Alexander J. Arbuthnot, ‘The Opium Controversy’, Nineteenth Century, LXI, March 1882, 403–13

The controversy regarding the opium trade between India and China, which has gone on for many years, has lately been renewed with increased vigour, and it seems probable that the question will be again pressed upon the attention of Parliament at no very distant date. It formed the subject of an animated, if one-sided, series of speeches at a meeting at the Mansion House in October last. It has since been debated before the Society of Arts. It has been discussed in the pages of this review by Sir Rutherford Alcock on the one side, and by Mr. Storrs Turner, the Secretary to the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, on the other side. It has been dealt with in a series of letters addressed by Sir George Bird-wood to the Times , and in a pamphlet by Deputy-Surgeon-General Moore, in both of which the medical aspect of the question is very fully treated by men who have had opportunities—in the case of Dr. Moore exceptional opportunities—of observing the effects of the use of opium upon Asiatics. At a meeting held at Manchester in the latter part of last month, the Bishop of that diocese, one of the most practical men on the Episcopal bench, threw the weight of his opinion on the side of the Anti-opiumists; while on the same occasion Professor Goldwin Smith adduced a new argument against the trade by drawing attention to the large influx of Chinese into the great cities of the United States, of Canada, and of Australia, which has taken place in recent years, and inquiring whether these immigrants were to be allowed to bring with them what he described as a ‘hideous and very infectious vice,’ and whether ‘the blame and the disgrace of that should rest upon England.’ And lastly, the whole system under which the cultivation, manufacture, and export of opium are regulated in India, and the arguments for non-interference, have been most ably set forth in one of the chapters of the valuable treatise on Indian Finance and Public Works lately written by Sir John Strachey and General Richard Strachey. With such apparently ample materials for forming a judgment in the case, it may naturally be asked what need there is for any more writing on the subject. It may be said that the preliminary pleadings at all events are now complete, and that all that remains is to submit the case to the decision of 73 the only tribunal which is competent to settle it. Nevertheless, as I venture to think that there are certain considerations which have not been sufficiently kept in view in the discussion of this important question, and that there is still a very general misconception in regard to facts which have an important bearing upon it, I desire to offer a few remarks by way of supplement to the arguments already urged by the opponents of the agitation now in progress.

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