[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.] 284
[B]
CHINA TRADE,
CONFIDENTIAL.
C. O.
6593
[February 9.]
ति 21 FEB 07, SECTION 2.
[4389]
No. 1.
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey,-(Received February 9.)
(No. 535. Confidential.) Sir,
Peking, December 21, 1906.
I HAVE the honour to report that I paid a visit yesterday to the Viceroy at Tien-tsin and spent some two or three hours in conversation with His Excellency, who entertained at luncheon, besides myself, General Waters, Mr. Hopkins, His Majesty's Consul-General at Tien-tsin, Mr. Campbell, Chinese Secretary to the Legation, and Captain Daniell, Aide-de-Camp to General Waters.
The Viceroy was apparently in excellent health and spirits, and showed no signs of feeling in any way the loss of the various offices which has resulted from the recent reform measures. The conversation turned chiefly upon opium, education, and provincial finances.
Opium, he said, he was determined to suppress, and he pointed to the closure of all the opium dens in the city as proof of his sincerity. He warmly acknowledged the sympathetic attitude of His Majesty's Government, without whose support and co-operation China could not hope to eradicate the evil. He himself had to deal both with the smoking and the cultivation of the drug, but the latter was much the easier task of the two. You could see the poppy growing with your own eyes, but the habits of an opium smoker were more difficult to watch.
He was sanguine, however, of success, and looked forward to the time when China would have entirely ceased to grow opium, and would become a large grain exporting country, like India and America. At present there was a strong prejudice against allowing food-stuffs to leave the country, but with the spread of education the people would gradually learn that a mutual exchange of products would benefit then as well as the foreigner.
The Viceroy gave a frank explanation of one point on which the Wai-wn Pu had shown a marked reserve. He said that China intended to make good the loss of the native opium revenue by imposing a stamp duty. He had himself advocated a financial expedient of this kind some time ago, and had been on the point of bringing it into operation when his plans were checked by an Imperial Decree.
Speaking of finance, he deplored the fact that China had, so far, produced no man capable of dealing with problems of the kind. In bis own province he claimed a certain measure of success in this line. During the past few years he had raised the provincial revenue from 20,000,000 taels (2,858,000L) to 50,000,000 taels (7,200,0001), and the people did not complain of the increased taxation. They knew that he had not taken the money from them to put into his own pocket or that of his subordinates. He had given them schools throughout the whole province, was organizing a system of local self-government, and introducing other reforms which would in tine compensate them for their present sacrifice. In Tien-tsin alone there were nearly 10,000 children attending primary schools, and in the province the number of such pupils amounted to about 100,000. Education, he said, was the key-note of his policy, and he trusted to it for the abolition of the opium habit and the removal of many abuses and prejudices which now hampered progress.
In combating opium the Viceroy, it may be mentioned, is carrying out, to a certain extent, the traditional policy of his own family. His uncle, who played a distinguished part in the long campaign which resulted in the reconquest of Chinese Turkestan and the recovery of Ili from Russia, told Sir Robert Hart, some forty years ago, that if England continued to send opium to China, China would grow it herself, and after driving out the Indian drug, stop the native growth. He was reminded of the Chinese proverb which points the fate of the man who attempts to ride a tiger, and now that the danger has been realized, his nephew is attacking the problem from a different standpoint.
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