CO129-205 - Public Offices - 1882 — Page 306

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decidedly for the joint collection, but names a higher rate of li-kin than I am disposed to recommend. As I have argued in my first note to His Highness, I consider a li-kin of 60 taels remarkably liberal, but would recommend, as a maximum, 70 taels, providing that the satisfaction of Treaty provisions affecting foreign trade inland were assured.

The Yamên's last-named estimate is 80 taels, but I received a verbal assurance that 70 taels would be agreed to.

While the debate on these rates still continued, in March last, Mr. Samuel reappeared with a scheme differing from that propounded by him last year, but regarding the details of which he has shown himself as reticent as last year he was outspoken. Disclaiming all official character, he has presented himself as a commercialist, pure and simple. His extreme reserve, even towards the Chinese, who, in answer to my questions, assured me that they did not understand what he contemplated, has lost him time, but his scheme has been at last brought to the notice of the Chinese Government by Chinese intermediaries, and I have every reason to believe that it has the support of Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of Customs. It is certain that it is at this moment being attentively, indead favourably, considered by the Chinese Government, From what I have learned of it, I think it calculated to secure the revenue to both Governments alike. But it would be premature to say more.

I have omitted to mention that during my absence at Shanghae, in November, another scheme of monopoly, of which Hong-Kong was to be the centre, was laid before the Grand Secretary Li by Mr. John Pitman, formerly, I believe, an officer of the Royal Navy, but of late years engaged in trade and otherwise in China and Japan. Whether the Grand Secretary received Mr. Pitman or not I am unable to say. He went on, I understand, to Peking, and with the aid of a native banker, succeeded in submitting his scheme to the Tsung-li Yamên, but he was not received by the Ministers of the Yamên, and no more has been heard of his project. Of its details I know nothing.

The foregoing, I hope, will suffice as a historical résumé of the last five years' nego- tiations concerning opium taxation.

I have, &c.

(Signed) THOMAS FRANCIS WADE.

P.S.-It will be observed that in the sketch just completed no reference is made to the Prince of Kung's proposal to put the Chefoo Agreement's arrangement on trial at Shanghae for a term of years. In my note to the Prince (Inclosure No. 2 in this despatch) I have recorded my reasons for not supporting this proposal. I could obtain no satis- factory assurance as to the degree of exemption from farther taxation the first payment would secure imported opium. But, in truth, the practical result of the experiment would have been the transfer of the Shanghae opium trade to any other port at which surveillance was less strict. Thence it would have been smuggled into Shanghae.

T. F. W.

Inclosure 1 in No. 76.

Memorial from Grand Secretary Tso Tsung-tang, advocating the increase of Duty and Li-kin upon foreign and native Opium, as a means towards checking consumption.

(Translation.)

MEMORIALIST would humbly premise that opium is produced in India, and is imported thence by British merchants; the poison thus disseminated through China being known as yang yao," or the foreign drug. The evil effects are first felt in centres of trade and in public offices. The idle and dissipated youth amongst the well-to-do of the middle class who congregate together for purposes of amusement, make use of it to while away the time.

The taste thus acquired gradually developes into a craving, and when the craving becomes intense, health and spirits suffer, ruin follows, and death finishes the picture.

The labouring classes in the interior of China abandon the cultivation of the different kinds of grain on the rich land eminently fitted for the growth of cereals, and plant the instead. They make incisions in the poppy heads and extract the juice, which they poppy call t'u yao," or native drug. The evil effects of this form of the drug first attack the market-towns, bamlets, and villages. The labouring poor and the idle and vagrant have in time come to consider it as a daily necessary of life, and ignore the nature of the prohibition against it. Hence the number of consumers is very great, the mischief becomes more and more confirmed, and reform becomes an almost hopeless task; consumption of

foreign opium by Chinese has increased, and the sale of foreign opium has extended in a corre- sponding degree. Formerly the annual import used to be something over 30,000 chests, but it gradually increased till it exceeded 50,000 chests per annum, and the memorialist bas recently heard that it has now mounted to over 70,000 chests. The price of foreign opium used to be over 700 taels a chest of 100 catties, but has now, so he understands, dropped to some 500 tacls or so, showing that the area of consumption has been extended by the diminution of price, a fact which also exemplifies the astuteness of the foreigner.

Under the present condition of things, therefore, were severe prohibitions devised, they would, if enforced with laxity, be easily violated, and, if enforced with severity, they would be found not to work; while more harm than good would be done if incompetent agents were employed to carry them out.

All

When memorialist was made Governor-General of Shensi and Kansuh, he made the prohibition of poppy cultivation his first business, directing his subordinates to pluck up the plant wherever they met with it, that the evil might be cleansed at its source. foreign opium imported into his jurisdiction was labelled and deposited in storehouses, the importers being compelled to take it away again, and forbidden to sell it in either province. All opium sold in defiance of this prohibition was publicly burned in an open thoroughfare. This system, though it met with partial success in a given area, would not work if applied universally, because opium could not then be sent back by the way it came, neither could it, if no sale were found in one market, seek another.

A careful consideration of the whole question convinces the memorialist that increase of duty and l-kin upon opium, native and foreign, is the only possible solution of the problem. Increase of duty and li-kin will certainly raise the price of foreign and native opium. When prices are high, those whose craving is not intense will give up the habit, and those whose craving is intense will reduce their consumption; and it may reasonably be expected that diminution of consumption will lead eventually to abandonment of the vice. If the issue of merely nominal prohibitions be the only course pursued, this will only lead to exactions on the part of soldiers and official underlings, with fraud and concealment on the part of the authorities. A mass of correspondence will be the result, and endless litigation will be caused, with the probability that confusion will be created in urban districts from the improper execution of constitutional enactments. Thus, the evil effects arising from the improper enforcement of prohibitions against opium will be felt before any good results manifest themselves. Constitutional reforms have ever been dependent upon laws, with penalties for neglect of those laws; and when this method failed, it had perforce to be supplemented by a system of fines. History furnishes a clear illustration of this principle. In the Chou dynasty fines were exacted from idlers who would not till the ground, and in the Han dynasty the prohibition against the use of wine was so strict that those whose

"wine money

was not correct were punished with the loss of their title of Duke.*

Native produce exported from countries beyond the sea now pays a duty cent. per cent. ad valorem, and the English go farther than this, for they put a duty equal to twice the value upon articles for which there is a depraved taste, something after the manner of a money commutation for the commission of what used to be a punishable crime, but is now no longer so regarded. How much more justifiable, then, is the increase of duty and li-kin upon opium, native and foreign, when the object is the diminution of the craving, in the hope of keeping the appetites of the people within bounds, ordering their morals, and bringing them back to their pristine condition, Under these circumstances, much may be taken without being oppressive.

Moreover, the proposed increase is to be imposed on the price paid by the Chinese consumer, not at the place of production, nor from the knavish foreign trader who imports it. The power is in our hands, and no one can gainsay the exercise of a right which is supported by law and canon, as a reference to either will show. When the proper method has once been laid hold of it should be given effect to, without troubling to think of other

means.

Your servant having been honoured by the command of your Majesty to take cognizance of foreign affairs was, of course, not free to decline the responsibility, and when (in discharge of it) he received the British Minister, Wei T'o-ma (Thomas Wade),

He

By the ceremonial laws of the Han dynasty, the sons of Princes had the title of "Hou." Each Hou was compelled to provide a certain contribution in money to the ancestral sacrifices of the Emperor, according to the number of families in his def. This money was presented in person to the Emperor by the Hou once a-year. received it in the ancestral temple, and, in returu, supplied the contributors with winr, the only occasion on which they were allowed to drink it. If their offerings fell short of the proper amount, or were deficient in touch, their fathers, the Princes, were deprived of a portion of their fief, and the sons lost their title and the whole of their fief.

2 S

[1703]