"We did look into the matter . . ."
-- from "The Opium Monopoly", by Ellen LaMotte, 1920
In 1925, it was well known that opium was a dangerous, debilitating, and addictive drug. Less well known in 1925 was the fact that Britain was forcing the stuff upon foreign governments who dearly wished to pass laws limiting its sale and use - that is, it was less well known in the West; in the East, it was readily apparent to anyone with eyes.
Opium has been imported to Britain for hundreds of years for medicinal purposes. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, however, its use as a pharmaceutical panacea and recreation drug became epidemic in all strata of British society. In the eighteenth century opium had been imported chiefly from Turkey, which was not under British control. With the conquest of India, Britain soon realised that the sub-continent could be utilised as a new source for the drug. In 1830 permission was granted from London to extend the cultivatino of the opium poppy in India. By 1832, a report commented that "the monopoly of opium in Bengal supplies the government with a revenue amounting in sterling money to 981,283 pounds per annum." And that was in 1832 pounds, to boot.
However, this was in large part because India was not just used as a means of importing opium cheaply to Britain. It was also used to export opium at tremendous profits to China - much to the dismay of the Chinese government. The Chinese attempted to prohibit its importation, and Britain fought two wars - from 1838-42 and from 1856-58, called the Opium Wars, to ensure that they could keep opium sales to China as a source of income.
In 1868, the Pharmacy Act was passed, which limited the sale of opium in England, because it was proving so dangerous and destroying so many lives. The national addiction diminished to a small extent. The cultivation of opium and sales to foreign nations, however, now a sizeable part of the British economy, diminished not at all.
"In speaking of it as a 'monopoly' I am not employing a cant word for effect. I am not making a case. That is what it is officially styled in a certain blue book on my table which bears the title, 'Statement Exhibiting the Moral and Material Progress of India during the year 1905-'6,' and which was ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, May 10, 1907. . . . Last year the government had under poppy cultivation 654,928 acres. And the revenue to the treasury, including returns from auction sales, duties and license fees, and deducting all 'opium expenditures' was nearly $22,000,000.
"As the blue book states, this opium is auctioned off once a month. At that point, the British Government, as a government, washes its hands of the business . . . Few British names appear in the opium trade to-day. British dignity prefers not to stoop beneath the taking in of profits; it leaves the details of a dirty business to dirty hands. This is as it has been from the first. The directors of the East India Company, years and years before that splendid corporation relinquished the actual government of India, forbade the selling of its specially-prepared opium direct to China, and advised a trading station on the coast whence the drug might find its way 'without the company being exposed to the disgrace of being engaged in illicit commerce.'
"So clean hands and dirty hands went into partnership. They are in partnership still, save that the most nearly Christian of governments has officially succeeded the company as party of the first part."
-- from "Drugging a Nation," by Samuel Merwin, 1908
In 1907, China finally passed a law completely prohibiting the sale of opium which the British did not eliminate through invasion. They no longer needed to. By that time, treaty ports such as Shanghai had been established on Chinese soil, and, as you may recall from previous Fun Facts, Chinese laws did not apply there. While the British continually mouthed platitudes about the evils of opium and how beneficial it would be for all parties concerned to reduce the drug trade, they in fact did everything they could to increase it. Prior to the 1907 law, there were eighty-seven opium shops in the International Settlement licensed by the British government. Immediately after the 1907 law, all shops outside the International Settlement closed - and by 1914, there were six hundred and sixty three opium shops licensed by the British government within the Settlement.
[From a set of tables showing profits the British in Shanghai receive from opium licenses as opposed to other kinds of licenses:]
"1913.
Wheelbarrows Taels, 38,670
Carts 22,944
Motor cars 12,376
Cargo boats 5,471
Chinese boats 4,798
Steam launches 2,221
Total, 86,480
"Opium shops 86,386
"1913.
Tavern Taels, 16,573
Foreign liquor seller 19,483
Chinese wine shop 28,583
"" tea shop 9,484
"" theater 8,74
"" club 3,146
Total 85,983
"Opium shops 86,386 . . .
"The 1912 figure [for the importation of foreign opium] is the largest on
record since 1895. The great influx of Chinese into the foreign concessions,
where the antiopium smoking regulations cannot be enforced by the Chinese
authorities, and where smoking can be indulged in without fear of
punishment, no doubt accounts for the unusual increase under foreign opium."
- from "Municipal Ethics: Some Facts and Figures from the
Municipal Gazette, 1907-1914. An Examination of the Opium License
policy of the Shanghai Municipality. In an Open Letter to the Chairman
of the Council, by Arnold Foster, Wuchang. For 42 years Missionary to
the Chinese.", 1914
In 1920, Britain passed the Dangerous Drugs Act, which made it illegal to
possess opiates without a doctor?s prescription. Opium had wrecked too many
lives. By this time, however, it will come as a surprise to no one that the
landmark act went unnoticed on British possessions outside of British soil.
Throughout the 1920's, the Drug Trade to the East continued to grow. In
1925, it was just as bad as it had ever been, if not worse.
"During a stay in the Far East of nearly a year . . . we looked into the
matter in every country we visited . . . We found these [opium] shops
established under government auspices, the dealers obtaining their supplies
of opium from the government, and then obtaining licenses from the
government to retail it. In many countries, we visited these shops and
divans in person, and bought opium in them freely, just as one goes to a
shop to buy cigarettes. We found a thorough and complete establishment of
the opium traffic, run by the government, as a monopoly. Revenue was derived
through the sale of opium, through excise taxes upon opium, and through
license fees paid by the keepers of opium shops and divans - a complete,
systematic arrangement, by which the foreign government profited at the
expense of the subject peoples under its rule."
- from "The Opium Monopoly", by Ellen LaMotte, 1920
The British government's maintenance of its Opium monopoly forced India to
turn into a drug-based economy, destroyed the lives and health of
uncountable people through sale of a dangerous addictive drug, killed
protestors directly when they got to loud, via war (or, sometimes,
assassination), and covered up the situation so that it was largely unknown
in the West, all the time knowing that they were purveying a dangerous
substance which they had banned within their own country, and all for the
sake of a quick buck.
Thanks, Capitalism.
Pleasant dreams.
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