14
4) Had Commissioner Lin adopted less drastic measures in suppressing the opium trade? A difficult course to predict. However, knowing Elliot's repugnance of the opium trade, it is possible the two might have joined forces in fighting the infamous trade. It was Lin's methods, in particular laying siege to the foreign factories, that alienated Elliot's respect, not the end he sought to gain by adopting them.
5) If China had suddenly developed a strong interest in British goods? Tin, wool, and cotton were imported from Britain, but not in sufficient quantities to balance the export of tea. A strong public opinion against opium had been building up in Britain. A greater demand for British goods might have shifted the British official position from laissez faire to oppose opium, dealing a serious blow to the opium trade.
No doubt, many other alternative courses of history can be suggested, but the few above show how the two addictions—to opium and tea—had determined the course of history of that period and region, and how easily that course might have been altered, preventing the conflict, and possibly subsequent imperialist policy of western nations in China.
Conclusion
Of all the foods, solid or liquid, tea has had great influence over the centuries around the world. It has played a part in history, medicine, politics, manners and customs. British interests in the 19th century kept the opium supply line open and the manufacture of opium in India solvent in order to pay for China's tea. Britain went to war with China to protect those interests. In this sense the war was also the Tea War. When Sir George Staunton, an authority on Chinese-British relations and a member of Macartney's mission to China in 1793 (aged 15, he went as a page-boy), declared in Parliament: 'If there had been no opium, there had been no war,' he might well have added: "And if there had been no tea, there had been no war."
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALLEN, N.:
The Opium Trade, Lowell (2nd Edition), U.S.A., 1983.
14
4) Had Commissioner Lin adopted less drastic measures in suppressing the opium trade? A difficult course to predict. However, knowing Elliot's repugnance of the opium trade, it is possible the two might have joined forces in fighting the infamous trade. It was Lin's methods, in particular laying siege to the foreign factories, that alienated Elliot's respect, not the end he sought to gain by adopting them.
5) If China had suddenly developed a strong interest in British goods? Tin, wool, and cotton were imported from Britain, but not in sufficient quantities to balance the export of tea. A strong public opinion against opium had been building up in Britain. A greater demand for British goods might have shifted the British official position from laissez faire to oppose opium, dealing a serious blow to the opium trade.
No doubt, many other alternative courses of history can be suggested, but the few above show how the two addictions-to opium and tea--had determined the course of history of that period and region, and how easily that course might have been altered, preventing the conflict, and possibly subsequent imperialist policy of western nations in China.
Conclusion
Of all the foods, solid or liquid, tea has had great influence over the centuries around the world. It has played a part in history, medicine, politics, manners and customs. British interests in the 19th century kept the opium supply line open and the manufacture of opium in India solvent in order to pay for China's tea. Britain went to war with China to protect those interests. In this sense the war was also the Tea War. When Sir George Staunton, an authority on Chinese-British relations and a member of Macartney's mission to China in 1793 (aged 15, he went as a page-boy), declared in Parliament: 'If there had been no opium, there had been no war,' he might well have added: "And if there had been no tea, there had been no war,'
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALLEN, N.:
The Opium Trade, Lowell (2nd Edition), U.S.A., 1983.
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