All about opium / edited by Hartmann Henry Sultzberger.

Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: All about opium / edited by Hartmann Henry Sultzberger. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vinccd that there is something wrong, and we are determined by God’s help to draw the attention of our rulers so powerfully to the wrong which has been done, that we may safely leave it to them to find the mode of extricating ns from the wrong. There can be no doubt that it is a grievous wrong. I have seen a defence quite recently of this opium traffic, in which it has been stated that the number of persons who smoke opium in the Chinese empire is ail insignificant percentage —only a small portion of one per cent, of the population—and that therefore we are exciting ourselves about what in that empire is but a small evil. But I think when you look carefully to the figures on which this calculation is based, you will see that this small percentage of the inhabitants of China who are said to be injuring their lives, their bodies certainly, and their minds also by this deleterious practice which we have encouraged, amounts to two millions of human beings. That may be a very small number in China, but two millions of human beings constitute pretty nearly the whole population of the diocese of London, and certainly are one-half of that enormous population which is gathered together within the metropolitan district of this great city —so that what we have to deal with, even according to the confession of those who are most opposed to our efforts, is to endeavour to rescue from the thraldom of this destructive habit a body of two millions of human souls. Now, my Lord Mayor, speaking here as a minister of religion, I can have no hesitation in saying that every missionary with whom I have met from China, while they speak with good hope of the prospects of Christianity in that land, always tell us that this opium trade as it has been carried on in connection with England has a most deleterious effect in raising opposition to the efforts of the missionaries ; that it is a common thing that when the missionary has concluded his address the people say, “ Who introduced opium into China ? ” and the belief, at all events, of the whole body of the Chinese, is that they owe to us, if not the actual first introduction, at least the great spread of this vice, which is so dangerous to the whole community. I have read and I have no doubt your Lordship has also read with great interest, a letter from the Secretary of State of the Chinese empire addressed to the Secretary in London, and the quiet, temperate manner in which he argues the question and appeals to the conscience of the English nation respecting it, is, I think, greatly worthy of our admiration, and, I trust, will produce a strong impression upon the English people. My Lord Mayor, you have rightly said that we have done much in the way of advancing civilisation. You have alluded to the efforts which we have made respecting the slave trade. I am old enough to remember when we were told continually that the keeping up of that squadron on the slave coast was a mere waste of money, and that we should never be able to put an end to the slave trade by keeping up our squadron, and that all good financial considerations would lead us at once to drop the hopeless task of resisting the expor- tation of slaves from the western coast of Africa. But, thank God, we have lived to a time when the slave trade has altogether ceased to exist on that coast. Had we listened to the solicitations of those who would have taught us to spare our money at the cost of our con- sciences, where would we now have been ? How could we have boasted that we had advanced civilisation by the great check which we have.