A wandering student in the Far East/The opium question

by Lawrence Dundas

CHAPTER XII.

THE OPIUM QUESTION.

The Chinese Government have set their hand to a task in comparison with which the whole twelve labours of Hercules pale into insignificance. To root out in a period of ten years the insidious vice of opium-smoking, which on their own showing has laid its palsied touch upon no less than 40 per cent of a population computed at 400,000,000, is an undertaking which may well stagger the imagination of even the most visionary of moral reformers. Yet this is the modest proposition advanced by the issue of a simple edict on the 20th of September 1906:—

"It is hereby commanded that within a period of ten years the evils arising from foreign and native opium be equally and completely eradicated. Let the Government Council frame such measures as may be suitable and necessary for strictly forbidding the consumption of the drug and the cultivation of the poppy, and let them submit their proposals for our approval."

Most people who have any personal knowledge of China and the opium traffic will be disposed to concur with his Majesty's Minister at Peking when he declared that the proposition set forth in this pithy exhortation constitutes a reform of a character "rarely attempted with success in the course of history."

That, however, is the business of the Chinese Government, and the question which Great Britain has to consider is not so much the magnitude of the task to which China has set her hand, as the manner in which she can best aid her in her laudable endeavours to eradicate what is admittedly an immense evil. With the introduction of the vicious opium habit the British had nothing to do; but it is not denied that British traders did not hesitate to supply the demand for the drug which they found in China from the prolific poppy-fields of India. Opium in India is at the present day a Government monopoly, and India sends to China 50,000 piculs^[1] of opium a-year; let it, then, be asserted as emphatically as it can be, that the Government of India is in duty bound to take such steps in the regulation of her opium traffic as are, in the opinion of competent authorities, best calculated to have the maximum effect in bringing to an end the vicious habit among the Chinese people. This appears to me to be axiomatic, whether the question be looked at from a moral point of view, or from the less altruistic point of view of the expediency of giving some outward and visible sign of our declared policy of cementing the ties of friendship between the Governments and peoples of the two countries; and that public opinion in Great Britain is alive to its responsibilities is clear from the resolution passed unanimously by the House of Commons on May 30th, 1906, affirming its conviction that the Indo-Chinese opium trade is morally indefensible, and requesting his Majesty's Government to take steps to bring it to a speedy close. Having arrived at this conclusion, it behoves us to come to a decision as to the method of procedure best calculated to assist towards the attainment of the desired end—namely, the gradual but, if possible, complete eradication of the vice from China. In order to form a rational opinion upon this point, some understanding of the feelings of the Chinese upon the question, both in the past and at the present time, is essential.

Opium-smoking was introduced into China from Java early in the eighteenth century, and has steadily grown in favour among the people until at the present day the habit has undoubtedly assumed immense proportions. In the early days some efforts seem to have been made by the central Government to suppress the vice, but of late years no attention has been paid to the original edicts penalising the habit, nor, until the past two years, have any steps been taken by the Government to deal with the evil. Indeed, the members of the Philippine Commission reported in that "certain of the high officials who wrote the most eloquent letters condemnatory of the opium traffic, and appealing to foreign nations to prevent its introduction into China, are believed to have steadily increased the areas under opium cultivation in their own domains," and they also learned that "one provincial official who endeavoured to forbid the use of opium in his province was removed by the Imperial Government." The members of the commission spoke with knowledge, but not so every one who feels called upon to talk glibly, if ignorantly, upon the opium question. Just as there are some people who really believe that opium, and not insolence, was the cause of the so-called "opium war," so there are those who appear to be under the impression that all that is necessary to bring about the abolition of the opium curse in China is to place an embargo upon the import into that country of the drug from India. "Our sin against China could be ended at one stroke if Britain would pay the cost," wrote the Rev. Eric Lewis in 'The Church Missionary Review' for May 1908. That may be, but what I am concerned with, and what every one who is considering the good of China in the matter is concerned with, is the question, Would the immediate abolition of the importation of Indian opium into China be calculated to render easier for the Chinese Government the task of stamping out the vice? In my humble opinion it most certainly would not, and for this excellent reason, that opium, being a very profitable commodity to produce, an immediate and largely enhanced demand for the native drug created by the sudden cessation of supply from India would, despite all laws and regulations to the contrary, inevitably give an immense stimulus to production in the vast poppy-fields of China itself. This contention is based upon intercourse with officials and people in Western China, and upon personal observation. Let me invite the attention of those interested to the following facts.

China herself produces, on the admission of Tong Shao-yi, the most eager advocate of the suppression of the vice, ten times as much opium as she imports—i.e., 3000 tons against 300 tons. When at Ichang I was obliged to pick my way among piles of cases of Yün-nan and Ssŭch'uan opium which had come down from the poppy-fields of the west, and it has been estimated by Sir Alexander Hosie that the province of Ssŭch'uan alone "annually produces more than double the quantity of Indian opium introduced into the whole of China."^[2] Western China is, in fact, a dominating factor in the situation, since the two provinces of Ssŭch'uan and Yün-nan—it is said that half the arable area of the latter is under opium—are the largest-producing centres of the drug in China, and since its cultivation is the source of considerable wealth to their people, and, be it added, to their officials also.

That Indian opium is to all intents and purposes unknown in Western China is an indisputable fact. "Two decimal four piculs of Patna opium," wrote the Commissioner of Customs at Ichang in his report for 1906, "a direct import from Hong Kong, is worth noting in view of the fact that foreign opium has hitherto been practically unknown here. It is understood, however, that the result of the tentative shipment has not been encouraging to the importer." Here, then, is a vast area grievously addicted to the vice which would not be affected in the smallest degree by the cessation of the importation of the drug from India. Whatever may have been the case in the past, there is no doubt whatsoever that it is in the immense production in China itself that is to be found the root of the evil at the present time. Nothing short of a drastic campaign against the habit by the local authorities will have the slightest effect in checking the evil here; but the fact that the said local authorities, already heavily squeezed by the central Government and hard put to it to carry on their duties in addition to providing their own emoluments, draw large sums from the opium traffic, holds out little enough prospect of their engaging in a war of extermination against

In the province of Yün-nan.

"It is said that half the arable area of Yün-nan is under opium."

it. In Ch'êngtu it was found in 1902 that there were no less than 7500 opium dens, or one den to every 67 of a population of half a million; and 1000 cash a-month was the sum extracted from each den by the provincial governing body. "Much of the land," we are told by a recent traveller in Kan-su, "upon which opium is grown is in the hands of magistrates and even higher officials,"^[3] and I have shown in an earlier chapter that 50 acres under the poppy means an income exceeding by something like 780,000 cash the income which would be derived by the owner from the same area under wheat. Perhaps the most striking example of what the cultivation of the poppy means to the people in these parts is provided by a statement made to me by the President of the Piece-Goods Guild in Sui Fu. In 1905, I was told, the trade in grey shirtings and cotton Italians done between Sui Fu and Yün-nan amounted to 60,000 taels, whereas, owing to the failure of the Yün-nan opium crop in the spring of 1906, the same trade in that year amounted to only 30,000 taels.^[4] In parts of Ssŭch'uan I found the people jubilant at the prospect of a campaign against the drug from India. But why? Because they were anxious to fight and stamp out the evil? Because they were yearning to come to the rescue of "the desolate homes, the weeping mothers, the fathers crying, 'O! Absalom, my son, my son,' the degraded wives, the ragged children, the starving households, the fiendish men, the wretched women, the poor suffering sons and daughters of sorrow"?^[5] Certainly not; but because they perceived that the demand for their own opium would be greater—because they, in place of the importer from abroad, would be enabled to administer the drug to "the poor suffering sons and daughters of sorrow" to the extent of precisely one-tenth more than they were doing at the present time.

The most urgent of all reforms, then, is the gradual suppression, with a view to final extinction, of the production of the drug in China itself. The Chinese are, of course, quite alive to this, and have drawn up and issued a set of regulations not the least important of which is the one dealing with the home production. In order to reduce the area under cultivation, all magistrates are charged to investigate and make returns of the land under the poppy in their districts. No new land may, under penalty, be sown with the poppy, while certificates are to be issued for all land

given up to its cultivation, and the proprietor to be compelled to reduce the area by one-ninth every year and to substitute other crops. Confiscation of land by the State to be the penalty for non-compliance.

Drastic regulations are laid down for dealing with the smokers. All officials, gentry, and literati are to be compelled to give up the habit, to act as an example. Officials of over sixty years of age, however, are to be treated leniently. Officials of high rank and title to ask for a given time in which to break the habit, and to be relieved by an acting official during that period. Officials of lower rank to be allowed six months. Teachers, scholars, officers, and warrant officers in the army and navy, if addicted to the vice, to be dismissed within three months. For the general public the following regulations have been drawn up. A smoker must report himself at the nearest yamen and there fill in a form giving his name, age, address, occupation, and daily allowance of opium. He will then be given a licence, and if under sixty years of age a limit will be placed upon the amount he is allowed to consume, to be reduced yearly by from 20 per cent to 30 per cent. On becoming a total abstainer he must produce a guarantee signed by a relative or neighbour, when his licence will be cancelled. No new licences will be issued after the first inquisition, and severe penalties will be inflicted upon any one smoking without a licence.

Strong measures are to be taken to limit the facilities for indulging in the habit. Eating-houses are to be prohibited from furnishing opium, and customers from bringing smoking apparatus with them into such places. In the space of one year all shops for the sale of smoking accessories are to close, and six months is the limit placed upon the lives of all opium dens. Shops for the sale of the drug are to be provided with licences, and returns of the amount sold to be made annually to the magistrate of the district. All shops still in existence at the expiration of ten years to be summarily closed. Further, anti-opium societies are to be established, though it is pointed out that such societies are to confine their activities strictly to the reduction of opium, and not to indulge in the discussion of current politics or questions of local government; and finally, the local authorities are exhorted to take the lead in the great crusade. Representations are then to be made to the British Government inviting them to effect an annual reduction in the importation of Indian opium pari passu with the decrease of native opium. Truly an admirable and a comprehensive programme. Let us see what steps have so far been taken to carry it out.

Much has undoubtedly been done. During the year 1907—the year following the issue of the first opium edict—thousands of opium dens have been closed, piles of opium-pipes have been burned amid much popular rejoicing and enthusiasm, princes and other high dignitaries who have failed to break off the habit within the prescribed time have been removed from office. The working of the regulations has been tested by practice and some necessary modifications introduced. Men in high places have unfortunately died, owing to their being suddenly deprived of the drug, and "these sad results of virtue have caused the stringency of the regulations to be relaxed, and those past fifty instead of sixty years of age are now to be allowed to continue smoking."^[6]

On the whole, more has, perhaps, been achieved than was to be expected. The other side of the picture, however, cannot be ignored. There is only too much evidence of the strength of the forces—some of which I have enumerated—which are acting, and must continue to act, as a drag upon the wheels of the Chinese chariot of reform. In the month of April (1907), for instance, "the consolidated Opium Tax Bureau, which is unquestionably an official institution, issued a proclamation urging the cultivation of the poppy for the sake of revenue,"^[7]—a grave lapse from the high moral standard set by the emperor, Tao Kwang, who declared, in answer to the suggested advantages of legalising the opium traffic, that "Nothing would induce him to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of his people." In other districts subterfuge has been resorted to. Thus, in Wuhu we are told that all the dens were closed at the beginning of August in order that a report might be made to that effect, but by the beginning of September they were all open again.^[8] In the town of Lofan, in Kwang-tung, it is stated that licences have been freely issued practically certifying that the entire smoking population is over sixty years of age, and therefore entitled, under the edict, to clemency.^[9] Again, an eyewitness from Ho-nan states that, in order to comply with the terms of the edict, and at the same time to temper the wind of reform to the farmer, the area under cultivation has been reported at 25 to 30 per cent above the actual figure, so that the stipulated reduction of 10 per cent per annum will leave things as they are for some time to come.^[10] Reports as to what is being done to enforce Article I. of the Imperial Regulations, the object of which is to secure the "restriction of the cultivation of the poppy in order to remove the root of the evil," are not altogether reassuring. In Kan-su, we are told, "more poppy is grown than ever, and in one district an official urged the people to plant for all they were worth; ... in consequence, five times as much was sown";^[11] and in Mongolia more land is said to have been given over to poppy cultivation, while a general summary upon this aspect of the question reads as follows: "Although in isolated instances in other provinces [i.e., apart from Ssŭch'uan] the cultivation of the poppy has been reduced, yet it may be safely said that in general no attention has been paid to this article throughout the empire, nor have the penalties for non-compliance with its provisions been imposed."^[12]

If, then, Great Britain desires to assist China in the most practical manner, she must take care that nothing she does shall in any way encourage the poppy-growers, and others pecuniarily interested in poppy cultivation in China, in the idea that the abolition of the opium trade between India and China is to provide them with an opportunity of satisfying the demands of an increased home market. The British Government have adopted the policy best calculated to meet the case. They have undertaken to limit the quantity of opium exported from India to countries beyond the seas to 61,900 chests in 1908, 56,800 chests in 1909, and 51,700 chests in 1910. If at the conclusion of the three years they are satisfied that adequate measures have been taken to reduce the production of the drug in China in accordance with the provisions of the Imperial Edict, they agree to continue the reduction at the same rate until, at the end of ten years, the export from India will have been brought to an end. This does not, of course, satisfy the faddists who think that "such a gradual morality scale as this "is grievously humiliating to every right-minded man.^[13] Practical reform, however, never has been, and never will be, brought about on lines advocated by the extremists, and the Government may rest assured that the common-sense of those intimately acquainted with the conditions in China is a more reliable guide, in matters of practical politics, than the soaring idealism which is generated in the editor's office of 'National Righteousness.' The Chinese emperor has declared his satisfaction at the action taken by the British Government in an edict issued on March 24th, 1908: "The British Government have now agreed to effect an annual reduction in the amount of opium exported to China. This enlightened policy on their part has greatly impressed us." And after a reference to the details of the agreement, the edict concludes: "To allow these three years to slip by without taking measures for the abolition of the drug would be a poor return for the benevolent policy of a friendly Power, and a deep disappointment to philanthropists of all nations."

There is another danger besides that of an increased production of opium in China itself, which has to be carefully guarded against pari passu with the reduction of the supply of the drug—the danger of abolishing one vice only to make room for a worse. It is well known in the East that where opium-smoking is suppressed, the use of morphia or of some equally deleterious drug is almost certain to take its place, unless the most stringent precautions are adopted to prevent it. This danger appears to be imminent in China at the present moment. "Since the closing of the dens," says Dr Main of the Church Missionary Hospital at Hanchow, "anti-opium pills, containing morphia or opium in some form, have been freely distributed by the gentry, and shops for the sale of these anti-opium pills are opened everywhere and doing a roaring trade.... Some have been cured, but most of those who frequented the opium dens have simply replaced the pipe by morphia pills, and the last state is worse than the first."^[14] Precautions were taken some time ago in the shape of a greatly enhanced duty upon morphia coming into China; but the smuggling of the drug appears to go on unchecked. Thus 'The Times' correspondent at Peking wired on June 25th of this year that "Chinese Customs statistics recently issued show that last year (1907) the morphia on which duty was paid to the Customs amounted to 96 oz. only, yet there is no reason to doubt that the amount imported was nearer 10 tons"; and he went on to say that orders for 1000 lb. weight have been given in a single transaction, the morphia being packed in 7 lb., 14 lb., 21 lb., and 28 lb. tins, four in a case. Again, in a telegram dated Peking, August 21st, 1908, the same informant declares that "a formidable difficulty is the immense importation of morphia and hypodermic appliances," and summarises an Imperial Edict, dated July 16th, decreeing that Chinese who manufacture morphia or hypodermic appliances, or shopkeepers who sell morphia without a Customs permit, shall be banished to "a pestilential frontier of the Empire." These things should at least give pause to the enthusiastic sentimentalist, and should warn him that sentiment without sense is a dangerous weapon, which may not unlikely inflict serious injury upon those on whose behalf it is ostensibly wielded.

So much for the "opium question" as it stands at the present time. It may be convenient if, in conclusion, I briefly sum up the position. The chief factors in the situation to be borne in mind are these. China produces ten times as much opium as she imports. She derives a revenue of between £6,000,000 and £7,000,000 from home-grown opium, and of £830,000 from the foreign importation. The value of the opium crop to its cultivators is considerably greater than that of an equal crop of cereals. A large proportion of the officials are not only opium-smokers themselves, but are pecuniarily interested in its production. From 30 to 40 per cent of the population are estimated by the Chinese Government to be addicted at the present day to a habit which first found its way into the country two hundred years ago. With a view to eradicating the vice, a succession of Imperial Edicts has been issued and a set of sweeping regulations has been drawn up, while the Government of Great Britain has agreed to limit the export of opium from India pari passu with the reduction of the Chinese crop. The reader who has realised the magnitude of the task will naturally ask, What are the prospects of success? He is a rash man who ventures to dogmatise on matters concerning China. But the traveller in Western China who has passed through its miles of poppy-fields, who has studied the expression on the faces of its magistrates and weighed their words when discoursing upon the subject, will pay tribute to every word of Sir Edward Grey's considered expression of opinion when he said in the House of Commons on May 6th, 1908, that "to attempt to put an end to a national habit in ten years was an effort which any European Government would have been unwilling to face."

That there are enlightened men in China who are earnestly desirous of suppressing the evil, is in no way open to doubt. One of the leading merchants in Ch'ung-k'ing was actively denouncing the habit at the time of my visit; and it was reported that at Fu-chou, the centre of the opium cultivation in Ssŭch'uan, a landowner had given out that no more poppyseed was to be sown on his land. A little later Mr Joseph G. Alexander, who was travelling in Ssŭch'uan prior to attending the centenary conference of Protestant missions at Shanghai, found the local anti-opium committee at Ch'ung-k'ing militant and determined. "Would their officials," he asked them, "being so corrupt as they had been telling him, and interested in the traffic, carry out the Imperial decree?" A merchant stood up to answer for the rest. "Tell your people in England," he said, "that whether the officials want to carry out the decree or not, we shall make them do so." These are gratifying examples of a growing and salutary public opinion; but despite such welcome symptoms, to imagine that an insidious national vice can be out-rooted from the character of a people by a mere stroke of the vermilion pencil, is to postulate for human nature a standard of virtue which everyday experience goes to show that it does not possess.

1. A picul = 133⅓ lb.
2. The official estimate of the production of the province of Ssŭch'uan at the present time is given in the paper presented to Parliament in February 1908 [Cd. 3881] as 200,000 piculs, or approximately four times the amount of Indian opium imported into the whole of China.
3. 'In the Footsteps of Marco Polo,' by Colonel C. D. Bruce.
4. Cf. Report of the Blackburn Commercial Mission, Consul F. S. A. Bourne's section, ch. iv., p. 89: "The Lin-ngan merchants pay for their purchases by consignments of opium or of tin.... Their capacity to purchase foreign goods is directly measured by the value of opium and tin they can export. A common way of carrying out this exchange of products is to send opium overland to Wu-chow for sale, to take payment at Wu-chow in bills on Hong Kong to buy Lancashire cottons and yarn to be imported here, chiefly viâ Tongking."
5. The Rev. H. C. Du Bose. I have no wish to underestimate the evils of opium-smoking, but I am compelled to point out that absurdly exaggerated language is frequently used as to the effects of the habit indulged in in moderation. My coolies in Ssŭch'uan carried loads of 133 lb. each, and marched from twenty to thirty miles a-day. Every one of them smoked opium daily, but I could detect no signs of " undermined constitutions and impaired health."
6. Parliamentary Paper, China, No. 1, 1908.
7. Ibid.
8. Parliamentary Paper, China, No. 1, 1908.
9. 'Times,' April 4th, 1908.
10. Ibid.
11. Parliamentary Paper, China, No. 1, 1908.
12. Ibid.
13. 'National Righteousness,' January 1908.
14. Quoted by the Shanghai correspondent of 'The Times' in a letter to that paper of July 3rd, 1908.