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.

    49/230 (page 29)
    And yet, in two memorials presented to Lord Clarendon by distin- guished and justly respected noblemen, the Earls of Shaftesbury and Chichester, on the evils of the opium trade in 1855, these, and still more “ outrageous exaggerations,” appear with the authority of their names. Lord Shaftesbury officialises the estimate that 20,000,000 of Chinese are opium-smokers, and assumes that of this number one-tentli (that is 2,000,000), die yearly, and states it is an “appalling fact.” Appalling indeed ! But what if it be a mere figment of the imagination, and absolutely devoid, as Dr. Medliurst says, of a semblance of truth ? Mr. Hart’s returns of all the opium imported into China even at this day, when the quantity has nearly doubled since 1855, show that the total annual amount of opium at present received from India does not exceed 100,000 piculs ; and by a simple arithmetical calculation of the weight of prepared opium that quantity yields with an average con- sumption of three mace (one mace is equal to 58 grains), not more than a million of smokers can be furnished with their daily supply. How many or how few “ victims ” of this number die annually, and in conse- quence of their opium-smoking, Dr. Medliurst says, in dealing with the American missionary’s statement of a million—and which Lord Shaftes- bury, improving upon it, suggests may be two millions—that with all his “ life long experience and knowledge” he would not even hazard a conjecture as to the “annual death harvest.” Mr. Lockhart again, known throughout China as a zealous and able medical man, attached to Dr. Medhurst’s mission, and the surgeon of the Missionary Hospital in Shanghai for many years, states in the same official paper : “ It is impossible to say what is the number of such victims, either among the from the Chief Superintendent of Trade in China, in reply to Lord Shaftesbury’s memorial (see Parliamentary Papers). “ Lord Shaftesbury has been erroneously informed as 1o the trade in opium being confined to British subjects or protected only by the British flag. It is a matter of general notoriety that many of the principal American houses deal largely in opium, and that the flag of the United States is unfurled at the opium stations, over American ships, with American registers.” To the same effect is an instance in the same despatch, from Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and Co.:—“Vessels of almost every nation trading in China being engaged in the traffic ; while, with hut very few exceptions, the whole of the mercantile firms in the country (China) are interested in the trade.” See also evidence of the participation of other countries as sources of supply. “ Between 1814 and 1818 there was a pro- gressive competition of foreign opium in the Eastern market, the rivals of the company being the traders in Malwa opium, and from independent native tribes in Central India and in Turkey opium. The Turkey opium was principally conveyed to China direct from the Mediterranean by Americans, and by British subjects from Madeira; and although a very inferior and much adulterated drug, it proved a formidable rival.” The opium from Malwa in 1830-31 considerably exceeded in quantity the whole amount imported from British India, being 12,631 chests, as against 7,477. This is only a matter of secondary importance, except as a question of accuracy, but on that head it is conclusive ; because, if our action cannot be justified on other grounds, it does not much better the case of the British to show their fellow- ship with others, although it takes from them the Pharisee’s pleas when he thanked God he was not like “ publicans and sinners, and fasted twice a week.” For they neither fasted nor were total abstainers ! But to make the plea of participation, such as it is, in the unpardonable offence of opium trading, there is abundant evidence that the much-wronged Chinese, at the very period of 1831 onward, while so busily employed in denouncing the foreign trader in this vile dirt, poisoning and destroying the people, were largely growing the same poison in their own province of Yun-nan, and driving a profitable trade with Burmah, conveyed by Chinese caravans annually toAva, the capital, and there distributed, to the supposed des’ruction of the unhappy Burmese, their tributaries.