The Opium Debate, 1836

Chapter 7 The Opium Debate, 1836

With the end of the East India Company’s monopoly, private country traders sailing clippers between India and Canton began bringing an estimated 1,800 tons of opium to China every year. This new influx of opium entered an existing network built to wholesale, distribute, and sell vast amounts of the illegal drug throughout the Qing empire. Over time, this system not only addicted millions of Chinese to the drug, but also threatened the financial stability of the empire and the integrity of the government. By the 1820s, the demand for opium reached levels high enough for the Company to stop paying for tea with silver bullion. Instead, they began accept- ing silver in payment for opium. Between 1828 and 1836, an estimated thirty- eight million dollars in silver left Canton. This outflow of silver immediately upset China’s bi-metallic currency system. Peasants and merchants visiting cash shops suddenly had to pay as much as 1,650 copper cash for one ounce of silver, drastically higher than the official rate of one thousand cash to the ounce. While the central government received no additional benefit from this shift on the conversion rate, peasants across the empire saw their effective tax rates skyrocket while thousands of government officials and local clerks con- tinued to profit from their involvement in the opium trade, thus undermining the moral authority of government. In the early 1830s, the Daoguang Emperor received memorial after memorial on the spread of opium addiction, the deleterious effects of the trade on the finances of the empire, and the moral degeneracy of officials implicated in the trade. By the mid-1830s, officials aware of the failure of existing laws to stop the opium trade, and with a greater appreciation for the complexity of the problem, began studying the industry in hopes of producing new solutions. In the intense debate that followed, two sides emerged variously called the “Relaxers,” led by Xu Naiji, who advocated loosening government laws pro- hibiting the cultivation, production, and consumption of opium and the “Strengtheners” who argued for even stricter laws and penalties for involvement in the opium trade. Although often underappreciated, this debate on opium in general and Xu Naiji’s memorial in particular, argues Inoue Hiromasa, was “the fuse leading directly to the war.”

June 18361

Xu Naiji, vice-president of the sacrificial court, presents the following memorial in regard to opium, to show that the more severe the interdicts against it are made, the more widely do the evils arising therefrom spread; and that it is right urgently to request, that a change be made in the arrangements respect- ing it; to which end he earnestly entreats his sacred majesty to cast a glance thereon, and to issue secret orders for a faithful investigation of the subject. I would humbly represent that opium was originally ranked among medi- cines; its qualities are stimulant; it also checks excessive secretions; and pre- vents the evil effects of noxious vapors. In the Materia Medica of Li Shizhen of the Ming dynasty, it is called Afu-rong. When any one is long habituated to inhaling it, it becomes necessary to resort to it at regular intervals, and the habit of using it, being inveterate, is destructive of time, injurious to property, and yet dear to one even as life. Of those who use it to great excess, the breath becomes feebly, the body waster, the face sallow, the teeth black: the individu- als themselves clearly see the evil effects of it, yet cannot refrain from it. It is indeed indispensably necessary to enact severe prohibitions in order to eradi- cate so vile a practice. On inquiry I find that there are three kinds of opium: one is called company’s; the outer covering is black, and hence it is also called ‘black earth’; it comes from Bengal; a second kind is called ‘white-skin’ and comes from Bombay; the third kind is called ‘red skin,’ and comes from Madras. These are places which belong to England. In Qianlong’s reign, as well as previously, opium was inserted in the tariff of Canton as medicine, subject to a duty of three taels per hundred catties, with an additional charge of two taels four mace and five candareens under the name of charge per package. After this, it was prohibited. In the first year of Jiaqing, those found guilty of smoking opium were subject to punishment of the pillory and bamboo. Now they have, in the course of time, become liable to the sever- est penalties, transportation in various degrees, and death after the ordinary continuance in prison. Yet the smokers of the drug have increased in number, and the practice has spread throughout the whole empire….In the reign of Jiaqing [1796–1820] there arrived, it may be, some hundred chests annually. The number has now increased to upwards of 20,000 chests, containing each a hundred catties. The ‘black earth’ which is the best, sells for about 800 dollars, foreign money, per chest; the ‘white skin,’ for which is next in quality, for about

1 Translated as “Opium: Memorial to the Emperor Proposing to Legalize the Importation of It,” Chinese Repository 5 (July 1836): 138–44.