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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    Government to the traffic so clearly that, as it comes from a Minister of State for India, I will venture, with your Lordship’s permission, to quote it. “ I am quite ready to admit,” said Lord Hartington, “ that the Government of India is, in the circumstances of the traffic, placed in a somewhat invidious and false position. It occupies the same position that would he occupied by the Government of our country if, instead of imposing on ardent spirits as heavy a duty as they will bear, it was itself to be the manufacturer.” His Lordship then goes on to express a hope that the finance minister of India will be able to place the trade upon a sounder and more defensible footing. I presume, my Lord Mayor, that that means that his Lordship and his Government live in the hope that the trade will pass into the hand of private manu- facturers and' merchants. I am afraid that a wholesale trade in poison which carries bodily and mental degradation to another country can be- made neither sound nor defensible in the commerce of Christian England. Our Government have inherited a position which they cannot defend. They have, in effect, admitted so much ; but they perhaps would never have admitted it had it not been for the stern philanthropy of Mr. Pease and others, backed by a sentiment of jealousy for the honour of England, and by another sentiment which may not find a place in the speeches and in the blue-books of Parliament : but I rejoice to say that sentiment is growing and is becoming immense in the churches of this country whose representatives are striving to intro- duce into China a religion based upon equity between nation and nation, and inspired by love between man and man. A Gentleman in the body of the meeting (Mr. Martin Wood, late. Editor of the Times of India,) said—Before the resolution is put I should like to say one word. The third part of that resolution, I believe, pledges the people of this country to give their aid to the Government of India and to support it in the loss from the removal of the opium revenue. I merely wish to say that you, in putting this resolution, ought, I think, to allow the meeting to understand that it is pledging itself to a very considerable financial responsibility—a re- sponsibility which, of course, is amply covered by the remarks in the speech of the venerable prelate who has spoken, but a financial responsibility which cannot be lost sight of—a responsibility of six millions a year. The Lord Mayor.—We are quite alive to the responsibility—quite alive. The Government will be supported by the country, we believe, in putting down that which nothing can j ustify. The motion was then submitted, and carried unanimously. Cardinal Manning.—My Lord Mayor, ladies, and gentlemen, before I read the resolution which has been committed to me, perhaps I shall not do amiss if I make a passing answer to that which has been very temperately and reasonably advanced by the gentleman on the left. If it is possible for me to differ in any matter of benevolence or public utility from my noble friend Lord Shaftesbury, it would be in believing that it is better, safer, and more expedient, that the Government of India should retain in its hands that pernicious monopoly which it now possesses, than that it should break it up and distribute it into the hands of multitudes of traders, who will hereafter not only stimulate that trade, but render the control of it as impossible in that country as what I may call the monopoly