28 
Opium  Trade  of  China 
(  Am,  Jour.  Pharm. 
t     Jan.  2, 1871. 
THE  OPIUM  TRADE  OF  CHINA. 
By  p.  L.  Simmonds. 
Few  are,  perhaps,  aware  of  the  enormous  trade  still  carried  on  in 
opium  from  India  to  China ;  and  what  is,  probably,  even  less  gene- 
rally known,  is  that  the  poppy  is  largely  cultivated  in  China  itself, 
and  that  the  native  drug  is  beginning  to  replace  much  of  the  Malwa 
opium.  Mr.  R.  Fortune  saw  the  poppy  extensively  grown  in  China 
for  the  purpose  of  inspissating  the  juice,  but  was  able  to  form  no  esti- 
mate of  the  quantity  actually  grown.  We  have,  however,  confirma- 
tory  recent  evidence  of  the  extension  of  the  culture  and  production 
in  China.  More  than  thirty  years  ag(^  it  was  stated  in  the  Chinese 
Repository,  on  the  testimony  of  the  consellor  Choo  Tsun,  that  in  his 
native  province,  Yunnan,  the  poppy  was  cultivated  all  over  the  hills 
and  open  country,  and  that  the  quantity  of  opium  annually  produced 
there  could  not  be  less  than  several  thousand  chests.  Indian  opium 
now  brings  in  an  average  annual  gross  revenue  to  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment of  about  <£8,200,000. 
The  value  of  the  opium  shipped  from  India  to  China  in  the  last  ten 
years  is  thus  given  in  the  oflQcial  statistics  ;  from  which  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  average  annual  import  has  not  varied  very  greatly  in  the  two 
quinquennial  periods,  although  there  are  alternate  high  and  low  years, 
and  the  price  fluctuates  much : 
1860, 
1861, 
1862, 
1863, 
1864, 
Total, 
9,054,394 
10,184,713 
10,553,912 
12,494,128 
10,756,093 
53,043,240 
Average,  .       .  X10,608,648 
1865, 
1866, 
1867, 
1868, 
1869, 
Total, 
Average, 
£ 
9,911,804 
11,122,746 
10,431,703 
12,309,915 
10,695,654 
54,471,822 
.£10,894,364 
In  1856  the  consumption  of  Indian  opium  in  China  was  about 
82,000  chests,  of  140  lb.  each,  but  this  was  exceptionally  large. 
In  his  report  upon  the  trade  of  Tien-tsin  for  1866,  our  Consul  drew 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  increase  in  the  importation  of  opium  in 
that  and  the  previous  year  had  been  immediately  preceded  by  an  Im- 
perial edict,  issued  on  the  28th  April,  1865,  which  prohibited  the  cul- 
tivation of  the  poppy  throughout  the  empire.  He  stated  that  though. 
