First Opium War

“ The way to stop war is to stop it. The way to stop drinking is to stop it. The way China stopped the general use of opium was by stopping the cultivation and importation of opium. The philosophers, priests, and doctors of China could have preached themselves breathless against opium for a thousand years, and the use of opium, so long as opium was ever accessible and obtainable, would have continued unabated. We are so made, that is all. ”

“ Opium has been the cause of at least one war, namely, the war between England and China, and a perusal of the accounts of piracy in the eastern seas during the sixteenth century affords numerous instances of pitched battles between traders and pirates whose one object seems to have been to get possession of valuable cargoes of opium.
The cultivation of the poppy, as a garden flower at any rate, was certainly practised as far back as eight hundred years before Christ. ”

“ Most of those who have but a low sense of the spells lying couchant in opium, have practically none at all. For the initial fascination is for them effectually defeated by the sickness which nature has associated with the first stages of opium-eating. But to that other class, whose nervous sensibilities vibrate to their profoundest depths under the first touch of the angelic poison, even as a lover's ear thrills on hearing unexpectedly the voice of her whom he loves, opium is the Amreeta cup of beatitude. ”

“ Many writers on Chinese topics delight to dwell upon the slow but sure destruction of morals, manners, and men, which is being gradually effected throughout the Empire by the terrible agency of opium. Harrowing pictures are drawn of once well-to-do and happy districts which have been reduced to know the miseries of disease and poverty by indulgence in the fatal drug. The plague itself could not decimate so quickly, or war leave half the desolation in its track, as we are told is the immediate result of forgetting for a few short moments the cares of life in the enjoyment of a pipe of opium. ”

“ This irritation is connected with the remembrance of the wars which led to the Treaties about opium. Had eggs or apples been the cause of the wars, i.e. had the Chinese objected to the import of eggs, and we had insisted on their being imported, and carried out such importation in spite of the Chinese wish by force of war, it would be to my own mind the same thing as opium now is to Chinese. We do not give the Chinese credit for being so sensitive as they are. As Black Sea Treaty was to Russia so opium trade is to China. ”

“ I wish to emphasize the fact that the system of a mere neophyte, with nothing to neutralize the effects of the drug save the absorbency, so to speak, of the pain for which it was given, could so rapidly adapt itself to them as to demand an increase of the dose in such an alarming ratio. There are certain men to whom opium is as fire to tow, and my friend was one of these. On the first of October he sensibly perceived the trifling dose of fifty drops; on the first of November he was taking, without increased sensation, an ounce vial of "M'Munn" daily. ”

“ Before the middle of the nineteenth century Chinese sentiment was so strong against the importation of opium from India that war broke out with England, with the result that the curse was fastened upon the Orient. The evil increased, spreading through many countries. Meantime international fortunes brought the United States to the Philippines and trade carried opium to the United States. Foreigners in China combated the evil. The nation took a determined stand, and finally, through international agreement under American leadership, the trade and the consumption of opium were checked. ”

“ I am pleased to learn from your letter, that anti-opium leagues are being formed among the Chinese in British Columbia, with the object of trying to check the use of opium voluntarily. Among the well-wishers of mankind, there can be, I think, but one opinion as to the attitude which should be assumed toward this evil, which, once existent, does so much to destroy not only the lives of individuals, but the manhood of a nation. ”

“ It is more deadly than arsenic, because by arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through this once fair land of Yün-nan and see everywhere—not in isolated districts, but everywhere—the ravaging effects in the poverty and dwarfed constitutions of the people before they advocate the continuance of the opium trade. ”

“ Hart, Inspector-General of Chinese Customs, considerably less than one per cent. of the population is addicted to opium-smoking, while those who smoke it to excess are few. More to be feared [pg 208] is the use of opium as a poison, especially among Chinese women. The government raises large sums from the import duty on opium, and tacitly connives at its cultivation in most of the provinces, where the traders and mandarins share between them the profits of this officially prohibited drug. ”

“ The real answer to the Royal Commission on opium should be found in the attitude of these countries which have had to face the opium problem along with the Chinese problem. Let us include in the list Japan, a country which has had a remarkable opportunity to view the opium menace at short range. What Japan thinks about opium, what Australia and the Transvaal and the United States think, what the Philippines think, is more to the point than any first-hand statements of a magazine reporter. We will take Japan first. Does Japan think that opium is invaluable as a general household remedy? ”

“ That the national use of opium has not dulled the national intellect must be the testimony of every truthful European who has ever tried to get the better, in a bargain, of a Chinese man, woman, or child. That the national use of opium has undermined the national health surely will be said by no one who has gone through China with eyes half open. ”

“ No civilized country now openly permits the sale of opium, although there is still a good deal of it used in practically all parts of the world. The effects of lassitude, subsequent ecstasy, and stupefaction are due to an alkaloid, the continued use of which forms a drug habit of serious consequences. Parts of China, Turkey, Persia, and Siam are said to be still large users of opium which is chewed, or more often smoked. Until comparatively recently fifteen out of every twenty men in some of these countries were regular users of the drug. ”

“ Opium, being the commodity which the people most imperatively demanded, was always paid for in hard cash, while ordinary merchandise might be bartered against Chinese produce. It is not therefore difficult to understand how, without prejudice to moral or political considerations, the article opium should have become so conspicuous a factor in the agony which preceded the war. ”

“ Why, opium makes men first wild and bold, so that they will rush into danger or run into folly, quarrel with their friends and fight their foes, laugh and dance, and be merry they know not why. Then they grow sleepy, and though their lives might depend on it, not a step would they stir. ”

“ In the first stages, opium commits its ravages on the human system by expansion and explosion; in the after stages, it does its work by contraction and compression; the weary victim totters beneath a heavy load.
In the first stages he has occasional periods of enjoyment; in the latter he has none; he is so benumbed by opium as to be incapable of enjoyment. Temporary manumission from positive pain or distress only brings out into stronger relief his miserable situation. He sees and feels that he is not happy; cannot be at his best ”

“ The object I have in view is not, however, so much to make suggestions to medical men as it is to awaken in the victims of opium the feeling that they can master the tyrant by such acts of resolution, patience, and self-control as most men are fully capable of exhibiting. Certain conditions, however, seem to be the almost indispensable preliminaries to success in relinquishing opium by those who have been long habituated to its use. The first and most important of these is a firm conviction on the part of the patient that the task can be accomplished. ”

“ Or, if the Straits scale of consumption prevails in China, then the quantity of opium imported is only enough to reach one-fiftieth part of the Chinese population, leaving the remaining forty-nine fiftieths to consume the home-grown article. The correspondent goes on to say: “According to the descriptions circulated by the Anti-Opium Society of decimation, emaciation, &c., the Straits Chinamen ought to be all dead men. But they live to disprove the anti-opium theory. Nay more, they are robust, energetic, and hearty beyond all other Eastern races.” ”

“ The use of opium, it must be confessed and lamented, has struck deep into the habits, and extended its malignant influence to the morals of the people, and is likely to perpetuate its power in degrading their character and enervating their energies, as long as the European government, overlooking every consideration of policy and humanity, shall allow a paltry addition to their finances to outweigh all regard to the ultimate happiness and prosperity of the country. ”

“ It can become an exacting and dominating master, and the habit once formed is well nigh ineradicable.
For the information of those who have not seen the pure drug, I may mention that opium is a dark brown, putty-like substance with an agreeable, sweetish, odour. It is the dried resin obtained by incising the unripe [36] capsules of a certain variety of poppy, and is prepared in large, well-equipped factories, from which it is issued in cakes and balls weighing eighty tolas. [2]
The opium industry is a Government monopoly. ”

“ Chinese opium, however, 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.
Then, in 1906, the incredible happened. After over a hundred years of steady demoralization, with half her population opium addicts, or worse still, making enormous profits out of the trade, China determined to give up opium. In all history, no nation has ever set itself such a gigantic task, with such a gigantic handicap. ”

“ Even if the use of opium was positively beneficial to the intellect, still its dreadful havoc with the physical system would far more than outweigh its contributions in that direction. But, so far is that from being the truth in the case, that opium, at best, has only a revealing, a disclosing power; it cannot, even in the lowest sense of the term, be called a creative lower. ”

“ Some philanthropists have feared that the revenue of over 5,000,000l. a year, derived by the Indian Government from the licensed and carefully-restricted cultivation of the raw material of the valuable drug, is in major degree responsible for the reported influence upon the Chinese of opium smoking. They may be somewhat reassured by the result of a careful European inquiry, officially instituted throughout the Empire. It shows that imported opium is only smoked by the affluent, the luxurious, and well-to-do, or, at most, by one-third of one per cent. of the population ”

“ The opium law of Japan forbids the importation, the possession, and the use of the drug, except as a medicine, and it is kept to the letter in a population of 47,000,000, of whom 8,000 are Chinese. So rigid are the provisions of the law, that it is sometimes, especially in interior towns, almost impossible to secure opium or its alkaloids, in cases of medical necessity, and the government is determined to keep the opium habit strictly confined to what it deems to be its legitimate use, which use, even, it seems to think, is dangerous enough to require special safeguarding. ”

“ It does not make a nuisance of a man; it does not lead to violence and to murder as drink does. I do not ask reformers to subscribe to this view. I express it as my own opinion, founded as it is upon close acquaintance with numerous opium consumers, and many drunkards.
What is it that reformers have to urge against opium? They will not admit that opium in moderation does no great harm ”

“ I have good reason to believe that, even at this day, the number of persons addicted to the habitual use of opium is far beyond the imagination of people generally:—even of persons who have looked into the matter somewhat, but who have never used the drug, or made its use a matter of special observation for years. I have good reason to believe that even now the use of opium is carried on to such an extent, that a census of the victims would strike the country with terror and alarm. ”

“ For it will not follow, because, with a relation to happiness and tranquillity, a man may have found opium his curse, that therefore, as a creature of energies and great purposes, he must have been the wreck which he seems to suppose. Opium gives and takes away. It defeats the steady habit of exertion, but it creates spasms of irregular exertion; it ruins the natural power of life, but it develops preternatural paroxysms of intermitting power. ”

“ The process is a rather complicated one and during it the natives always recline. No visible effect is produced even after smoking several pipefuls, but the deathly paleness and expressionless eye marks the inveterate opium user.
There can be no doubt that the Chinese government has been, and is, genuinely anxious to suppress the use of opium and it has succeeded to a remarkable degree. We heard of only one instance of poppy growing in Yün-nan and often met officials, accompanied by a guard of soldiers, on inspection trips. Indeed, while we were in Meng-ting the district mandarin arrived. ”