THE MORALITY OF THE OPIUM TRADE. 761 



fied that the more thoroughly they test it, the more strongly will they be con- 

 vinced with me that the smoking of opium is of itself a perfectly innocuous in- 

 dulgence. I have known cases of desperate suffering, resulting apparently from 

 excess in opium smoking, such as unscientific observers hold up, in terrorem, be- 

 fore the British public. But these cases were always of moral imbeciles who 

 were addicted to other forms of depravity, and the opium pipe was merely the 

 last straw laid on their inherently enervated and overstrained backs. Opium 

 has been smoked for generations in China, even within the precincts of the Im- 

 perial Palace, at Pekin. As far back as 1769, edicts were issued against the 

 practice, but in vain, so deeply were the people already devoted to it at that 

 date. The determined, obstinate instinct of the Chinese people in its favor, 

 paralyzed even the despotic endeavors of the Chinese Government to suppress it ; 

 and long before we became entangled in the quarrel between the Chinese and 

 their Government on the subject, the Financial Board at Pekin had advised rec- 

 ognition of the national habit by the imposition of a tax on opium, on the ground 

 that the increased rigor of the laws enforced against its use since the beginning 

 of the century had only tended to increase the bribes offered to officials for their 

 connivance in it. This judicious proposal was rejected by the Chinese Govern- 

 ment with a great flourish of moral indignation, and the crusade against opium 

 smoking continued with renewed severity. All the same, the popular custom 

 proved irresistible, and its victory in the end was of incalculable benefit to the 

 Chinese, as it served gradually, wherever opium smoking prevailed, to complete- 

 ly entice them away from the use of their native ardent spirits. 



This historical fact should never be overlooked by those who have been led 

 by their blind philanthropy to believe that opium smoking is necessarily injurious 

 to the Chinese, and that, therefore, the Indian opium revenue is immoral. No 

 one will deny, that, at all events in tropical countries, the effects of excess in 

 ardent spirits are worse than those of opium, and it would be unfortunate, in- 

 deed, if, as a consequence of the abolition of the Government manufacture of 

 opium in India, the Chinese were led back to the use of the ardent spirits of 

 their own baneful distillation. It would be the undoing of probably the greatest 

 temperance triumph of any age or country ; for I repeat, that, of itself, opium 

 smoking is almost as harmless an indulgence as twiddling the thumbs and other 

 silly-looking methods for concentrating the jaded mind in momemtary nirvana. 

 The mind often seeks a lullquiescence without vacuity, and finds it in any of the 

 strangely infectious ways — opium smoking among the rest. But, it may be 

 asked, What of the opinion of the Chinese Government as to the morality of 

 opium smoking ? It is, I believe, partly due, as with other worthy people, to 

 their not distinguishing between the accidental concomitant of a debauched life 

 and the antecedent inducements to it, but chiefly to the fact of official Chinese 

 ideas of morality being founded on an artificial religious system, and not on the 

 natiorial habits of the masses of Chinamen. The scholastic official ideas of mo- 

 rality in China are utterly at variance, as is obvious in regard to opium smoking, 

 at least, with the universal practice of the people. Be that as it may, all I insist 



