NATION'S APATHY THE OPIUM TRADE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 74, 28 March 1914, Page 9

NATION'S APATHY THE OPIUM TRADE

NEW ZEALAND ASSOCIATION BRITAIN'S PROMISE/ The annual meeting of the New Zealand Anti-opium Association was held last evening in the Baptist Churchroom, Vivian-street. The Rev. A. T- Brainsby presided over an attendance of about thirty .persons. ♦ The annual report of the secretary (Captain Blackburne) for 1914 regretted that there should still be need for the association to join with other parts of the Empire in protesting "against the crime of our nation in poisoning, debasing, and demoralising our fellow-creatures for the; •sake of money." Some said il was not true that we were forcing the Chinese to take opium. An illustration of the' case would be to suppose that there was national prohibition in this country,' and Germany were to compel the nation to make a treaty to admit some very debasing spirits which her Government was manufacturing and making some 200! to 300 per cent, profit on. The report proceeded to recount the events of the year in regard to the opium -traffic. 'Very shortly after the last annual meeting ihe Hon. E. S. Montague (Under-Secretary for India) announced in' the House of Commons' that the Government had abandoned altogether the revenue derived from the sale of opium tliis year. • ' NO CAUSE FOR CREDIT.' " Though thankful and pleased with much of Mr. Montague's speech as representing the responsible -Government," continues the report, "we must feel sorry for his pronouncement tl^at we had a right to go on selling opium. ' Might is not right,' and we cannot therefore agree with him that we have any ' right ' to continue to poison and demoralise the Chinese with our opium. We deeply regret also that, instead of expressing sorrow for our country's past sin against China and showing our repentance- and sincerity by releasing her of the treaty obligation to admit the large stocks now lying in the hulks in Honfc Kong and Shanghai, we should instead begin to claim credit for generosity in releasing China from her treaty obligation to admit £he f m tlier ' amounts which we were entitled to send to her country within the next three or four years, and from which we might derive another £11,000,000 blood money. The facts of the case are that, owing to China's drastic efforts to free her people from the opium blight and the severe punishment inflicted" on the opium smokers, it was most difficult to get a sale for the amounts which were continually pouring into the country, and in consequence oi this the merchants and banks became alarmed, and some months before Mr. Montague made this pronouncement the export of opium • from India to China had been stopped, not in lesponse to the pathetic appeals of the Chinese Government and all classes of her people, backed up by the Anti-opium Societies in the United Kingdom, but in lesponse to the appeals of the merchants and banks, who were afraid or unable to risk any more money on the trade themselves," and at the same time were most anxious that no pne else should be allowed to add to the accumulated stock. Mr. Montague's statement that the accumulated stocks would be dissipated in a year was ceitainly not a very accurate forecast, though at the present rate of absoiption' the probability is, I regret to say, that all the stocks will be sold by the end of this year, so that the last chance Great Britain has for bringing the shameful- trade with China to a conclusion in a really generous manner is rapidly passing away. . j . To our shame, however, it has to be acknowledged that the important factor contributing to this ' absorption ' is the large consumption in the foreign concessions in, China — in Hankow and Shanghai — to which the Commissioner of Customs at Hankow calls attention in his report for 1912." After reviewing the news of Mr. Montague's promise, the secretary wrote to the secretaries of three Home societies to find whether there .was any further need of the, association. The replies were considered at a monthly meeting in October, and it was decided to continue the association's co-operations with the Home societies. MISCONCEPTION'' OF THE CASE. "Even some of our churches," tfie report continued, "eeem to have a very" poor conception of the magnitude of our em against China, arid ufter hearing about ' Mr. Montague's pronouncement at once jumped to -the conclusion that our country was doing a magnanimous act in promising not to send any more opium to China at this eleventh hour. In August of this year the Council of Churches in Dunedin while very properly recording its profound tha:ikfulness for the announcement, went on to say that it regards the decision of the Imperial Government as "a triumph of national righteousness, and the removal of a great reproach from the Empire. The motion was carried unanimously, and in the discussion, which followed one minister is reported to have said: "This is one of ' the great land marks in the nation's humanitarian history, and it stood side by- side withthe emancipation of the slaves, and was almost equal in. magnitude.' It saddened me to think that any ministei of the Gospel could make such a statement in a Christian Assembly without protest or disapproval ot the other members present. ... I mentioned in my report of last year that the Chines© National Anti-Opium Congress resolved to appeal to the Young Men's Christian Association, and also to the missionary bodies, to open subscriptions- iv all countries with a view to raising a. fund to purchase at cost price, and thereafter publicly to burn as large a portion as possible oi the opium stocks at the treaty port*. We felt then that this would be of little use, unless India promised to send .no more opium to China. Since that time this promise has been made, and the stock, though still large, has been greatly reduced. I have heard nothing further about this idea. I think that India and the British Government ought to buy it back, and either destroy it, or send it' out of the'-countrj. The Chinese Government requested that the opjum accumulated at Chinese ports should be refihipned to non-ChineJe markets, and they offered to pay the freight. 'In July of last year Sir E. Grey slated 111 the House that no final decision had come (o in the matter. As 1 fear now that there is little prospect of the British Government acceding to f'hina'b request I should ljke to see the la.» idea taken up. It would be an oppoilunity for Christians to 6how the sincerity of their desire to s>ave China from further ruin and demoralisation by our drug. She deserves all the help and encouragement we can give her, and we must owji tha.t, her rulers have set an example to the world in their earnest striving to deliver their people- from the 'blighting curse, and notwithstanding the terrible handicap of having to admit our opium to their markets, they have astonished the world by the marvellous success they have achieved in suppressing cultivation and smoking in their own country. How proud we should -fesl if we were ] only half as successful in dealing with the liquor cuise in our country." The Rev. W. Hinton seconded the motion. The report was adopted, and Captain Blackburne heartily congratulated on its preparation. J 1 The following officers were elected,:— '

President, Mr. J. G. W. Aitken ; vicepresidents, Re\s. "A. T. Brainsby, James Gibb, D.D., and W. Hinton, Hon. George Fowlds, and Mr. A. Hoby, and Commissioner Richards, S.A. ; hon. secietary and treasurer, Mr. H. S. Blackburne ; committee, Messrs. D. M'Clay, J. Murrell, J. Patterson, Harry Roberts. James Rumgay,.and T. Wood, Mrs. A. Chadwick Brown (Auckland), -Miss Hannah Packer (Christchurch), Mr. H. H. Driver (Dunedin), Mrs. F. W. Chatterton (Gisborne), Mr. J. C. Pallet (Napier), Mn W. A. MacLaren (Nelson), Mrs. H. R. S. Taylor (Wanganui). The following motion was unanimously adopted :—: — "That this meeting of God's children in the far-off daughter dominion of the great British Empire, while thankful and'rejoicing for the promise of our Government, under certain conditions, not to send > any more opium to Chinaj yet desires once more at the annual meeting of our association to express our grief and the shame and humiliation we feel as members of the British nation that our country should still persist to refuse to release China from the strange and iniquitous treaty which compels her to admit io the markets of China the large stock of the poisonous drug now lying in the opium hulks in Shanghai, notwithstanding the further appeal froni General Chang, the delegate from the National Opium Prohibition Union of China, and the offer of the Chinese Government to pay the freight if our Government would, reship the opium to non-Chinese markets. We desire, again, to call attention to two warning passages from God's Word (passages quoted : Prov. xxiv., 11-12; Luke xvii., 1)." The Rev. W. S. Potter, in speaking to the motion, expressed surprise at the nation's apathy in matters of great interest while it was greatly concerned on individual questions. The Rev. Dr. Hughes said they had cope to the day when they could rejoice at the end of the Indo-Chinese opium traffic ; but it was a shame to Britain that the trade still hung on. He lived for eleven years in -the United States, and knew that for nothing was more shame cast on Britain than for its continuance of the opium traffic. The meeting concluded with the Doxology.