The report of the Royal Commission on opium compared with the evidence from China that was submitted to the Commission. : An examination and an appeal. / by Arnold Foster... with preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Opium
Date:
1898
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The report of the Royal Commission on opium compared with the evidence from China that was submitted to the Commission. : An examination and an appeal. / by Arnold Foster... with preface by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    APPENDIX. Memorial presented to the Royal Commission on Opium by British Missionaries in China of 25 or more years standing. We, the undersigned British missionaries, representing different societies labouring in nearly every province of China, and having all of us had for many years abundant opportunities of observing the effects of opium-smoking upon the Chinese people, beg to lay before the Royal Commission on Opium the following statement of facts in reference to this question :— 1. We believe it to be a fact established beyond possibility of reasonable doubt that the consumption of opium in China is exerting a distinctly deteriorating effect upon the Chinese people, physically, socially, and morally. Statements to this effect have been repeatedly made in Blue Books and other oflB.cial documents, on the authority of British officials of high standing, and they are entirely corroborated by our own personal observation. The Protestant missionary body in China has twice by its representatives assembled in conference, and including men of various nationalities and of many different churches, unanimously passed resolutions condemning emphati- cally the use of opium by the Chinese for other than medicinal purposes, and deploring the connexion of Great Britain with the opium trade. {8ee The Records of the Missionary Conference held at Shanghai, 1877, and ditto, 1890.) 2. It is a fact which cannot be reasonably disputed that the conscience of the Chinese people as a whole is distinctly opposed to the opium habit. It is continually classed, in common conversation, and in books, with fornication and gambling. Sir Rutherford Alcock, sometime Her Majesty's Minister in China, when examined before a Committee of the House of Commons, spoke of the universality of the belief among the Chinese that whenever a man takes to smoking opium it will probably be the impoverishment and ruin of his family—a popular feeling which is universal both amongst those who are addicted to it, who always consider themselves as moral criminals, and amongst those who abstain from it. [See Report, East India Finance, 1871 (363), page 275. 5738.) We ourselves have never met with Chinamen who defended the practice as morally harmless, but we have heard it unsparingly condemned by the Chinese times without number. The missions with which we are respectively associated invariably refuse to admit opium-smokers to church member- ship, but in so doing they are only acting in accordance with the general sentiment of the Chinese, Christian and non-Christian alike, which always stigmatizes the habit of opium-smoking as vicious. 3. It is a fact that the opium trade, though now no longer contraband, is highly injurious, not only to China, but also to the fair name of Great Britain. The past history and the present enormous extent of the opium trade with India produces, as we can testify from personal experience, suspicion and dislike in the ininds of the Chinese people towards foreigners in general. On the other hand, the attitude of hostility towards opium which foreign missionaries are known to maintain is approved and duly appreciated by the Chinese of all classes, as we have often found in our intercourse with the people. 4. It is an indisputable fact that the opium imported from India is neither required for medicinal purposes in China nor generally used for these purposes, and hence we regard the importation as being wholly prejudicial to the well-being of the Chinese people. In view of these facts the undersigned venture respectfully to express the earnest hope that the Royal Commissioners will embody in their Report a united recommenda- tion to Her Majesty that the Indian Government should immediately restrict the Indian production of opium to the supply of what is needed for medicinal purposes in India and elsewhere. With our long and sad experience of the injurious effects of opium- consumption on the Chinese people, we cannot but feel the gravest apprehensions as to what the effects of the opium habit ]n other lands are likely to be. We are quite aware that some medical and other testimony has been given in India designed to show that the consumption of opium by the peoples of India is not accompanied with the same disastrous consequences that we have all witnessed for ourselves in China, but we are glad to know that strong testimony has also been given in India of a contrary kind, for we are of opinion that a longer and wider range of experience will certainly show that opium is as injurious to all other races as it has been proved to be to the Chinese. Opium is rightly classed in England amongst dangerous poisons, and it is so regarded in other countries, and we cannot believe that what is a dangerous poison to the greater part of the human race acts only as a harmless stimulant on
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