206
THE REPORT OF THE OPIUM COMMISSION.
(Daily Press, March 6th.) The recent Opium Convention has been
successful,-far more successful than its
can
[March 15, 1909.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
listened to the wiles of " John Company"? habit. If you want to cure a flabite," Is it not the case that the tea-drinking goes the old saw, apply the parts to the jaws which largely assisted in inspiring these of a bug! Such is the most effective result anti-opium demonstrations was only render- of anti-opium practice. Morphia was a ed possible by the trade they were at the thing unknown in China in the old days moment denouncing, and is it not true that when missionaries did not preach the im- amongst the mercantile classes at least of possible doctrine which neither they nor America the opposition was largely inspired their disciples were able to endure. Now by jealousy of England's possession of India, morphia, to the overlasting disgrace of the which enabled her to take the lead in preachers of the gospel of repression, forms Oriental finance? One of the speakers at the one of the great imports of China; and Convention spoke of the Slave Trade:-"Just | worst of all those engaged in the soul des- 8 slavery reached a point when amongst its troying traffic are for the most part the opponents it was no longer a mere question anti-opium apostles. of morals or an academic theory, but an It has, of course, ever been so in the actual perplexing problem continually history of the world; attempted forcible appearing in every direction, and in various repression has ever been the first step in forins; so has it come to be with the evil spreading evil practices: the evil spirit that before us." Slavery has disappeared, in- went out of the man spent his time in deed, but though the most loudly demon wandering through rocky places seeking rest, strative enemy it had to face was the and finding none. It was then that he sentimental cry of the abolitionists: Am resolved to go back to his old quarters, and I not a man and a brother ?" the sentimen- when he returned, as the story tells us, he tal part of the opposition had really very found them empty, swept, and refurnished little to say to the result, which was brought with delights he had never dreamt of before. ahout by economical, rather than philanthro. Verily China was bad enough under the old pic reasons. The world that went frantic opium smoking officials of Canton, but China over WILBERFORCE's pictures of the woek under the new generation of morphia in.. of the Negro has long ceased to believe that jectors is more likely to be a veritable he was either a man or a brother, and the inferno. lasting result of the unhealthy agitation has been the ruin of the West India Islands. An even worse effect of the Slave Trade, which, it may be remembered, was brought into being through false economic ideas of “ cheap labour," has been the lasting injury inflicted both morally and econ- omically on the Southern States of the American Union; an evil which still is the great unsolved problem that the United States have to face whether they will it or not.
most enthusiastic supporter could have wished--in proving, what in the face of the unreasoning of faddists has ever been a disputed point, the absolute impossibility of converting a nation "by Act of Parlia- ment." After all, there is a law of nature which, probably wisely, provides that if nation be bent on any particular line of conduct, no power yet discovered prevent it. It is curious bere to find that the one honest man, for we cannot exactly place opium faddists any more than anti- vivisection faddiets, or square-the-circle faddists, in the class of ultra-honest men, in the Conference, the Nanking Viceroy TUAN FANG, saw clearly the entire drift of the arguments; and openly and unblushingly declared, what those who are possessed of a modicum of logical faculty had seen long ago, that what China wanted was not eo much the abolition of opium smoking as a monopoly that would convert what was now a lost opportunity into a splendid financial Success; and render China's damaged exchequer for the future quite independent of foreign aids, or, what is still more galling, foreign advice. This is the true inwardness of the Convention of the probably well meaning, but certainly very ill-advised well-wishers to China who have just now alosed their efforts at Shanghai.
It is easy to read between the lines of Bishop BEENT's very admirable closing address that the main feeling of the Con- vention was one of admitted failure. We are not going to raise the oft-repeated question of the morality of opium smoking; and are quite prepared to admit that it does
an
-that is
And what after all this talk and labour, has been the practical result of the Con- ference? Has it accomplished, or has it been afforded the slightest chance of ac- complishing with the Chinese Government, who alone can take any practical steps in the matter, anything towards hastening the downfall of opium-smoking? If it have, it has been very indiscreetly silent as to the prospect. It avoids, too, telling its admires and well wishers what the one practical man at the Congress stated without concealment, that his idea, and herein he spoke as a high and trusted officer of the Chinese Govern- ment, was that China should taking example from France and Japan, make a huge monopoly of Opium, and so be independent of all extraneous source of supply. The de- liberate wisdom of the Convention in the face of this gives the following advice to those who would wish to be impressed: That it is highly important that drastic measures should be taken by each Government in its own territories and possessions to control the manufacture, sale, and distribution of this drug," which was doubtless highly Pickwickian. And: "that the Interna- tional Opium Commission strongly urges all Governments possessing Settlements or Concessions in China, which have not yet taken effective action towards the closing of opium divans in the said Concessions and Settlements, to take steps to that end, &c. Why? The reasons is like everything else on which we might expect light to be thrown, keep dark; but apparently only one can be the country, which would have to be pro- alleged :-and that is to enable the Chinese vided in some more oppressive, and perhaps Government with thegreater ease to establish more mischievous manner else. Opium the desired monopoly, with the object of enjoys largely the same rôle in China, encouraging as far as possible the native paying largely [towards the support of the growth within its own territories. This is a administration, which in many parts of the poor result after the long and anxious days Now in the very case of opium, the stop- Empire it forms the most profitable of crops. spent in a hopeless task. It would have page of the import of which into China The writer can speak from practical ex- been far more straightforward to have at these short-sighted philanthropists have set perience of the opium cultivating peasant once acknowledged the simple truth that the before them as a work, which they conceive of Szechuan, whom he found the most whole of the agitation from beginning to will bring down a blessing upon themselves, intelligent of his class; yet who were these end had been a dire mistake, and that it we may well ask what has been the result of presumed philanthropists to have their way was really only an act of impertinence to well nigh a century of preaching? It is ac- would be quickly reduced to the level of his have endeavoured to interfere with the knowledged by all who have studied the hopeless and shiftless representative else-internal affairs of China. What if we were economic aspect, that the money derived where. Looking at what the anti opium to appoint an International Commission to from the sale of opium was the foundation agitators have done in the past, they can impress on the United States Government of the export trade of China; and that with-hardly pride themselves on the result of the folly, nay wickedness of eating rolls out this import there was no possibility of their labours; it is notorious that the for breakfast every morning? That the opening trade. Are they prepared to de. first incentive towards eating morphia practice does irreparable injury to the nounce the export trade as one of the evils procceded from the introduction of the rising generation is not to be blinked; but inflicted on China through her having morphia pill, as â cure of the opium as some one suggested in a like case, ninety-
Now similar economic falsities are actually at the bottom of much of the present opium enormous amount of evil, but we do agitation. The value of the opium produc- deprecate the modern pharisaic habit so well tion of China in 1906 is put down at 220 described by old BUTLER of" compounding million taels; of opium imported, 30, million for the sins we feel inclined to, By damn.
: to say a mere 12 per cent. ing those we have no mind to.” It is one
The entire charge amounts to some sixty of the cankers, in fact, at the root of our cents a head; the tobacco duties in highly artificial morality of the present day, England in the same year amounted that we are perpetually bent on the search to some 100 million taels, say the cost for the mote in our brother's eyes, while to the country was 150 million taels, or quite oblivious of the beam in our own. some taels 3.75 per head. Is anyone Whether like the followers of ZOROASTER prepared to say that England is going to be we raise the principle of Evil to a height ruined through smoking tobacco ? Tobacco practically on a level with God himself, or is a useless herb, it is confessed, but if it be whether we take the more Christian view useless so are most of the arts on which the that evil necessarily follows as a but half-country prides itself. Attendance on con- developed good, the history of humanity certs does not serve any useful physiological unfortunately tells us that evil, as the world
purpose, nor do handsome pictures, nor is constituted, is ever, and must be ever embroidered clothes; but would the country with us; and that the hope of exterminatinge any better off if these were strictly pro. evil is not one of the blessings granted to hibited? It is something to say in favour humanity. Speaking of the too ready of tobacco that it contributes a very large itching current in his day, 118 in sum actaully towards the general unkeep of the present, to do good by proxy, cur SAVIOUR uttered the very pertinent caution, which is sadly neglected in our day of over strained philanthropy: "Nay; leat haply while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the
wheat with it."
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