Opium is said to have been introduced into China by the Arabs probably in the
13th century, and it was originally used there as a
medicine. In a Chinese Herbal compiled before 1700 both the plant and its
juice are described, together with the mode of collecting
it, and in the General History of the Southern Provinces of Yunnan,
revised and republished in 1736, opium is noticed as a common product.
The first edict prohibiting opium smoking was issued by the emperor Yung
Cheng in 1729. Up to that date the amount imported did not exceed 200
chests, and was usually brought from India by junks as a return cargo.
In the year 1757 the monopoly of opium cultivation in India passed into
the hands of the East India Company through the victory of Clive at
Plassey. Up to 1773 the trade with China had been in the hands of the
Portuguese, but in that year the East India Company took the trade under
their own charge. Although the importation was forbidden by the
Chinese imperial authorities in 1796, and opium smoking punished with
severe penalties (ultimately increased to transportation and death), the
trade continued and had increased during 1820 - 1830 to 16,877 chests per
annum. The trade was contraband, and the opium was bought by the Chinese
from depot ships at the ports.
Opium
War
Up to 1839 no effort was made to stop the
trade, but in that year the emperor Tao-Kwang sent a commissioner, Li.
Tsze-su, to Canton to put down the traffic. Lin issued a proclamation
threatening hostile measures if the British opium ships serving as
depots were not sent away. The demand for removal not being complied
with, 20,291 chests of opium, valued at £2,000,000,
were destroyed by the Chinese commissioner Li.; but still the British
sought to smuggle cargoes on shore, and some outrages committed on both sides
led to an open war, which was ended by the treaty of Nankifig in 1842.
The importation of opium continued and was legalized in 1858.
From that
time, in spite of the remonstrance of the Chinese government, the
exportation of opium from India to China continued. While,
however, the court of Peking was honestly endeavoring to suppress the
foreign trade in opium from 1839 to 1858 several of the provincial
viceroys encouraged the trade, nor could the central government put a
stop to the home cultivation of the drug. The cultivation increased so
rapidly that at the beginning of the 20th century opium was produced in
every province of China. The western provinces yielded and the other provinces
produced nearly two thirds. Of this
amount China required for home consumption, the remainder
being chiefly exported to Indochina, while more foreign
opium was imported into China. Of the whole amount of opium used in
China and about one-seventh came from India.
The Chinese government regarded the use of opium as one of the most
acute moral and economic questions which as a nation they had to face decided
in 1906 to put an end to the use of the drug within ten years, and
issued an edict on the 20th of September 1906, forbidding the
consumption of opium and the cultivation of the poppy. As an. indication
of their earnestness of purpose the government allowed officials a
period of six months in which to break off the use of opium, under heavy
penalties if they failed to do so. In October of the same year the American
government in the Philippines, having to deal with the opium trade,
raised the question of the taking of joint measures for its suppression
by the powers interested, and as a result a conference met at Shanghai
on the 1st of February 1909 to which China, the United States of
America, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
the Netherlands, Persia, Portugal and Russia sent delegates. At this
meeting it was resolved that it was the duty of the respective
governments to prevent the export of opium to any countries prohibiting
its importation; that drastic measures should be taken against the use
of morphine; that anti-opium remedies should be investigated; and that
all countries having concessions in China should close the opium divans
in their possessions.
The British government made an offer in 1907 to
reduce the export of Indian opium to countries beyond the seas each year
until the year 1910, and that if during these three years the Chinese
government had carried out its arrangements for proportionally
diminishing the production and consumption of opium in China, the
British government were prepared to continue the same rate of reduction,
so that the export of Indian opium to China would cease in ten years;
the restrictions of the imports of Turkish, Persian and other opium
being separately arranged for by the Chinese government, and carried out
simultaneously. The above proposal was gratefully received by the
Chinese government. A non official report by Mr. E. S. Little, after traveling
through western China, which appeared in the newspapers in
May 1910, stated that all over the province of Szechwan opium had
almost ceased to be produced, except only in a few remote districts on
the frontier.
The difficulties of the task undertaken by the Chinese
government to
eradicate a national and popular vice were increased by the fact that the
opium habit has been indulged in by all classes of society, that opium
has been practically the principal if not the only national stimulant;
that it involved a considerable loss of revenue, which had to
be made up by other taxes, and by the fact that its cultivation was more
profitable than that of cereals.