www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/om/om15.htm
IN a vague way, we are familiar with the "opium evil" in China, and some of us have hazy ideas as to how it came about. The China Year Book for 1 916 has this to say on the subject: "The poppy has been known in China f or 12 centuries, and its medicinal use for 9 centuries. It was not until the middle of the 17th century that the practice of mixing opium with tobacco for smoking purposes was introduced into China. This habit was indulged in by the Dutch in Java, and by them taken to Formosa, when ce it spread to Amoy and the mainland generally. There is no record to s how when opium was first smoked by itself, but it is thought to have ori ginated about the end of the 18th century. Foreign opium was first intro duced by the Portuguese from Goa at the beginning of the 18th century. I n 1729, when the foreign import was 200 chests, the Emperor Yung Ching i ssued the first anti-opium edict, enacting severe penalties on the sale of opium and the opening of opium-smoking divans. The importation, howev er, continued to increase, and by 1790 it amounted to over 4,000 chests annually. In 1796 opium smoking was again prohibited, and in 1800 the im portation of foreign opium was again declared illegal. Opium was now con traband, but the fact had no effect on the quantity introduced into the country, which rose to 5,000 chests in 1820; " The China Year Book makes no mention of the traders who carried these che sts of opium into China. The opium came from India, however, and the inc rease in importation corresponds with the British occupation of India, a nd the golden days of the East India Company. "Opium was now contraband, but that fact had no effect on the quantity introduced into the country ," smuggled in wholesale by the enterprising British traders. China was powerless to protect herself from this menace, either by protes ts or prohibition. And as more and more of the drug was smuggled in, and more and more of the people became victims of the habit, the Chinese fi nally had a tea-party, very much like our Boston Tea Party, but less suc cessful in outcome. In 1839, in spite of the fact that opium smoking is an easy habit to acquire and had been extensively encouraged, the Britis h traders found themselves with 20,000 chests of unsold opium on their s tore-ships, just below Canton. The Chinese had repeatedly appealed to th e British Government to stop these imports, but the British Government h ad turned a persistently deaf ear. Therefore the Emperor determined to d eal with the matter on his own account. He sent a powerful official name d Lin to attend to it, and Lin had a sort of Boston Tea Party, as we hav e said, and destroyed some twenty thousand chests of opium in a very dra stic way. Mr H Wells Williams describes it thus: "The opium was destro yed in the most thorough manner, by mixing it in parcels Of 200 chests, in trenches, with lime and salt water, and then drawing off the contents into an adjacent creek at low tide." After this atrocity, followed the first Opium War, when British ships sai led up the river, seized port after port, and bombarded and took Canton. Her ships sailed up the Yangtsze, and captured the tribute junks going up the Grand Canal with revenue to Peking, thus stopping a great part of China's income. Peace was concluded in 1843, and Great Britain came out well. She recompensed herself by taking the island of Hongkong; an inde mnity Of 21 million dollars, and Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shang hai were opened up as "treaty ports"-for the importation of opium and th e "open-door" in general. Mr Wells, in his "Middle Kingdom" describes the origin of this first war with England: "This war was extraordinary in its origin as growing chie fly out of a commercial misunderstanding; remarkable in its course as be ing waged between strength and weakness, conscious superiority and ignor ant pride; melancholy in its end as forcing the weaker to pay for opium within its borders against all its laws, thus paralyzing the little mora l power its feeble government could exert to protect its subjects. It was a turning point in the national life of the Chinese race, but th e compulsory payment of six million dollars for the opium destroyed has left a stigma upon the English name." its issue between the p arties so unequally matched --one having almost nothing but the right on its side, the other assisted by every material and physical advantage-c ould easily be foreseen" and again, after speaking of it as being unjust and immoral, he concludes "Great Britain, the first Christian power, re ally waged this war against the pagan monarch who had only endeavored to put down a vice harmful to his people. it will always be so looked upon by the candid his torian, and known as the Opium War." Within fifteen years after this first war, there was another one, and aga in Great Britain came off victorious. China had to pay another indemnity , three million dollars, and five more treaty ports were opened up. By t he terms of the Treaty of Tientsin, the sale of opium in China was legal ized in 1858. From a small pamphlet, "Opium: England's Coercive Policy and Its Disastro us Results in China and India" by the Rev. " The M orning Herald " asserted that "a more horrible or revolting crime than t his bombardment of Canton has never been committed in the worst ages of barbaric darkness." Naturally, therefore, after the termination of these two wars, China gave up the struggle. She had fought valiantly to protect her people from op ium, but the resources of a Christian nation were too much for her. Seei ng therefore that the opium trade was to be forced upon her, and that he r people were doomed to degradation, she decided to plant poppies hersel f There should be competition at least, and the money should not all be drained out of the country. Thus it came about that after 1858 extensiv e tracts of land were given over to poppy production. Whole provinces or parts of provinces, ceased to grow grain and other necessities, and div erted their rich river bottoms to the raising of opium. Chinese opium, h owever, never supplanted Indian opium, being inferior to that raised in the rich valley of the Ganges. The country merely had double quantities of the drug, used straight or blended, to suit the purse or taste of the consumer. After over a hundred years of ste ady demoralization, with half her population opium addicts, or worse sti ll, making enormous profits out of the trade, China determined to give u p opium. In all history, no nation has ever set itself such a gigantic t ask, with such a gigantic handicap. China, a country of immense distance s, with scant means of communication; with no common language, a land wh ere only the scholars can read and write, suddenly decided to free herse lf from this vice. The Emperor issued an edict saying that in ten years' time all opium traffic must cease, and an arrangement was made with Gre at Britain whereby this might be accomplished. To the honor of America b e it said that we assisted China in this resolution. A bargain was then made between China and Great Britain, in 1907, China a greeing to diminish poppy cultivation year by year for a period of ten y ears, and Great Britain agreeing to a proportional decrease in the impor ts of Indian opium. A three years' test was first agreed to, a trial of China's sincerity and ability, for Great Britain feared that this was bu t a ruse to cut off Indian opium, while leaving China's opium alone in t he field. At the end of three years, however, China had proved her abili ty to cope with the situation. Thus, for a period of ten years, both cou ntries have lived up to their bargain, the amount of native and foreign opium declining steadily in a decreasing scale. In the remote, interior provinces, poppi es were grown surreptitiously, connived at by corrupt officials who made money from the crops. However, drastic laws were enacted and severe pen alties imposed upon those who broke them. If poppy cultivation could not be stopped, England would not hold to her end of the bargain. Not only was there a nation of addicts to deal with, but these could obtain copio us su...
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