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THE OPIUM QUESTION. 301
monopolies. In the neighbourhood of the great cities the rivers and canals are
covered with interminable lines of junks, while many of the more frequented
portages and mountain passes at certain periods resemble busy market towns. The
boatmen and porters engaged in the inland traffic must certainly amount to several
millions.
Thanks to the great variety and abundance of its products, China has hitherto
scarcely felt the need of a foreign trade. But so far from refusing
to deal with
strangers, she formerly gave free access to the Arabs, Malays, Annamese, Siamese,
and even the Portuguese, who were well received when they first appeared in the
Canton River in 1516. Soon, however, the Europeans began to assume the air of
conquerors, and scarcely a year passed without scenes of bloodshed, fully justifying
the title of " Foreign Barbarians " applied by the natives to the new arrivals. They
also began to quarrel among themselves, and looking upon all of them as members
of one nation, the Chinese asked in amazement why they thus plundered and
murdered each other. At last the seaports were closed against them, or opened
only on humiliating and burdensome conditions.
" The barbarians are like beasts,
and are not to be governed by the same principles
as civilised beings." Such was
the language of a contemporary official document.
" To attempt to guide them by
the great maxims of reason could only end in disorder. The arbitrary plan is the
only true method, and best means of governing the barbarians."
THE OPIUM QUESTION.
Then followed the opium trade, swelling the list of complaints against the
foreigner. The use of this drug did not begin to spread till the close of the last
century, when it was still imported as a simple medicine. In 1800 an imperial
"
but it was
edict forbade the people to exchange their money for the " vile stuff ;
too late, and the poison continued to spread rapidly. The East India Company soon
found millions of accomplices in the opium smokers, and amongst them were most of
the mandarins officially charged to put an end to the traffic. The contraband trade
increased from year to year, to the serious loss of the imperial treasury, and as the
exports of tea and silk remained greatly inferior to the importation of opium, the
counhy began to be drained of its specie, " swallowed up in the insatiable abysses
of the lands beyond the seas." At last the Government had recourse to force.
All strangers settled in Canton, 275 altogether, were imprisoned, and the British
Commissioner had to purchase his liberty and that of his fellow-countrymen by the
surrender of over 20,000 chests of opium, valued at about 2,000,000, and consigned
to destruction by the Viceroy Lin. This was the signal for the " Opium War" of
1841-2, during which the English successively seized the Chusan Archipelago, the
Canton River forts, Ningpo, and Ching-kiang. Under the very walls of Nanking
a treaty was dictated to China, abolishing the monopoly of the twelve hotty, ceding
to Great Britain the island of Hong Kong, besides a heavy war indemnity, and
throwing open to foreign trade the five ports of Canton, Amoy, Fuchew, Niugpo,
and Shanghai.