It is in the relation, between India and China that the opium trade is most important. Some authorities have stated that opium has always been prohibited in China; but this does not appear to have been the case. It was a legitimate branch of trade down to the close of the last century, prohibitory regulations having been first made in 1796. From this period the trade has always been contraband; and yet in little more than forty years the consumption of Indian opium in China rose from 1000 to 27,000 chests per annum. Opium con stituted about ono-half of the total value of British imports into Canton just before the opening of other Chinese ports to the British. Nothing but the extraordinary corruption of the Chinese authorities can account for this increase of a trade prohibited by the laws ; but it is another proof of the difficulty of putting in force regulations which are at variance with the popular habits and taste. Macao was at first the centre of the Indian opium trade ; but in 1802, in con sequence of the conduct of the Portuguese towards the British mer chants, the trade was removed to the island of Lintin. Here the opium was kept stored in armed ships, and delivered to the Chinese by written orders from Canton, on the sale being concluded and the money paid at that place. The price gradually fell, and the quantity imported gradually increased. Imperial edicts were frequently issued against opium dealers and smokers, but with little effect. There is reason to believe( that the Chinese government was less alarmed about the introduction of opium, than at the drain of bullion which the opium trade occasions. Formerly the produce of China was paid for in silver, but opium has so successfully served the purpose as a medium of commercial exchange, that it has been less necessary to employ coin or bullion. The opium trade has thus been the means of draining China of the precious metals. The Chinese do not regard gold and silver as signs of wealth merely, but as wealth itself ; and in many of their public documents relating to the opium trade the export of silver is also noticed ; in some awes it is difficult to ascertain which is considered the paramount grievance. In 1836 an officer of the Chinese government proposed that opium should be rendered a legitimate article of commerce, and that the cultivation of the poppy should be permitted. Extraordinary as it may appear, the poppy is cultivated in at least six different provinces in China with the connivance of the local functionaries.
So important a source of revenue has the opium monopoly become to the Indian government, that war with China has been regarded as a less evil than a surrender of this privilege. The government is not the grower of the poppy, but controls the growers in an extraordinary way. None must be grown in Benares or Patna, except that of which the juice is sold to the government at a fixed price. No one is obliged to cultivate the plant, and therefore the government offers such a price as will just stimulate production ; and this price is about 9d. per lb. for the juice, on an average of years. The government buys the whole produce, be it large or small, at this price. The poppy-fields are measured every year, and their boundaries fixed, in order to prevent collision among those to whom they are assigned. When the poppies are ripe, agents make a circuit of the district, and form by guess a probable estimate of the produce of each field ; and the cultivators are made to sign an agreement to deliver the quantity thus estimated, and as much more as the field will yield. The rigour of the law is brought to bear upon those cultivators who depart from the agree ment; they may cultivate the poppy or not as they please; but if they do, they become bound to the government in a most stringent way. The thickening of the juice by inspissating, the making up into balls, the classifying into qualities, and the packing in chests made of mango-wood (holding on an average about 140 lbs. each)—cost the government about 3s. per lb. ; making, with the cost of the juice itself, something under 4s. per lb. on an average. Malwah is not a British possession, and the monopoly, therefore, cannot extend to that region; but the government, nevertheless, obtains a large revenue from Malwah opium, by imposing a frontier duty on all opium sent to Bombay or other ports for shipment ; Malwah itself having no seaboard. Until
1834 the East India Company sent their own opium in their own ships for sale in China or elsewhere ; but when the trading powers of the Company were abolished, a new system was organised. The opium from Patna and Benares is sold by auction. When packed in the chests, it is sent from the depbta at those two cities to Calcutta, where it is sold by auction to the highest bidders, who carry it to any market they please, but nearly all to China. The auction price has varied from to 21s. per lb., in different years ; but the average is about 12s., of which 8s. is clear profit. These auctions are held ten or twelve times in the year. The government not only pays the cul tivator for his opium, but advances him money to assist in the culture: a system which throws him much into the power of the government agents. In the accounts of the Indian Revenue and Expenditure, annually laid before parliament, there are always items for—advances to opium-cultivators; purchase of poppy leaves ; purchase of opium juice ; packing and transit expenses ; salaries of agents ; and expenses of sale. So important to the exchequer of India is the 4,000,000/. or 5,000,000/. now annually derived from opium, that, though often objected to, it still remains untouched. The Marquis of Dalhousie, in 1856, published a minute, giving a sketch of the improvements which had been made in India during his Governor-Generalship from 1848 to that year ; he spoke with pleasure of the opium-revenue, but said nothing about the morale of the trade. During the Indian mutinies of 1857-8, the opium-cultivators were much disturbed, and much of their property was destroyed ; but the relations between ithe govern ment and the cultivators continued as before. The transfer of the government from the East India Company to the Queen, in 1858, made very little if any change in these relations.
The above slight sketch of the opium-trade in reference to India may usefully be followed by a few words concerning the proceedings in China. The opium of India is chiefly bought by English and American merchants, who send most of it to China in low-hulled swift sailing vessels. Other portions go to Malaya, Snmatra, Borneo, Celebes, and other places in the East. The augmentation of price becomes enormous, either by a monopoly of the trade to native princes, or by the imposition of a high duty. The opium clippers sent to China are mostly armed for self-defence, seeing that the trade is an illegal one in the eyes, of the government, or is at least never openly recognised. There are always Chinese merchants willing to assist the English merchants in the traffic, and Chinese officials willing to be bribed into connivance ; and hence there is very little difficulty in getting the opium landed on shore, in exchange for Sycee There are no bills, bonds, or barter ; pure solid silver, at so much per 07.. is insisted on as the medium of purchase. It has been conjectured that the merchants obtain somewhat over a guinea a pound for the opium, in an average of years ; but there are no means of determining this ; whatever it may be, this price is enormously increased by the time the opium smokers and chewers'obtain the drug in the interior of China. When, on the cessation of the East India Company's trading powers in 1834, a " Superintendent of Trade " was sent to China by the British Government, this superintendent was perpetually engaged in broils with the Chinese government concerning the opium trade; these broils led to the seizure and destruction of 20,000 chests of opium by the Chinese officials in 1839; and this seizure led to a state of hostilities which has had little intermission between 1839 and 1860. We refer to the articles CANTON, CarNA, lioxogoism, &e. in the 0E00. DIV. for an account of the various transactions in which Lin, Keshen, Kwan, and Ke-guy, figured on the part of the Chinese, and Davis, Elliott, Maitland, Brewer, Gough, Parker, and Pottinger on the side of the British.