No. 181.
Mr. Angell
to Mr. Blaine.
Peking, September 27, 1881. (Received November 19.)
Sir: I send yon by this mail two copies of a report of the imperial maritime customs on the consumption of foreign opium in China. The statistics are doubtless gathered with as much care as is possible. The result reached is that 10,000,000 catties (a catty is about is about 1⅓ pounds avoirdupois) of opium is imported, and that this will suffice for the supply of about 1,000,000 smokers, or say one-third of one per cent, of the population. Assuming that the native product of opium is equal to the foreign importation, the conclusion is given that less than one per cent.— that is, less than 3,000,000—are opium-smokers.
Of course, it is impossible to say with accuracy what is the average consumption of a smoker. The belief is largely entertained that in some way the observations made by the customs officers have failed to indicate the extent of the practice of opium smoking. The North China Herald of Shanghai, which is by no means a severe critic of the use of opium in China, says that the report has erred in not taking account of the fact that practically a large amount of the opium is used twice, the ashes being saved and sold for about half the price of new opium. It remarks:
We have heard it stated by many sensible Chinese that the number of their male friends who smoke opium, as against those who do not, is about seven to three, a calculation sometimes modified to six to four, and our own experience goes to prove that the calculation is not very far astray.
Personal inquiries which I have made would lead me to think that the proportion of smokers in Peking to the whole male population is less than that reported for Shanghai, but certainly much larger than the estimate of the report.
It is impossible to learn how large is the native production of opium. But in some provinces, especially Szechuen and Yunnan, it is very large.
[Page 315]Since a poppy field is said to yield a crop two or three times as valuable as a wheat crop, and the demand for the product is so great, it can readily be seen that nothing but most severe laws, stringently enforced, can prevent the spread of the cultivation of the plant.
What is the treatment of opium by the government? The importation of the drug they cannot at present prevent. For the most part they content themselves with heavy taxation of it after levying a duty of $40 a chest on importation; while in the hands of natives at the port it is often taxed as high as $100. As it travels into the interior it is taxed at the local barriers indefinitely. Since it is the only article imported for which transit passes, freeing articles from farther duties in transitu, are not given, it is regarded as lawful prey for tax collectors, official “squeezes,” and extortions of all sorts.
There have been cases in which a governor has prohibited the introduction of the drug into his province, but probably such a prohibition was ineffective. When a new magistrate takes office in a city, he often begins in a very virtuous way by issuing a fierce proclamation closing all the opium shops for a while. After a time his moral indignation subsides under the influence of bribes, and gradually the shops open cautiously and remain open till the next magistrate succeeds to the office. One is reminded of the alternations of usage in respect to the enforcement of the Maine law in our cities. But in general, I think it may be said that since many officials are more or less addicted to opium, and find it a convenient source of revenue, the traffic goes on, subject mainly to pecuniary burdens.
Imperial decrees make the use of opium by officials or by soldiers punishable with death, but transgression when punished, as it sometimes is, is visited with a lighter penalty, degradation in the case of officials and dishonorable dismissal in the case of soldiers.
Earnest attempts have been made by the central government and by some of the provincial governors to suppress the cultivation of the poppy. One could quote from the Peking Gazette of the last ten years pages of imperial decrees, commanding the viceroys and governors to punish all who violate the law. The decrees assign as the reasons for prohibiting the growth of the poppy, first, that opium is pernicious, and, secondly, that the cultivation of it leads to a short supply of food. The famine which in 1878 destroyed millions of persons in Shansi and other provinces would have been far less severe, if so many acres had not been given up to the poppy instead of to wheat. Tso-Tsung-Tang, when viceroy, did succeed to a great extent in checking the cultivation of the poppy in Kansuh. Some of the officials say, “Since we must receive the drug from abroad, why should our people not have the profit of raising it?” This is certainly as good reasoning as that of the Christian statesmen and merchants of the West, who say, “Since the Chinese themselves raise opium, why may we not have the profit of selling or of transporting it to them?”
For years many of the leading statesmen and best men in China have been watching with the greatest solicitude the increase of the use of the drug. They would gladly check it. The request for the insertion of the anti-opium clause in our recent treaty is one proof of it. But the obstacles to the extirpation of the use of opium are so formidable that it is not surprising that some should deem it impossible. It is thought by some that certain Chinese statesmen who have been most vigorous in their opposition to opium are disposed to tax it very heavily and let it remain in use. The temptation to compromise in the warfare by an arrangement, which easily replenishes the public treasury is great, it [Page 316] must be confessed. That some men should yield to it need not surprise us. Yet some of the Chinese statesmen believe in the power and the will of the government to check the growth of opium in the country, provided the importation can be arrested. When we consider the docility of the Chinaman, we may believe that if importation should be stopped and a vigorous emperor should undertake the work of stopping the cultivation of the poppy and the use of the drug, very much could be done towards so desirable a result. I think that neither the imperial government nor the provincial governors are now doing as much as they might and ought to do in this direction. Still the Chinese ministers have more than once expressed to me a strong desire to meet the difficulties of the case and overcome them.
In my last visit to the Tsung-li Yamên, Prince Kung said to me that if the importation from India could be stopped, the government could and would suppress the growth of it at home. Surely good men of all lands and the governments of states which call themselves Christian may well strengthen the hands of the Chinese Government in every act which tends to rid China of what all must regard as a great calamity.
It is a cause of just congratulation that the United States have taken the initiative in showing that one nation at least is ready to abstain from bringing to her ports the drug which is destroying the strength and the happiness of so many Chinamen and drawing heavily on the financial resources of the nation which it is cursing.
I have, &c.,