Books
In the junk yards
Philip Mason
The Opium War Brian Inglis (Hodder and Stoughton £5.25)
'"A child? I always thought they were
fabulous monsters," said the Unicorn. "Is it alive? ... Talk, child." Alice ... began: "Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too ?" ' A similar misunderstanding long beclouded the diplomatic issues between the courts of China and Britain. Each believed the other to be barbarians. But while Alice and the Unicorn settled the matter amicably— 'if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you,' the Unicorn suggested—the Emperor of China continued to insist that, since all foreigners were by definition obscure tribes from beyond the confines of the known world, they could approach the Celestial Presence only if they performed the kowtow—that is, struck their foreheads nine times on the ground—while any communication must take the form of a petition. Neither condition was acceptable to the British and negotiations were therefore roundabout.
The matters at issue were complex, and in such circumstances unlikely to be resolved. There was a long-term divergence of interests, not generally appreciated, and a short-term, which a number of people understood only too well. In the broadest terms, China was self-sufficient, culturally as well as economically. The Emperor and the officials of his court saw no reason for change. Though they did not admire what they knew of European ways, their distaste was mixed with apprehension. They knew that the British had established themselves as traders at selected points on the outskirts of the disintegrating Mughal empire and had gradually acquired political control of a subcontinent. They were determined not to take the first steps that might lead to anything of the kind in China—unthinkable, as they would surely have said, though that must be.
The British, on the other hand, lived by trade, were aware of growing competition on the continent of Europe and were eager for new markets. 'We must unremittingly endeavour,' wrote Palmerston in 1841 'to find in other parts of the world new vents for the produce of our industry. The world is large enough and the wants of the human race ample enough to afford a demand for all we can manufacture; but it is the business of the government to open and to secure the roads for the market.' One of the roads needed was into China. But expanding trade made the British increasingly dependent on the outside world; this was demonstrated by the short-scale difference with China, which arose from our dependence on tea.
In 1660, tea was a rare luxury, said to have sold in London at between fifteen and fifty shillings a pound; by the end of that century we were importing 20,000 lbs a year, by 1789 20 million lbs of tea a year and soon the figure was doubled. The people of Britain were drinking by the end of the eighteenth century two lbs of tea per head every year—and their addiction continued to grow. It was a luxury so popular that no government could wish to discourage it and it provided a useful sum in revenue. But it all came from China. There was a tea plant native to India, but it had not been cultivated; eighteenth century botanists held that it was a kind of camellia. At last they conceded that it was a variety of tea and cultivation began. Progress was at first slow because the methods used were copied from China and were unsuitable.
Meanwhile, tea, and also silk, had to be paid for and the Chinese could not be induced to buy much of British manufacture. To pay for tea and silk in bullion was distasteful to one British party and anathema to the other. But one commodity the Chinese would take, apparently in any quantity. This was opium. Its use was not an ancient Chinese custom, but it was growing during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was always opposed by the Imperial court. In 1729, the Emperor Yung Cheng prohibited opium smoking; in 1796, imports of opium were forbidden; the cultivation of the poppy was prohibited. But it was one thing to prohibit and another to enforce the law. A comfortable system of connivance grew up. So long as disregard for imperial edicts was not too blatant, it could be made to the advantage of officials to allow Chinese merchants to sell tea and silk to the foreigners, and take payment in contraband opium.
This system was liable to be interrupted by breaches of good manners on the part of British traders, such as openly unloading opium at Canton itself, or by spurts of reforming zeal on the part of the Imperial court. Nonetheless the traffic steadily increased until by 1836 the value of the opium exported to China from India exceeded by a million dollars the combined value of tea and silk sent from China for Britain. The Chinese liked a loss of bullion no better than the British and the system of connivance broke down; the Emperor increased the severity of his proclamations; the behaviour of the British merchants grew more outrageous, until, as the agent of the British government on the spot declared, there was 'little to choose between it and piracy'. In 1841, Palmerston sent a combined naval and military force to compel the Emperor to pay Britain an indemnity for having tried to stop smuggling into his own dominions and to compel him to allow settlements of foreign traders at open ports —to prevent which had been the main object of his foreign policy. There was no military resistance worth the name. There were atrocities on both sides; there was looting. The Emperor submitted, or, to put it more correctly, graciously acceded to the foreigners' petitions. But the terms did not satisfy Palmerston; he disowned his agent and resumed the war until he had all he wanted.
Mr Inglis has given us a brisk, lucid and detailed account of this sad misuse of power and has raised many questions in mY mind. I find him entirely convincing in his recital of the events at the Chinese end which preceded the Opium War. I am not so sure that he has always fully understood events in India. He is inclined to suspect a chest of opium under every bed, making it an important element in the causes of the Pindarri War and the annexation of Sind— events in which it is unlikely that it played much part. I think he judges the India of the early nineteenth century too much Ifl the light of modern ideas about medicine and morals, and without much knowledge of the Mughal administration which preceded the Company's rule or the chaos which prevailed where the Company's rule did not extend. There are also some minor mistakes about the Indian scene on which it would be ungracious to insist, because anY right-minded person must share his indignation about this war. That is his main point and he drives it firmly home. Gladstone, then a Tory and in opposition, thundered his moral denunciation but there were few to follow him. Macaulay, from the government benches, backed Palmerston and most Britons followed the view of Palmerston and the China merchants, that it was wicked of foreigners to try to stop Englishmen making money. If only they would have made the Unicorn's bargain with Alice and thought of the Chinese as people!
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