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average combined exports of Bengal and Malwa opium (to China and other countries) amounted to something between 20,000 and 25,000 chests a year, and the period 1835-36 to 1843-44 showed an average annual export from India of about 34,000 chests. In 1847-48 the figure had risen to 46,000 chests, two-thirds of which was Bengal, and for the three years 1852-55 the average figure was 73,000 chests. After this date there was little change for 38 years; Chinese-produced opium having begun to catch up with the demand and beginning to compete with Malwa, though not with (lovernment Bengal opium. From 1895 onwards China produced so much opium that the Indian export figure fell steadily, until it reached the figure of 50,000 chests.
It is interesting to note that in 1830 and 1833 £ Select Committee of the House of Commons examined the subject of the East India Company's China trade, affirming in 1830 that the prohibition eclicts were disregarded by the Chinese people, and in 1833 approving the Indian revenue from the export of opium.
In 1836 a memorial to the Emperor from the Vice President of the Chinese Sacrificial Court begged that the trade might be legalised on a foundation of barter, as notwithstanding the fact that opium smokers were liable to be punished with trans- portation and death, the practice had spread through the whole Empire, and the rise in the value of silver owing to its export led to acute economic disorganisation. The memorial was concurred in by other higher officials, who also suggested that the foreign opium should be combated by relaxation of the prohibition of cultivation in China. They were clearly more concerned for silver than for morals. In fact, as Captain Elliot (the British representative) pointed out, the Chinese were far more anxious about the coast missions and the dissemination
of tracts than about opium as such.
A Chinese statesman had stated that Yuuman alone pro- duced annually several thousand chests of opium, but that passed unheeded. The silver crisis had become acute, and the Chinese regarded the arrogance of the foreigners, now free traders, not under the influence of the East India Company, as intolerable. The strangers demanded diplomatic relations, contrary to "cus tom"; they were outside the law, except as regards homicide; their missionaries claimed to protect converts, and were an offence; they brought foreign women to Canton, employed native servants, and rode in sedan chairs. Conflict was inevitable, and as opium formed three-fifths of the imports, it was bound to occur over opium. A strong prohibition edict was issued in 1837, and in 1839 a strong Viceroy was sent to Canton. He seized the British representative and the Canton merchants, confiscated and burnt 20,283 chests of opium which Captain Elliot had collected and surrendered in order to save the lives of the Europeans, and in spite of Elliot's proposals for a complete abandonment of the 'opium trade, let loose war junks
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on British vessels. China had decided to teach the foreigner his place. Britain declared war in 1840,
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The history given above should prove that the war was not undertaken to force opium on China, and a few sentences from Lord Palmerston's instructions to the British representatives at the peace negotiations of 1841 show that the result of the war was not to compel China to take Indian opium: "You will state that the admission of opium into China as an "article of legal trade is not one of tlie demands which you "have been instructed to make
It is evident that no exertions of the Chinese authorities can put down the "trade
It is equally clear that it is wholly out of "the power of the British Government to prevent opium from being carried to China; because even if none were grown in any part of the British territories plenty of it would be produced in other countries." It was, therefore, suggested that the trade should be legalised. In fact, opium was not mentioned in the Nankin Treaty, which closed the war, and remained a prohibited and flourishing business.
The war of 1857 had no connection with opium, but when at the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858 (finally ratified in 1860) a new tariff was drawn up, the Chinese voluntarily legalised the trade by entering opium in the tariff at an import duty of 30 taels per picul or chest, double that on other articles, and subject to local transit duty in addition. The following extracts make the responsi- bility for the legalisation quite clear. Mr. Long, the Chinese Secretary to Lord Elgin's Mission, wrote to the Times on the 22nd October 1880: "When I came to opium, I enquired what course they proposed to take in respect to it. The answer was: We have resolved to put it into the tariff as foreign "medicine. I urged a moderate duty in view of the cost of collection, which was agreed to. This represents, with strict economy, the amount of extortion' resorted to. The Chinese Government admitted opium as a legal article of import, not "under constraint, but of their own free will deliberately. Mr. Long's statement was confirmed by Mr. Laurence Oliphant, Secretary to Elgin's Mission, in a letter to the Times on the 25th of the same month. The latter further stated: "When "we came to the article 'opium,' I informed the Commissioner "that I had received instructions from Lord Elgin not to insist on the insertion of the drug in the tariff, should the Chinese "Government wish to omit it."
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In 1885 an additional Article to the Chefoo Convention consolidated the import and transit duties into a lump sum of 100 taels per chest, payable before the opiunt went out of bond, with the further stipulation that foreign opium should not be subject to any taxation that was not levied on native opium,
In the negotiations preceding the Chefoo Convention, it had become clear that the Chinese Government had ceased to wish to prohibit import of opium, and had discovered the
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