100 



CHINA. 



of the establishment were degraded and inca- 

 pacitated from ever holding office again. A 

 report to Parliament by Mr. Baker, of the 

 British consular establishment attached to Mr. 

 Grosvenor's mission, mentions a great increase 

 in the production of opium. Speaking of Yun- 

 nan, it says : " Of the sole agricultural export, 

 opium, we can speak with some certainty. 

 We were astounded at the extent of the pop- 

 py-cultivation both in Sechuan and Yunnan. 

 We first heard of it on the boundary line be- 

 tween Hupei and Sechuan. A few miles south 

 of this spot the most valuable variety of native 

 opium is produced. In ascending the rivers, 

 wherever cultivation existed, we found numer- 

 ous fields of poppy. Even the sandy banks 

 were often planted with it down to the water's 

 edge ; but it was not until we began our land 



journey in Yunnan that we fairly realized the 

 enormous extent of its production. With some 

 fears of being discredited, but at the same time 

 with the consciousness that I am underesti- 

 mating the proportion, I estimate that the 

 poppy fields constitute a third of the whole 

 cultivation of Yunnan." Further on, the re- 

 port remarks : " We walked some hundreds of 

 miles through poppies ; we breakfasted among 

 poppies; we shot wild ducks in the poppies. 

 Even wretched little hovels in the mountains 

 were generally attended by a poppy patch." 



Imperial and viceregal edicts appeared from 

 time to time prohibiting the cultivation of the 

 poppy, but, according to a recent report of Mr. 

 Nicholson, the secretary of the British legation 

 at Peking, on the opium trade, they have been 

 in most cases ignored, the only result being an 



WESTERN GATE OF PEKING. 



increase in the price of the article, consequent 

 upon the necessity of the producer " silencing " 

 the officials. But though this has been uni- 

 versally understood and acknowledged, the 

 " Peking Gazette " continues to publish me- 

 morials from censors and others on the sub- 

 ject. More earnest attempts have recently 

 been made to punish infractors of the laws, 

 and the Government and people seem to be 

 entering upon another general effort to abol- 

 ish or curtail the traffic. The Viceroy of the 

 two Kiang provinces recently denounced two 

 Taoutais and two or three district magistrates 

 to the Emperor as inveterate opium-smokers. 

 A decree of punishment was issued against 

 them, and the Viceroy has announced that any 

 officer within his jurisdiction whose personal 

 appearance gives ground for suspicion of his 

 being an opium-smoker will be interrogated, 

 and, if found guilty, will be forthwith im- 



peached. The capital is said to be the chief 

 center of consumption for the Indian opium 

 which comes to Tientsin. The Viceroy of 

 Nanking has ordered that every house let for 

 opium-smoking be confiscated. The authorities 

 of Soochow have also adopted energetic mea- 

 sures against the proprietors of the shops. The 

 officers of Canton have adopted a licensing sys- 

 tem, and, having farmed out the trade to a par- 

 ticular corporation, exact a tax on all the opium 

 prepared and sold to it. The general com- 

 manding in Kashgar has destroyed the poppy 

 crops in Kansu and Shensi ; and all the fields 

 bordering on the roads south of Moakden have 

 been destroyed. The Governor of Shansi has 

 forwarded a memorial in which he ascribes 

 many aggravations of the recent famine to the 

 fact that the fertile and irrigated fields were 

 given up to the cultivation of the poppy, while 

 the food crops were consigned to stony and 



