Part 7

Opium is at present largely consumed in the Malayan Islands, in China, in the Indo-Chinese countries, and in a few parts of Hindustan, much in the same way in which wine, ardent spirits, malt liquor, and cider are consumed in Europe. Its deleterious character has been much insisted on, but generally, by parties _who have had no experience of its effects_. Like any other narcotic or stimulant, the habitual use of it is amenable to abuse, and as being more seductive than other stimulants, perhaps more so; but this is certainly the utmost that can be safely charged to it. Thousands consume it without any pernicious result, as thousands do wine and spirits, without any evil consequence. I know of no person of long experience and competent judgment who has not come to this common-sense conclusion. Dr. Oxley, a physician and a naturalist of eminence, and who has had a longer experience than any other man of Singapore, where there is the highest rate of consumption of the drug, gives the following opinion:--"The inordinate use, or rather abuse, of the drug most decidedly does bring on early decrepitude, loss of appetite, and a morbid state of all the secretions; but I have seen a man who had used the drug for fifty years in moderation, without any evil effects; and one man I recollect in Malacca who had so used it was upwards of eighty. Several in the habit of smoking it have assured me that, in moderation, it neither impaired the functions nor shortened life; at the same time fully admitting the deleterious effects of too much." There is not a word of this that would not be equally true of the use and abuse of ardent spirit, wine, and, perhaps, even tobacco. The historian of Sumatra, whose experience and good sense cannot be questioned, came early to the very same conclusion. The superior curative virtues of opium over any other stimulant are undeniable, and the question of its superiority over ardent spirits appears to me to have been for ever set at rest by the high authority of my friend Sir Benjamin Brodie. "The effect of opium, when taken into the stomach," says this distinguished philosopher, "is not to stimulate but to soothe the nervous system. It may be otherwise in some instances, but these are rare exceptions to the general rule. The opium eater is, in a passive state, satisfied with his own dreamy condition while under the influence of the drug. He is useless but not mischievous. It is quite otherwise with alcoholic liquors."--"Psychological Inquiries," p. 248.

It may be worth while to show what is really the relative consumption in those countries in which its use is alleged to be most pernicious. In the British Settlement of Singapore, owing to the high rate of wages, and the prevalence of a Chinese population, the consumption is at the rate of about three hundred and thirty grains, or adult doses, a year for each person. In Java, where the Chinese do not compose above one in a hundred of the population, and where wages are comparatively low, it does not exceed forty grains. Even in China itself, where the consumption is supposed to be so large, it is no more than one hundred and forty grains, chiefly _owing to the poverty of the people, to whom it is for the most part inaccessible_. It must not be forgotten, that some of the deleterious qualities of opium are considerably abated, in all the countries in question, by the manner in which it is prepared for use, _which consists in reducing it to a kind of morphine and inhaling its fumes in this state_. Moreover, everywhere consumption is restricted by heavy taxation. The opium of India pays, in the first instance, a tax which amounts to three millions sterling. The same opium in Singapore, with a population of sixty thousand, pays another impost of thirty thousand pounds; and, in Java, with a population of ten millions, one of eight hundred thousand pounds. _Not the use, then, but the abuse, of opium is prejudicial to health_; but in this respect it does not materially differ from wine, distilled spirits, malt liquor, or hemp juice. There may be shades of difference in the abuse of all these commodities, but they are not easily determined, and, perhaps, hardly worth attempting to appreciate. There is nothing mysterious about the intoxication produced by ordinary stimulants, because we are familiar with it; but it is otherwise with that resulting from opium, to which we are strangers. We have generally only our imaginations to guide us with the last, and we associate it with deeds of desperation and murder; _the disposition to commit which, were the drug ever had recourse to on such occasions, which it never is, it would surely allay and not stimulate_.

LECTURE II.

I closed my first lecture with a list of fallacies, upon which the objections to the Indo-China opium trade, and the charges brought against England in relation to that trade, are founded, stating that I should return to them and dispose of each separately. I also said in the earlier part of my lecture, that the extraordinary hallucinations which had taken hold of the public mind, with respect to opium smoking in China, arose, amongst other causes, from the fact that the public had formed their opinions from hearsay evidence, and that of the very worst and most untrustworthy kind. I say untrustworthy because hearsay evidence, although in general inadmissible in our law courts, may be in some cases very good and reliable evidence. As this point goes to the root of all these fallacies and false assertions, and the delusions based upon them, I wish to show you why hearsay evidence is, in this case, of the worst and most unreliable kind. In the first instance, I would refer you to the general character of the Chinese for mendacity and deceit, admitted by all writers upon the subject of China and the Chinese, and supported by the general opinion of Europeans who have dwelt amongst them. Now, I am far from saying that every Chinaman is necessarily a liar, or habitually tells untruths for corrupt purposes. The point is, rather, that the Chinese do not understand truth in the sense that we do. The evidence of Chinese witnesses in courts of justice is notorious for its untrustworthy character. The judges are not generally contented with the direct and cross-examination to which witnesses are ordinarily subjected by counsel, but frequently themselves put them under a searching examination, and generally require more evidence in the case of Chinese than they would if Europeans were alone concerned.

From my acquaintance of the Chinese I can say that they are a very good-natured people, especially when good-nature does not cost them much; but they are also a very vindictive people, as, I suppose, most heathen nations are. I have known cases where, to gratify private malice, or to obtain some object, the reason for which would be hard for us to appreciate, a Chinaman has got up a charge without foundation in fact, but supported by false witnesses, who were so well drilled and had so thoroughly rehearsed their parts that it was hard to doubt, and almost impossible to disprove, the accusation. By such means innocent men have been condemned and sentenced to severe punishments, or been unjustly compelled to pay large sums of money. I have, on the other hand, known cases which, according to the evidence brought before me, appeared perfectly clear and good in law; but on taking each witness quietly into my own office, and going through his evidence, the whole fabric would tumble down like a pack of cards; so that, although my client's case might still be intrinsically good, the witnesses he brought in support of it knew nothing about it beyond what they had heard from others. It would turn out that they had been told this by one person, that by another, and so on, throughout the series of witnesses, not one of them would have any actual knowledge of the alleged facts. In cases like these there would probably be no corrupt motive whatever.

While upon this point I may allude to another peculiar phase in the Chinese character. They are so addicted to falsehood that they will embellish truth, even in cases where they have the facts on their own side. On such occasions they like to add to their story a fringe of falsehood, thinking, perhaps, that by doing so, they will make the truth stand out in brighter colours and appear more favourable in the eyes of the Court and the Jury. Another Chinese peculiarity is the following:--If you put leading questions to a Chinaman upon any particular subject, that is to say, if you interrogate him upon a point, and by your mode of doing so induce him to think that you are desirous of getting one particular kind of answer, he gives you that answer accordingly, out of mere good-nature. In these instances his imagination is wonderfully fertile. The moment he finds his replies afford pleasure, and that there is an object in view, he will give his questioner as much information of this kind as he likes. Not only is this the case with the common people, corresponding to the working or the labouring classes here, but the habit really pervades the highest ranks of Chinese society. It is mentioned in Dr. Williams's work, how the Chinese as a people think it no shame in being detected in a falsehood. It is very hard to understand, especially for an Englishman, such moral obtuseness. We are so accustomed to consider truth in the first place, and to look upon perjury and falsehood with abhorrence, that it may seem almost like romancing to gravely assure you of these facts.

If I relate a few short anecdotes which are absolutely true, and in which I was personally concerned, I may put the matter more clearly before you. A Chinese merchant, now in Hong Kong, once instructed me to prosecute a claim against a ship-master for short delivery of cargo, and from the documents he gave me, and the witnesses he produced, I had no hesitation in pronouncing his case a good one, although I knew the man was untruthful. When we came into court, knowing my client's proclivities, my only fear was that he would not be content with simply telling the truth, but would so embellish it with falsehood that the judge would not believe his story. I therefore not only cautioned him myself in "pidgin English," but instructed my Chinese clerk and interpreter to do so also. My last words to him on going into court were, "Now mind you talkee true. Suppose you talkee true you win your case. Suppose you talkee lie you losee." The man went into the witness-box, and I am bound to say that on that occasion he did tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, but I could plainly see by his manner and bearing that the task was a most irksome one. When he left the box, after cross-examination, I felt greatly relieved. The defendant, who, I am glad to say, was not an Englishman, although he commanded a British ship, told falsehood after falsehood. There could be no doubt about this, and the judge, Mr. Snowden, the present Puisne Judge of Hong Kong, at last ordered him to leave the box, and gave judgment for my client. Notwithstanding this satisfactory result, I saw that the plaintiff was still dissatisfied. I left the court and he followed me out. He still seemed discontented, and had the air of an injured man. When we got clear of the court he actually assailed me for having closed his mouth and deprived him of the luxury of telling untruths. "What for," said he, "you say my no talkee lie? that man have talkee plenty lie." I replied, "Oh, that man have losee; you have won." But with anger in his countenance, he walked sullenly away.

Now I will tell you another--and a totally different case. The judge on this occasion was the late Sir John Smale, Chief Justice of Hong Kong. It was an action brought by a Chinese merchant, carrying on business in Cochin China, against his agent in Hong Kong, a countryman of his, who had not accounted for goods consigned to him for sale. The plaintiff put his case in my hands. When it came into court the defendant was supported by witnesses who seemed to have no connection whatever with the subject-matter of the suit. They, however, swore most recklessly. In cross-examination one of the witnesses completely broke down. The Chief Justice then stopped the case, and characterized the defendant's conduct "as the grossest attempt at fraud he had ever met with since he had come to China," and, under the special powers he possessed, sent the false witness to gaol for six weeks. The person so punished for perjury proved to be what we would call a Master of Arts. He was, in fact, an expectant mandarin, ranking very high in China. I should tell you that in that country there is no regular hereditary nobility, nor any aristocracy save the mandarin or official class. The fact is, and in view of Mr. Storrs Turner's comparison of the Chinese with the savages of Central Africa, I may here mention it, that in China--where these simple, innocent "aborigines," as it suits the anti-opium advocates to treat them, flourish--education is the sole criterion of rank and precedence. They have a competitive system there, which is undoubtedly the oldest in the world. This man, as I said, was a Master of Arts, and would, in regular course, have been appointed to an important official post and taken rank as a mandarin. He was, I believe, at the time of his sentence, one of the regular examiners at the competitive examinations of young men seeking for employment in the Civil Service of the Empire. When the case ended, I dismissed it from my mind. But, to my great surprise, six or seven of the leading Chinamen of Hong Kong waited upon me on the following day, and implored of me to get this man out of gaol. They declared that the whole Chinese community of Hong Kong felt degraded at having one of their superior order, a learned Master of Arts, consigned to a foreign prison. They assured me that this was the greatest indignity that could have been offered to the Chinese people. I replied that the fact of the prisoner being a man of education only aggravated his offence, that he had deliberately perjured himself in order to cheat my client, and that the foreign community considered his punishment far too lenient, for had he been a foreigner he would have got a far more severe punishment. But they could not see the matter in that light, and went away dissatisfied. They afterwards presented a petition to the Governor, praying for the man's release, but without success. My object in narrating this to you is to show the utter contempt which the Chinese, not only of the lower orders, but of the better class, have for the truth. I could supplement these cases by many others, all showing that the Chinese do not regard the difference between truth and falsehood in the sense that we do.

To illustrate more clearly what I have told you, I will read to you a short passage from a leading article in the "China Mail," a daily newspaper published in Hong Kong. The date of the paper is the 3rd of October 1881. The editor is a gentleman who has been out there for twenty years; he is a man of considerable ability and knows the Chinese character perfectly, and I may also mention that he is a near relative of Mr. Storrs Turner. This is what he says:--

The question of the reliability of Chinese witnesses is one which is continually presenting itself to all who have anything to do with judicial proceedings in this colony, and as jurors are usually saddled with the responsibility of deciding how far such evidence is to be credited in most serious cases, the subject is one which appeals to a large body of residents. An eminent local authority, some time since, gave it as his opinion that he did not think a Chinese witness could give accurate evidence, even if the precise truth would best suit his purpose. This is doubtless true to some extent, and it bears directly on one phase of the discussion, viz. that of reliableness, so far as strict accuracy of detail is concerned. But a witness may be regarded as the witness of truth although he fails in that extremely precise or accurate narration of facts and details which goes so far to strengthen truthful testimony. What is meant here by reliability of witnesses, however, is their desire to tell what they _believe_ to be the truth. It has been somewhere said, by one of authority on Chinese matters, that it is not particularly surprising that the Chinese, as a people, are so widely known as economisers of the truth, when their system of government is carefully considered. For a Chinaman, life assumes so many phases, in which a good round lie becomes a valuable commodity, that the only surprise remaining is, that he is ever known to tell the truth.

That is exactly what I have already said. It would occupy too much time to read the rest of the article, which is ably written, but the portion I have quoted tends to show the unreliability of Chinese witnesses, even in a solemn Court of Justice.

Now, I think, I have shown you that our Celestial friends present rather an unpromising raw material from which to extract the truth. Yet these are the men from whom the missionaries derive their information as to those wonderful consequences from opium smoking which, the more greedily swallowed, are the more liberally supplied, thus affording an illustration of Mr. Storrs Turner's extraordinary theory of supply and demand, of which I shall have to speak more by and by. Having exhibited to you the well of truth from which credible evidence is sought to be obtained, I have now to turn to the other side of the question and describe the character and competence of those who draw their facts from that source, and from whom the general public have mainly derived their knowledge of opium and opium smoking.

As regards the missionaries, I have stated already that I hold them in the very highest respect, and they are well deserving of it, and, indeed, of the consideration of the whole community. Were I to state anything to their prejudice or disadvantage, further than what I assert as to their fallacious views and unjustifiable conduct on the opium question, I should certainly be speaking without warrant; for a more respectable, hard-working, or conscientious body of gentlemen it would be difficult to find. Perhaps they are the hardest worked and worst paid class of any foreigners in China. They have a work to perform, the difficulty of which is but partially understood in this country; that is, the task of converting to Christianity these heathen people, who think Confucianism and the other religions engrafted upon it which they follow, and which seem to suit their temperament, immeasurably superior to ours; who point to our prophets and sages as men of yesterday, and look with comparative contempt upon our literature, laws, and customs. The real difficulty of the situation lies in these facts; believe me, that it is as absurd as it is untrue to say that opium has had anything to do with the slow progress of Christianity in China. Missionary clergymen in China are really not the best men to get at the facts of the opium question. If a foreigner, here in England, were to ask me in which quarter he would be likely to obtain the best information regarding the manners and customs of the English people, I should certainly advise him to get introductions to some of our working clergy of all denominations, because they are the people's trusted friends and advisers, sharing in their joys and sympathizing in their sorrows, their wants and necessities. They are educated and matter-of-fact men, just the class of persons to afford sound and accurate information as to the country and people. This, I believe, will be generally admitted. The same rule would not apply to our missionary clergymen in China; for they, unlike our clergy at home, are not the trusted friends and advisers of the Chinese people, and, knowing really very little of the inner life of the people, cannot be said to sympathize in their wants and necessities. No doubt there have been some admirable books written on China by missionary clergymen, such as the "Middle Kingdom," from which I have already quoted, and Dr. Doolittle's work; but everyone who has lived long in China takes all their statements on every point affecting their missionary labours, and upon many other matters also, _cum grano_. So far as the manners and customs of the Chinese can be understood from their outdoor life, literature, and laws, they are competent judges enough; but as they are not admitted into Chinese society, and do not possess the confidence of the people, they cannot be accepted as authorities on the inner social life of the natives, so far as regards opium-smoking. They have not at all the same status as regards the Chinese that English clergymen have in respect to their own countrymen here in England; and if a friend were to put such a question to me respecting China and the Chinese, the last people I would refer him to for information would be the missionary clergymen. These missionary gentlemen, if they were at home in England, would, no doubt, have their livings and vicarages, and would take their place with the regular clergy of the country. But in China things are totally different. There the people not only despise them, but laugh at the creed they are trying to teach. The simplicity of the Gospel is too cold for them. Teeming with the marvellous as their own religions do, no other creed seems acceptable to them that does not deal in startling miracles and offer a continuous supply of supernatural feats. Anyone who reads Dr. Legge's book, on the religions of China, will see this at once. The Chinese have an accepted belief three or four thousand years older than Christianity, and they are well aware of the fact. Despising Europeans, as they do, and looking upon themselves as a superior race, it is not likely that the Chinese will take missionary clergymen into their confidence, or afford them any trustworthy information about private or personal matters. In short, there is no cordiality between the Chinese and the missionaries.