the time I left
Hupeh till I reached the boundary of Burma, a distance of 1700 miles, I
never remember to have been out of sight of the poppy. Li Hung Chang
continues, "I earnestly hope that your Society, and all right-minded
men of your country, will support the efforts China is now making to
escape from the thraldom of opium." And yet you are told in China that
the largest growers of the poppy in China are the family of Li Hung
Chang.

The Society for the Suppression of Opium has circulated by tens of
thousands a petition which was forwarded to them from the
Chinese--spontaneously, per favour of the missionaries. "Some tens of
millions," this petition says, "some tens of millions of human beings in
distress are looking on tiptoe with outstretched necks for salvation to
come from you, O just and benevolent men of England! If not for the good
or honour of your country, then for mercy's sake do this good deed now
to save a people, and the rescued millions shall themselves be your
great reward." (_China's Millions_, iv., 156.)

Assume, then, that the Chinese do not want our opium, and unavailingly
beseech us to stay this nefarious traffic, which is as if "the Rivers
Phlegethon and Lethe were united in it, carrying fire and destruction
wherever it flows, and leaving a deadly forgetfulness wherever it has
passed." (The Rev. Dr. Wells Williams. "The Middle Kingdom," i., 288.)

They do not want our opium, but they purchase from us 4275 tons per
annum.

Of the eighteen provinces of China four only, Kiangsu, Cheh-kiang,
Fuhkien, and Kuangtung use Indian opium, the remaining fourteen
provinces use exclusively home-grown opium. Native-grown opium has
entirely driven the imported opium from the markets of the Yangtse
Valley; no Indian opium, except an insignificant quantity, comes up the
river even as far as Hankow. The Chinese do not want our opium--it
competes with their own. In the three adjoining provinces of Szechuen,
Yunnan, and Kweichow they grow their own opium; but they grow more than
they need, and have a large surplus to export to other parts of the
Empire. The amount of this surplus can be estimated, because all
exported opium has to pay customs and likin dues to the value of two
shillings a pound, and the amount thus collected is known. Allowing no
margin for opium that has evaded customs dues, and there are no more
scientific smugglers than the Chinese, we still find that during the
year 1893 2250 tons of opium