190
Review of Puble Occurrences. During the
APRIL,
27th. Captain Elliot wrote to the foreign office respecting the me- morable memorial to legalize the introduction of opium. This change of means in the action of the government he did not regard as an in- dex of "any change in the principles of its policy," which seeks the smallest possible amount of foreign intercourse, consistent with the active pursuit of trade, always anxious to avoid such difficulties with foreigners as might furnish their governments" with a pretext for in- terference." He considered the measure of legalization as designed to overthrow the trade at Lintin and on the coast, and to concentrate it at Canton through the hong-merchants. He says it is "a confusion of terms to call the opium trade a smuggling trade; it was formerly a prohibited trade, but there was no part of the trade of this country which had the more active support of the local authorities." In his mind, it was the visits of Mr. Gordon to the tea plantations, and the distribution of tracts along the coast by Mr. Gutzlaff and others, rather than the traffic in opium, that produced this change. Ile thus concludes his observations:
"This state paper is a public confession that the Chinese cannot do without our opium, and that being the case, the regulation of the manner of its introduc- tion in such wise as will render it least mischievous to their policy of foreign exclusion, is no doubt a skillful measure, but I greatly question its efficacy. It has been delayed too long. The officers and the people have been accustomed to the feeling that the government is at once false and feeble. Sooner or later the feeling of independence, which the peculiar mode of conducting this branch of the trade has created upon the part of our countrymen in China, will lead to grave difficulties. A long course of impunity will beget hardihood, and at last some gross insult will be perpetrated, that the Chinese authorities will be con- strained to resent; they will be terrified and irritated, and will probably commit some act of cruel violence, that will make any choice but armed interference impossible to our own government. The immediate effect of the legalization of the opium, will be, I should suppose, to stimulate production at Bengal; there is some notion here that it will encourage the growth of the poppy in China, and that home-produced opium will thrust out our own market; eventually per haps it may, but results of that kind are of slow growth.”—-Corresp. p. 138.
A translation of this paper, of Heu Naetse with a few remarks re. specting it, will be found in vol. V., p. 138, &c.
29th. Imperial envoys, some time engaged on special criminal cases in Canton, left the provincial city for Peking.
August 1st. A severe gale was experienced on the river at Can- ton, but little damage was occasioned thereby. On the coast the gale was severe.
6th. The hong-merchants advertise the foreign merchants that, as soon as the opium becomes dutiable, there will be no longer any need for receiving ships at Lintiu.
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