The revenue of British India from this source is doubtless a very serious amount to risk, bat the following will show that it had risen with a bound since 1840, after the first war, and also possibly since steam-ships replaced the sailing clippers : Gross Iterenue. Expenditure. Net novenae.
. . £372,502 2105,381 £267,121 1810-11, . . 935,996 96,188 839,808 1:•20-21, . 1,436,432 135,726 1,300,706 1830-31, . . 1,341,988 319,964 1,022,0241840--41, . . 1,430,499 556,222 874,277 1850-51, . . 3,795,300 1,044,952 2,750,348 186041, . . 6,676,759 918,467 5,758,292The prices obtained for the opium have, as with other products, varied with the demand. Between 1850-51 and 1880-81, the average price per chest of Bengal opium realized in each year at the Government sales has ranged from between £74, 3s. and £184, 13s. 11d. ; and as the chest contains 140 lbs., these prices rule from about 10s. Gd. to El, 7s. the lb. avoirdupois.
The opium monopoly of the British Indian Government is deemed essentially necessary as a source of revenue, but in its present form is a protection of the most intense description. Licensed cultivators are permitted to cultivate the poppy, but the juice must be sold to Govern ment at a certain fixed price. It is manufactured .nto opium in the Government factories at Patna uid Benares, and then sent to Calcutta, and sold 5y auction to merchants, who export it to China.
This action of the British Indian Government in .nanufacturing and selling opium knowingly for le Chinese market has been stigmatized as forcing ipium upon China against the action of its Govern ment; and the opinion has been advanced that the mportation of opium into China by Christian ?eople throws obloquy on the Christian religion, ind discourages the efforts of Christian mission tries; also that it is unworthy of a great Govern ment to interfere in commercial matters by exer •ising the Bengal monopoly, and that it is to its liscredit to make profit iu this direct manner tut of a traffic which is open to grave moral bjections.
The monopoly of cultivation is undoubtedly in ,ense, but it is replied that it is limited to certain tricts in Bengal ; and in the 575,2G3 square niles of territories of native princes, it is, so far as eg-ards the British Indian Government,whollyfree, e fiscal right of taxing it in transit being alone mposed. And it is now known that since many
undred years the poppy has been grown in China or its opium, which is being produced Were in luantities in at least double the quantity cx rted from British India. It has been suggested hat the British Indian Government should sub ;Witte an excise duty for its monopoly. But the Iritish Indian opium keeps its place in China for is excellence, and under any excise system its iosition would undoubtedly be lost amongst he Chinese, its greatest consumers.—Simnionds; lour. Ind. Archip. January 1848 ; Les Anglais 't Uncle, p. 251 ; Powell's Handbook ; Cameron ; Tod's Rajasthan, pi. p. 630 ; M'Culloch's Did.; )'Sh. ; Smith's Mat. Med. ; Bonynyc, America ; lanais of Indian Administration; 1Villianis' Middle Vingdom, ii. pp. 286, 383 ; hooker's him. Journal, . p. 83 ; Malcolm's Central India, iii. p. 45; 7rattOrrd's Dice.; Mason's Tenasserim; Mor Compendious Description ; Iloyle's Mut. Ailed.; Dr. Impey on the Cultivation of Opium in M(ilwa; Dr. Little on the Opium Manufacture at Singapore, in Journal of the Indian Archipelago ; Dr. Butter, in Journal Ben. As. Soc. p. 13G ; Mr. Caine ; Mr. Edkins ; Consul Gardner ; Mr. Carnegy ; Dr. Lyell ; F. A. Fluckiger and Daniel Ilanbury, l'harmacographia, London 1874 ; Sir Robert Ikrt, Inspector - General of Customs at Pekin ; Mr. J. Aicheson's Report ; Jameson's Edin burgh Journal, 1819 ; 3Iedhurst's For Cathay Lockhart's Medical Missionary; Doolittle's Social Life ; .3luirhead's China ; A. E. illoule's Essay on Opium ; Experimental Culture, 1874-76; Behar Agency Report, 1867 ; Attacks of Ileliothis armi yera, 1878 ; Records, Finance Depart. 1871 ; Re cords of Government,1873; Persia Consular Report, 1882 ; Parliamentary Papers, 1882.