, who took the opium out of vessels outside the port, but because, being a central part of the Empire, he was confident that a vast commerce would spring up with that part of China. The opium traffic was, as he had anticipated, the cause of trouble, because it was carried on at the mouth of the river that led up to Shanghai. He (Sir George Balfour) was comparatively young at the time, and his feelings were certainly against forcing the opium into the Chinese territory against the will of the Chinese; and was then well inclined to prevent those evils which the improper use of opium caused. But so long as the opium vessels which then sailed under other than the English flag kept beyond the jurisdiction of the Consular office which he held at Shanghai, there was no power or pretext to interfere with this traffic, which the Chinese, openly it may be said, carried on with these vessels; but on three British vessels inside the limits of the port mixing themselves up in it, then the conditions were changed, and he thought that he had a duty to perform as an official of the English Government in preventing British subjects violating the Chinese prohibitory laws, and he seized these three vessels for contravening, as he thought, the laws of China. A very proper censure was, however, conveyed to him by Her Majesty's Plenipotentiary, and which was in part set forth in the Parliamentary Return above referred to, for undertaking to perform duties for the protection of China and its people which belonged to the Government of China to discharge, but which they showed neither inclination nor wish to perform. Sir Henry Pottinger was succeeded by Sir John Davies, who, in one of his despatches in the Return quoted, stated that Captain Balfour, at Shanghai, reported that the local Government had no desire to receive information as to the evasions carried on in the opium traffic. He ought also to mention that in the year previous, during the negotiations at Nankin, Sir Henry Pottinger had frequent communications with high Chinese authorities about the opium trade, and it was undeniable that the Chinese officers were very indifferent indeed with regard to the opium traffic, Having served in China during the first War, he must remark on the statement of the hon. Member for South Durham, (Mr. Pease) that he should never have thought of being accused of carrying on a war with China on account of opium. That war was, no doubt, occasioned by Commissioner Lin, who opened the crusade against opium; yet the cause of the war was not opium, but the forcible seizure of our merchants who had a right to live in Canton, and to carry on their trade there, and who were forcibly detained, along with our Representative, as prisoners, and forced to give up property to save their lives. There was at present a Member of the House whose firm was obliged to give up a stock of opium at Canton which had not only not been brought from Calcutta, but not even purchased from the Government of India. No more injudicious act than that forcible seizure of our merchants to give up opium could have been committed by Lin, because the opium trade, which had up to that time been confined to the mouth of the Canton River, afterwards spread over all the rivers in China. After all, less evils were caused from the consumption of opium than from the use of ardent spirits. Our 80,000 chests of opium sent into China were quite insufficient to bring about all the serious consequences with which the opium trade was charged. No doubt, the abuse of opium was productive of great evil, but so also was the spirit produced in foreign countries and imported into the United Kingdom with the consent of the people of this country, or rather with that of Parliament. In China it was different. Opium was prohibited, but yet it is said to have been freely used in the Imperial Palace. Mr. Wade and Sir Rutherford Alcock have both borne testimony, in the strongest terms, to the laxity of the Chinese authorities in resorting to the measures necessary to carry out their assumed hostility to the opium traffic. As to the reported extensive and increasing cultivation of opium by the Chinese themselves, he did not believe it. The same thing used to be said when he was in China; but, as far as he could judge, the cultivation of opium had been very little extended since that time, and no country in the world could produce opium to compare with that of Malwa, Benares, and Patna. No doubt, with this superior kind of opium the inferior China and Turkish opium was mixed, and it might be that adulteration was now better known and more extensively used with the large increase of the supplies of Indian opium, which were doubled since the first war with China. This augmentation might have given rise to the notion of increased cultivation in China; but even if true, the fact only showed the laxity of the Chinese officers in respect to this produce, now prohibited to be either grown or imported. With regard to the demand that India should change its present practice of levying a large Revenue from the opium exported to China, he would beg the House to bear with him when he pointed out that, having served in India, he knew that several Ministers had endeavoured to grapple with the question, but none of them had had either the skill or the courage to try an experiment with the Revenues of the country derived from opium. That Revenue amounted to nearly one-eighth of the total gross Revenue of India, and more than one-seventh of the net Revenue, and bore nearly the same proportion as that of the Excise on spirits to our entire Revenue. It was thus a most important item, and one that few would have the boldness to treat with in the easy way now urged in the House. He knew of statesmen who had most anxiously desired to modify the present monopoly of Bengal opium, so as to levy a toll or an Excise tax, as on the opium; but it was far more difficult, if not impossible, to do so with the opium of Patna and Benares than it was with the opium of Malwa, owing to the geographical character of the Provinces being so different. Further, he (Sir George Balfour) would point to the fact that Sir Charles Trevelyan went to India in 1862 almost pledged to change the Bengal system, but found it impracticable. And Sir Bartle Frere, one of our ablest and most pure-minded statesmen, earnestly and sincerely directed his close attention to this opium question, but abstained from changes, though he had the support of Lord Canning; and although the present Finance Minister (Sir William Muir) was opposed to the opium traffic, he (Sir George Balfour) did not believe he would be able to make any change. The question was purely one of finance, and he could not see the possibility of raising by other means the amount that was derived from the manufacture and export of opium. He thought, on the whole, that the best course would be not to press the Motion now before the House, but to leave the matter for the present in the hands of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India, who might, in the course of a year, as the result of continued investigation and thought, hit upon a plan which would solve the difficulty.

MR. E. NOEL

said, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wick (Mr. Laing), that it would not be possible to govern India by English ideas, seeing that we had to deal with a people in utterly different circumstances to ours; and, therefore, to deal with them as if they were a free people like ours, was utterly impossible. It was, however, news to him that we were not to deal with the people of India on a moral basis—and that, though we were to treat them as an Oriental people, and not as a Western one, we were not to consider in dealing with them the great principles of morality. He utterly repudiated such a doctrine as that. It was said that the opium question was not to be dealt with, because the people of India were not to be called upon to pay for the whims of England. He agreed with that; but he would remind the House that it was an English whim in the interest of an English company which first called upon India to raise a revenue by the growth and export of opium. The question how the Revenue of India could be raised if the cultivation of opium by the Indian Government were stopped, was the great difficulty; but the House ought to stimulate the Government to see if they could not grapple with that difficulty by finding means to raise the Indian Revenue without encouraging the traffic in opium. It was the opinion of many Indian statesmen who had looked into this question, that we might restrict the area on which at present the Government made advances to the Bengal ryot for the growth of opium, and that if certain districts were left free for speculators to go into this trade, we might not at once be called upon to lose that great amount of revenue which it would be almost impossible for an Indian Financial Secretary at this moment to deal with. It was known that Sir William Muir was anxious to have the cultivation of opium by the Indian Government stopped, and that he believed he would be able to discover means of meeting any deficiency in the Indian Revenue which would be occasioned by that course; but it was not likely that he would undertake the task unless he was supported by a strong expression of enlightened opinion at home. It was, therefore, the duty of the House to pass a Resolution which would encourage Sir William Muir in the good work which he was desirous of undertaking. If the Government would show a desire to put an end to the Government monopoly, our relations with China would be improved, and this dreadful blot would soon be removed from our escutcheon.

MR. W. W. BEACH

said, he wished to make a few remarks on this subject, as he had been a Member of the Indian Finance Committee. His wish was that an end be put to this immoral traffic in opium, but he feared there were difficulties connected with the question which must necessarily exist. As an independent Member of the Committee he studied the subject with the most profound attention. As to the Chinese, we were not responsible for their tastes, any more than they were for the tastes of some of our own countrymen. He feared they had had for many generations a pernicious taste for opium, as in this country some people were given to alcoholic liquors. The opium grown in India had a flavour which the Chinese liked better than that of the opium grown in China, just as the Chinese tea was superior to that grown in India; and the anxiety of the Chinese Government to stop the importation of Indian opium was not so much owing to their wish to promote the morality of the Chinese people, as the growth of Chinese opium. With regard to the comparative advantages of the State selling the chests of opium or of levying an export duty, from the evidence given before the Committee it was abundantly plain that while the one system was adapted for the Western part of India, the other system was best adapted for the East. The opium exported from Bombay had to be carried by long journeys overland, and therefore it was easy to prevent smuggling, and an export duty might be imposed upon it; but the case was far different when it was transported for a short distance by water. He feared it would be extremely difficult to change the monopoly system into an export duty system, as the result would apparently be to encourage illicit traffic to the detriment of the revenue; but still the subject was well worth inquiring into, and if the authorities could see good grounds for altering the system, such a course would be of the greatest public benefit.

MR. M'LAREN

said, the Resolution moved by the hon. Member for the Wigtown Burghs (Mr. Stewart) was quite explicit. No one could mistake its meaning; it was that that House should gradually withdraw from the opium traffic between India and China. The Amendment proposed to that Resolution was, however, a very different thing. The hon. Baronet the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), arguing in favour of the Amendment, seemed to indicate every possible way to diminish the traffic and put an end to it; and then having set up one plan after another successively, he knocked them all down, and seemed to show not only that there was no room at present for anything to be done, but no probability of anything arising in future. He (Mr. M'Laren) considered the speech was the most out-and-out defence of the opium system he ever heard advanced. We had done a great moral wrong in forcing that drug on the Chinese, and he considered the Treaty the most iniquitous one that had ever been forced on any foreign country. With that view, his remedy was exceedingly simple—abrogate this forced Treaty at once. No doubt, the quantity exported from India would gradually diminish; but it would not diminish all at once, and in time the Government would be no worse off than now.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, he did not think the hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. M'Laren) was aware what would be the result of abrogating the Treaty. Sir Rutherford Alcock had expressed a very decided opinion that if the Chinese were left unfettered by the Treaty they would at once expel—if they did not exterminate—all the Protestant Missionaries from the country. The hon. Member surely was not anxious to bring about such a result as that? There had been that evening a most interesting discussion on the whole question of the opium revenue and trade of India. His hon. Friend who introduced the Motion (Mr. Stewart) suggested that certain alterations should be made, and that the system of excise and export duty now in force in Bombay should be tried in Bengal in place of the monopoly system at present existing there. His hon. Friend seemed, however, to argue against any revenue whatever being derived from opium.

MR. MARK STEWART

explained that he did not argue against prohibition at all, but wished to do away with the Bengal system and to substitute for it the system which was in vogue in Bombay.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, it certainly seemed to him that his hon. Friend's words implied direct condemnation of any revenue being derived from opium. One fact must have struck hon. Gentlemen who had listened to the discussion as being very remarkable. There had, indeed, been a complete conflict of opinion between hon. Members. Every speaker who had had any official experience of India pointed out the danger, if not the impossibility, of abandoning the revenue; whereas hon. Gentlemen who had advocated the abolition or alteration of the mode of raising the revenue, and who were doubtless actuated by the best of motives, looked at the question merely from a philanthropic, and not from a practical point of view. Two fallacies underlay the statements of both his hon. Friends who had brought forward this Motion. They appeared entirely to forget, in the first place, that there was no nation in the world which did not in some shape or other take stimulants. Secondly, they forgot that in a large portion of Asia—not only in China, but also in Assam and Burmah—the stimulant taken by the natives was opium. We drank beer, the Irish and Scotch took whisky, Americans chewed tobacco, and the Chinese smoked opium. The latter took opium because it was the form of stimulant best adapted to the climate in which they lived. Sir Rutherford Alcock pointed out that there were certain medicinal properties in opium which made it sought for by the inhabitants of marshy and malarious districts, and hon. Members who lived in our own fens must be aware that there was a large consump- tion of opium and laudanum in that part of England. Such being the case, it was not fair to put upon the Indian Government the responsibility for the immoderate use of opium by the Chinese. It had been assumed that it was entirely owing to the action of the Indian Government that the Chinese smoked opium. Why was the smuggling of opium carried on? Because the people wanted it. Was it likely that it would be grown in India and that merchants would take to smuggling unless there was a strong disposition on the part of the country to which it was sent to consume opium? Mr. Cooper and Sir Rutherford Aloock pointed out that the habit of opium smoking had existed in China for centuries. It was perfectly true that in Eastern China the opium chiefly used there came from India; but Mr. Cooper stated that he had travelled all over Western China, and found that the people there cultivated opium more extensively than in the other parts of China, and yet in Western China Indian opium was almost unknown. If he might venture to suggest it to his hon. Friends who differed from him, he could not help thinking that they accepted too readily the instances of persons who made an immoderate use of opium, and drew from it a general deduction that every one who indulged in it was completely demoralized, physically and morally. There was very remarkable evidence bearing on this point. There could be no question that the Chinaman who smoked moderately could do an amount of work which no native of any other country could perform. There was a very remarkable report which had come home quite recently from a Consul in China whose territory was in the western part of the Empire, and who once held opinions similar to those expressed that evening. This gentleman had at first partaken of the nearly universal belief that the use of opium was entirely demoralizing to the individual who was addicted to it, and he gave his experience, which was extensive, and which induced him to alter his opinion. During his journeys he came into the closest relations with men who smoked. Their work was of the hardest and rudest—and the attention of the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) was called to this—they had constantly to strip and plunge into the stream in all seasons. The quantity of food they ate was simply prodigious, and the two most addicted to the habit of smoking were the pilot and the ship's cook. On the steadiness of nerve of the former the safety of the junk depended, and yet they seemed to be almost independent of sleep or rest. The Consul added that though he did not wish to say that opium smoking did no harm, his opinion with regard to it had been much modified, and he was bound to admit that it could be smoked without injury. This was testimony of undoubted reliability, and the result arrived at was the same as the decision previously arrived at by other persons. Mr. Cooper, in his evidence, said that the habit of smoking was very prevalent among the Chinese. He said that if you suddenly cut off the supply of opium, one-third of the whole nation would die; and he added that so long as it was used in moderation, it was not detrimental to health, and that the people who smoked it were able to perform an enormous quantity of work. He might quote another important authority, who declared that the Chinese would have opium; that if the Indian Government prohibited its growth and export, no good would be done; and that the Indian Government conferred a great benefit on that part of China to which they imported opium. One of the great evils of China was over-population, and if the opium was not imported, the Chinese would cultivate it in place of cereals and other food. He was aware that opium smoking was prohibited in China under pain of death. Who was the Emperor who passed that law? He was the Sir Wilfrid Lawson of China. He was a man determined to put down the use of opium and all stimulants, and seeing his son one day smoking he instantly ordered his head to be cut off. This law, however, was now a dead letter, and no one attempted to enforce it. He hoped his hen. Friend (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) would draw some little deduction from this excessive prohibition, for he had little doubt if his hon. Friend was successful in enforcing his particular principles his descendants would find that the law in which they were embodied was equally disregarded. Two different lines of argument were adopted on this question. They were told on the one hand that the source of revenue was precarious, inasmuch as the cultivation of opium was extending in China; and, on the other hand, they were told they must prohibit the importation of opium into China, because it was owing to the Indian opium that the Chinese people were perishing. Something of the same kind was put forth in a pamphlet which he held in his hand, and which was published upon the authority of the Anti-Opium Society. In a statement made this year, and signed by 16 Chinese Missionaries, it was said that the growing demand for foreign opium had been checked by native cultivation, and that it might cease altogether from that cause, while the consumption increased. But having made that remark, they went on to make this most extraordinary suggestion— There is now, therefore, an opportunity for Great Britain, by a noble act of self-sacrifice, giving a check to the consumption of opium in China by checking the supply. That was surely a most inconsistent argument. The real fact of the matter was, that whether they stopped the importation of opium into China or not, the Chinese would have opium; and therefore it was not fair or accurate to place on the head of the Indian Government all the evils which ensued from the immoderate use of opium. As to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Wigtonshire, that they should abandon the Bengal and adopt the Bombay system, he did not see if it was wrong to derive any revenue from opium, why it was right to get it by excise or import duties. His hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) considered this a proposal for sacrificing a considerable portion of revenue for an idea. He quite understood that there might be certain hon. Gentlemen who considered it wrong of the Indian Government to associate themselves in any way with the cultivation or manufacture of opium; but if he could show that every one of the evils which the hon. Member deprecated under the present system would be increased ten-fold by the proposal the hon. Member made, and that the amount of opium that would be imported must be doubled or even more largely increased, he thought it would be admitted that the suggestion made was not one which would be adopted by even the supporters of the Anti-Opium Society. In Assam the people were al- lowed to cultivate opium, and the result was the whole population became demoralized. That was because there was no restriction, no regulation, no control exercised, and women and children were in the habit of sucking rags saturated with the drug, a mode of consuming the drug most deleterious, and resulting in almost perpetual intoxication. Unlimited cultivation of opium was therefore now abandoned, and a new system had been adopted in Bengal, by which the persons engaged in the cultivation of opium were the healthiest and sturdiest of the population. Therefore, the first way in which his hon. Friend would improve the condition of the people of India would be to demoralize a large portion of them. Then as to the next point. In the Finance and Revenue Accounts of India we had in one page the net revenue derived from the system in Bengal and the system in Bombay, and in the next the total number of chests raised each year in both those Provinces. From these accounts there was this remarkable fact apparent—that though the number of chests annually sent from Bombay very frequently exceeded the number sold in Bengal, yet in only one single instance was the revenue from Bombay in excess of the revenue from Bengal. But there could be no question, if the proposal of his hon. Friend were adopted, that one-third of the net revenue derived from opium in Bengal would be lost. In 1872–3 the output of opium in Bengal was some 42,500 chests, and the net revenue £4,259,000. The output in Bombay was 44,000 chests, or some 1,600 in excess of that of Bengal, and yet the revenue was £1,600,000 less than in Bengal. Therefore, the first result of the proposal of his hon. Friend would be a very large loss to the revenue, which should be made up by increased production. Accordingly a very much larger quantity should be carried into China or there would be a large loss to the revenue. Then there was another point. "We found it necessary to state in Calcutta each year the quantity of opium to be sold in the next year, and thus a degree of certainty was introduced into the trade. Bombay was dependent on the Bengal trade, and if we rendered the output uncertain, it would be impossible to depend with any accuracy on the supply from Bombay. It would fluctuate, as had been already pointed out, by millions, from year to year, and therefore it would be impossible to adjust the balance between income and annual expenditure. But every financier of eminence had laid it down that if you wished to adjust your expenditure to your income, you must know, with some degree of certainty, what your income is likely to be. There were, therefore, four objections to the proposal of his hon. Friend. The first was, that it would demoralize the people, the second, that it would cause the loss of a large amount of revenue from Bengal, the third, that we should introduce an element of uncertainty into the income, and the fourth, that we should never be able to adjust our expenditure to our income. He quite admitted that if the Government of India could raise their revenue otherwise, it would be better not to raise so much from opium. But we were a practical people and must adopt practical methods. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Laing) had said that we should not attempt to govern India from the House of Commons by abstract Resolutions. He agreed with that opinion. It had been said that Sir William Muir was most anxious to surrender this revenue, but he could not do it. Why? Because he was the Finance Minister of India. It was urged that he would be supported by the enlightened opinion of the House of Commons. But the enlightened opinion of the House of Commons would not furnish him with resources, nor relieve him of his responsibility as Finance Minister. It might be wrong to smoke opium, but why was it proposed to enter upon a course of policy which would increase the burden of taxation upon those who did not smoke opium? No doubt, the expenditure of the Government of India had increased very much during the last 10 or 15 years. His experience was, of course, limited; but he felt bound to say he did not see any prospect of materially reducing that expenditure. We had to maintain a large European Army in India, the whole strength of our administration there was European, and the cost of importing Englishmen for our administration and our Army was annually increasing. But if this opium revenue should be abolished, we must do one of two things—either largely reduce our expenditure, or impose additional taxation on the people of India. Which alternative would his hon. Friend accept? If we largely reduced the expenditure, we must put a stop to measures which were largely adding to the moral and material prosperity of the country. One of the pleas for our remaining in India was that we were giving the people a better Government than they ever had before. But if you reduced the revenue, you at once cut away from yourselves the power of doing much for the amelioration of the condition of the people. He admitted, however, that when so large a portion of revenue depended upon the habits of a foreign nation, a revolution might occur in their habits which might make it difficult to realize that revenue hereafter. He therefore quite agreed with the line of argument of his hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), who had pointed out that the system on which opium was manufactured should not be extended, because the revenue was to a certain extent precarious. At the same time he hoped he had given the House sufficient practical reasons for rejecting the Motion of his hon. Friend. His hon. Friend had came forward as the Representative of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade. If the Motion of his hon. Friend were adopted, what would be the result? The Revenue would be greatly diminished, and in three or four years he might come down again and ask, as it was now so low, what was the use of retaining it at all? If the House adopted the proposal of his hon. Friend, it would be possible for him to take that line of argument. He therefore felt bound, on the part of the Government, to offer his decided opposition to the Motion.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

The House divided:—Ayes 94; Noes 57: Majority 37.

Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.