704 



OPIUM-TRAFFIC. 



OREGON. 



to 10,000 chests annually, and ten years later 

 amounted to more than 40,000. This progress 

 had been made under all the difficulties, incon- 

 veniences, and dangers of carrying on a purely 

 contraband traffic. More vigorous efforts for 

 its suppression led to the so-called "Opium 

 War " with England in 1840, which ended with 

 the treaty of Nanking in 1842. This and the 

 subsequent treaty of Peking presented the first 

 recognized basis of traffic between the English 

 and Chinese, and gave opium a place among 

 the legal imports into China, thereby removing 

 the obstacles to the development of the traffic. 

 The importation from India had reached 70,- 

 000 chests in 1856, and is now computed at 

 about 90,000. Meantime the cultivation of the 

 poppy-seed had continued in Yunnan, and ex- 

 tended to the neighboring province of Sech- 

 uen. Even after the treaties which followed 

 the " Opium War," the Emperor of China re- 

 fused to recognize the traffic as a legitimate 

 source of national revenue. He said : " It is 

 true that I can not prevent the introduction of 

 the flowing poison ; gain-seeking and corrupt 

 men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my 

 wishes; but nothing will induce me to derive 

 a revenue from the vice and misery of my peo- 

 ple." This sentiment controlled the avowed 

 policy of the Government until after the second 

 foreign war, which closed with the treaties of 

 Tien-tsin and Peking in 1858, after which a 

 party gained the ascendant which took a prac- 

 tical view of utilizing the inevitable traffic as 

 a source of revenue. The new tariff issued at 

 that time recognized opium as a legal import, 

 and subjected it to a tax of 30 taels per picul, 

 or about 10 sterling per chest. It was also 

 made subject to transit dues after being re- 

 moved from the port. 



Not only has imported opium become a fruit- 

 ful source of revenue to China, but it is a very 

 important article of taxation and profit for the 

 British Indian Government. The poppy is 

 grown and the drug manufactured chiefly in 

 two special districts, the valley of the Ganges, 

 about Patna and Benares, and a fertile table- 

 land in Central India, which corresponds to 

 the old kingdom of Malwah and is for the most 

 part still under the rule of native princes, fore- 

 most among whom are Scindia and Holkar. 

 The cultivation of the poppy in the Malwah 

 district is free, but a duty of 65 per chest is 

 raised on it as it passes through British terri- 

 tory. In Bengal, on the other hand, the pro- 

 duction of opium is a government monopoly. 

 Outside of these two districts, with the excep- 

 tion of Rajpootana and a few places in the 

 Punjab, the cultivation of the poppy is pro- 

 hibited in India. The manufacture of the 

 opium of commerce from the juice of the pop- 

 py grown in British territory is performed at 

 Patna and Ghazepoor, while that from the prod- 

 uct of the Malwah district is made at Indore 

 and Gwalior. In 1878-79 the total product 

 was 91,200 chests, of which the export value 

 was 12,993,985, and it was officially com- 



pnted that the state derived from it a net profit 

 of nearly 8,000,000, about one half of which 

 came from the Bengal monopoly. Perhaps a 

 million pounds in value of the product was 

 destined for Burmah and the Malay settlements, 

 but nearly eleven million pounds' worth was 

 sold to the Chinese. The difficulty of rein- 

 stating the policy of prohibiting or materially 

 restricting the opium-traffic is manifestly ren- 

 dered very great by its importance for revenue 

 purposes to both the Chinese and British Indian 

 Governments. So far as it depends on nego- 

 tiations with Great Britain, the difficulty is 

 further magnified by the fact that that nation 

 does not share, to any appreciable degree, the 

 evil consequences it is desired to check, while 

 its share of the financial benefit is very great. 

 To strike opium from the sources of revenue 

 for the Indian Government would necessitate a 

 difficult readjustment of the finances of India. 

 Another obstacle which the Chinese Govern- 

 ment is likely to encounter is to be found in 

 the remarkable increase in the home produc- 

 tion of opium in the provinces of Yunnan and 

 Sechuen, and the almost universal prevalence 

 which the habit of opium-smoking has attained 

 in a large part of the empire. While it is evi- 

 dent, from recent utterances of the minister 

 Li Hung Chang, that negotiations are likely to 

 be opened with a view to restricting the im- 

 portation, there is little prospect of immediate 

 success, either in the effort to suppress the 

 traffic from abroad or that within the empire, 

 or to circumscribe the use of the drug which 

 is regarded as so pernicious, so long as such 

 powerful interests and such wide-spread popu- 

 lar tastes are arrayed against the policy, and 

 the means of enforcing it are so inadequate in 

 consequence of the character and attitude of a 

 large part of the official and influential classes 

 in China. 



OREGON. The Oregon State Woman Suf- 

 frage Association met in Portland on the 8th 

 of February. The following resolutions were 

 adopted : 



Whereas, The social relations between men and 

 women are mutual, their individual needs equal, and 

 their conjugal interests identical ; and, 



Whereas, Man, by virtue of the law-making power, 

 as expressed througn the ballot, has supreme advan- 

 tage over woman in reaching exalted social positions, 

 in providing for his individual needs, and in control- 

 ling the individual interests of mutual conjugal rela- 

 tions: and, 



Whereas, This advantage of one over the other is 

 both unwise and unjust, and not to be continued ; 

 and. 



\Vhereas, The era of physical force is rapidly giv- 

 ing way to the era of intellectual and moral influence 

 between men and men : therefore, 



Resolved, 1. That this same era of force should be 

 abolished wherever it exists between men and women. 



2. That the ballot is the key to men's advantage 

 over women ; and women, who are by nature equal 

 with men, ought by right of law to be equally free and 

 independent with men in all things pertaining to their 

 domestic, civil, and political rights. 



3. That what the ballot has done for man : native 

 or foreign-born, it is equally capable of doing for 

 woman, and we demand it for her as a means of self- 



