6
promising at the same time that he would himself communicate with the said Governments.
The Premier of Victoria (the Honourable Thomas Bent) was accordingly waited upon. His reply was characteristically prompt and decisive, for he had personally seen the debasing influence of the opium habit twenty-five years previously, and would have stopped it if he had then the power. He therefore introduced the measure at once, and passed it through all its stages in Parliament, imposing a penalty upon all concerned in the trade the keepers of opium dens, the vendors, and even smokers of opium- and up to 1001., or in default twelve months' imprisonment,
Simultaneously with the passage of the measure in the States of Victoria and South Australia, a Resolution on the proposition of a private member was unanimously carried in the Federal House of Representatives, condemning the immorality of the trade, its disastrous effects on the community, and requesting action for its cessation.
A Proclamation was accordingly issued by the Federal Government in December 1905, forbidding the importation of opium into Australia from the 1st January, 1906, except by medical practitioners and druggists, and then only when duly licensed to do so, and upon a bond being entered into that it is for no other than medical purposes.
Since the beginning of 1906 the law has been vigorously enforced. Many opium vendors have been fined 20%, each and costs for the first offence, and smokers 101, each and costs, and as a result there has been a most marked diminution of smokers from 40 per cent. of the Chinese population to 10 per cent., and there is every reason to believe the same ratio of decrease took place among the European smokers in the different States, and likewise among the aborigines of Queensland, up to the time of my leaving Australia for China in October last, while such of the opium as has been surreptitiously obtained has had to be paid for at several times its former price, very often much adulterated, and at times not opium at all.
To those who have not studied the subject and seen the evil in all its haunts, its entire suppression and the penalty attaching thereto might appear excessively severe, particularly upon the victims, but not so to those who move in and out among them and know their inmost thoughts, who have seen the blighting influence of the narcotic poison in the haggard look, the enfeebled frame, and the general miserable appearance presented by the victims and their surroundings. These are the men who everywhere plead for the strong arm of government to help them in their helplessness by removing the temptation out of their way, for so strong, so terrible are its fascinations, that unless they are helped against themselves they feel their fate is sealed. This is no isolated instance, no overdrawing of the colours, but a universal feeling among those who are addicted to the opium pipe. And my experience of over forty years among the Chinese in Australia was fully corroborated by veteran missionaries like the Bevs. W. A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D., John Wherry, D.D., Chauncey Goodrich, D.D., S. E. Meech, and medical missionaries like Dr. Cochran, who spoke at my meeting on Monday evening, the 31st ultimo, in the Rev. Dr. Ament's drawing-room.
Since my arrival in Chira on the 19th November, 1906, in company with Mr. Joseph G. Alexander, LL.B., Honorary Secretary Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, England, we have had public meetings together at Canton, Hong Kong, Swatow, Amoy, Foochow, Shanghae, and Soochow, nearly all of them convened at short notice, and yet the numbers that attended, the enthusiasm which prevailed, and the represen- tative character of the audiences were gratifying in the extreme, showing the warm interest of the people in the movement for a mighty effort to rid the country of the awful curse.
In illustration of this, let me add that, after we had held three public meetings in Foochow on three successive days, we had booked our passage for Shanghae on the fifth, leaving the fourth day clear to visit the mother of the sister martyrs, who lived 12 miles distant. On our return in the evening, however, we were waited upon by a gentleman, who urged us to remain longer in the city. Finding it impossible to comply with his request, we intimated our readiness to address a meeting on the morrow at 2 o'clock up to the advertised hour of sailing. This he readily and gladly availed of, and immediately arranged for a meeting in the large commercial guild-hall outside the south gate, which was attended by 2,000 people, representatives of two Anti-Opium Societies, who had heard of our other meetings only on the last night of our stay. These people listened with close attention for more than two hours, many of them standing all the time.
Everywhere that we have visited, this remarkable interest was evinced by non- Christians and Christians alike. And whilst we saw opium refuges established by the
7
benevolent among the Chinese doing their good work, we noticed also many of the higher officials earnestly dealing with the evil. This is evidenced in the new Army Regulations, which prohibit opium smoking, and in the appointments to the Government schools that have been established in every province during the last few years.
And further, when we arrived at Soochow, we learnt that the Provincial Governor had issued a Proclamation closing all the opium dens within six months, and the Provincial Treasurer had all the under officials lined up before him and informed that such of them as were addicted to the habit would be given three months in which to break it, that whilst undergoing the ordeal substitutes would be provided to attend to their duties, and that should they fail to break the habit their services would not henceforth be required by the Government.
Then the decisive action taken by the Viceroy Yuan in euforcing the Opium Regulations within the metropolitan province are too well known to require any comment. And it is equally well known to your Excellency that other powerful Viceroys are no less interested in this most important and costly of all the reforms that China has adopted, and this, in the face of famine, still raging in three of her fairest and richest provinces in the Yang-tsze Valley, of rebellion in Hunan, and of a shortage in the exchequer, argues well for the enlightened patriotism of the statesmen at the head of affairs, and of that noble scorn of consequence which dictated the famous saying, Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum.
It is to that distinguished band of representative Englishmen like your Excellency that poor unhappy, distracted China can look, not only in the way of being invited into the paths of virtue and progress, as the late Lord Salisbury had put it, but also for assistance and encouragement therein, by securing the removal of the heavy pressure of England in the deletion of the article legalizing the opium trade from out of the Anglo- Chinese Treaty.
I am, &c.
(Signed)
CHEOK HONG CHEONG, 22 years Superintendent Church Missions to the Chinese in Victoria, Australia, and 43 years a resident therein.
500
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.