Part 5 (2/2)
The smokers seemed to be mainly of the lower cla.s.ses; though hardly so low as coolies, who are lucky to earn as much as fifteen cents in a day. It was evident to both of my companions, from the appearance of these men and from their talk, that they could ill afford the luxury. The number of smokes indulged in seemed to range from three or four up to an indefinite number. The youngest and healthiest appearing man in the room told us that after three pipes he could go home and go to sleep in comfort. He had been at it less than a year, he said; and, judging from the expression of peaceful content that came over his face as he held the pipe-bowl over the lamp and drew the smoke deep into his lungs, he had not yet begun to feel the ravages of the drug.
The next den we entered was small, crowded, and dirty. The price was only ten cents. But the third den was the largest and decidedly the most interesting of any that we saw. Like the others, it was situated in a prosperous section of the Taiku Road, with its red light conspicuously displayed over the door. From the facts that it was frankly open for business and that not the slightest concern was shown at our entrance, it seemed fair to believe that the keepers had no fear whatever of publicity or of the law. Even when we announced ourselves to be investigators, our questions were answered cheerfully and fully, and the man who escorted us from room to room was apparently proud of the establishment. The couches were not all occupied, but I counted thirty-five men sitting or reclining on them. One man had a child with him, a girl of some six or eight years of age, and when he had prepared his pipe and smoked it he permitted her to take a whiff or two. In a rear room we saw four women smoking with the men. The price of a smoke in this den was twenty-five cents.
I do not know how many opium dens were open for business in the French concession on this particular April 23d, 1907, but of those that were open I personally either entered or at least saw fifteen or sixteen, and that without attempting anything in the nature of an exhaustive search. In the Italian and Russian concessions I found about sixty dens open, mostly of a very low grade. But the worst of the concessions, in this regard, was the Austrian. Lying nearest to the native city, it had profited more largely than any of the others by the native prohibition. It seemed also to have the largest Chinese population; indeed, in appearance it was more like the quaint old Chinese city than any of the other foreign munic.i.p.alities.
We entered only three of the Austrian dens. But we saw the signs and glanced in through the doorways of so many others that I was quite ready to accept Mr. Sung's rough estimate of the total number within the narrow confines of the concession: he put it at fifty to one hundred. It is difficult to be exact in these estimates, because where laws are so languidly enforced the official returns hardly begin to state the full number of flouris.h.i.+ng establishments. These three dens which we entered were enough to make an ineffaceable impression on the mind of one traveller. I have eaten and slept in native hostelries, in the interior, so unspeakably dirty and insanitary that to describe them in these pages would exceed all bounds of taste, but I have never been in a filthier place than at least one of these Austrian dens. And the other two were little better. It would require some means more adequate than pen, ink, and paper, to convey to the reader an accurate notion of the mingled, half-blended odours which seemed to underlie, or to form a background for, the overpowering fumes of what pa.s.sed here for opium. What this drug compound was I really do not know; but it was sold at the rate of two pipes for three cents, Mexican, equivalent to a cent and a half, gold. For real opium, of fair or good quality, it is quite possible, in China, to pay from ten to twenty times as much. Such dens as this, then, are not only vicious resorts maintained for the purpose of catering to a degrading habit; they are also breeding places of disease and pestilence.
Thus one night's work made it plain that the foreign concessions were taking no steps that would evidence a spirit of cooperation with the Chinese authorities in their vigorous attempt to check and control the ravages of opium. Tientsin, like Shanghai, did not care. Tientsin, like Shanghai, is sowing the wind in China.
Let us now turn aside for a moment to consider the third important point of contact between the two kinds of civilization--Hongkong.
Hongkong is neither a ”settlement” nor a ”concession.” It is a British crown colony, with its own government and its own courts. The original property, a mountainous island lying near the mouth of the Canton River, was taken from the Chinese in 1842, as a part of the penalty which China had to pay for losing the Opium War. Later, a strip of the mainland opposite was added to the colony. Hongkong is one of the most important seaports in the world. It is the meeting place for freight and pa.s.senger s.h.i.+ps from North America, South America, New Zealand and Australia, India, Europe, Africa, and the Philippines and other Pacific islands. It commands the trade of the Canton River Valley, which, though not geographically so imposing as the wonderful valley of the Yangtse, supports, nevertheless, the densely populated region reached by the innumerable ca.n.a.l-like branches of the river. The city of Canton alone, eighty or ninety miles inland from Hongkong, claims 2,500,000 inhabitants.
It is safe to say that fifty million Chinamen are constantly under the influence of the civilizing example set by Hongkong.
What is the att.i.tude of the Colonial government towards the opium question? Simply that the opium habit is a legitimate source of revenue.
The British gentlemen who administer the government seem never to have been disturbed by doubts as to the morality or humanity of their att.i.tude.
Let me quote from the report of the Philippine Commission:
”Farming is the system adopted (renting out the monopoly control of the drug to an individual or a corporation) and a considerable part of the income of the colony is obtained from this source. The habit seems to be spreading. No effort--except the increased price demanded by the farmer to compensate for the increased price he has to pay to secure the monopoly--is made to deter persons from using opium in the colony. Most of the opium comes from India.”
The att.i.tude of the residents and merchants of the colony seems to be expressed plainly enough by an editorial in a leading Hongkong paper which lies before me, dated December 1, 1906: ”It will take volumes of imperial edicts to convince us that China ever honestly intends or is ever likely to suppress the opium trade. It is up to China to take the initiative in such a way as to leave no doubt that her intentions are honest and that the native opium trade will be abandoned. Until that is done, it is idle to discuss the question.”
In other words, Hongkong refuses to consider giving up its opium revenue until the Chinese take the market away from it.
I think we may consider the point established that Great Britain is directly responsible for the introduction of opium into China, and, through the ingenuity and persistence of her merchants and her diplomats, for the growth of the habit in that country. To-day, in spite of an unmistakable tendency on the part of the Home government (which we shall consider in a later chapter) to yield to the pressure of the anti-opium agitation in England, the government of India continues to grow and manufacture vast quant.i.ties of the drug for the Chinese trade. To-day the representatives of that government at Hongkong are profiting largely from a monopoly control of the opium importation. To-day, at Shanghai, where the British predominate in population, in trade, and in the city government, the opium evil is mishandled in a scandalous manner, and--as elsewhere--for profit. Small wonder, therefore, that other and less scrupulous foreign nations, where they have an opportunity to profit by this vicious traffic, as at Tientsin, hasten to do so.
These three great ports--Shanghai, Tientsin, and Hongkong--are in constant touch commercially with a grand total of very nearly 200,000,000 Chinese.
They are, therefore, constantly exerting a direct influence on that number of Chinese minds. As I have pointed out, this influence, because it is concentrated and tangible, is much stronger than the admittedly potent influence of the widely scattered missionaries, physicians, and teachers.
From the life and example of the Western nations, as they exist at these ports, the Chinaman is drawing most of his ideas of progress and enlightenment.
In a word, the new China that we shall sooner or later have to deal with among the nations of the world is the new China that the ports are helping to make--for this new China is to-day in process of development. She is struggling heroically to digest and a.s.similate the Western ideas which alone can bring life and vigour to the sluggish Chinese ma.s.s. And yet, turning westward for aid, China is confronted with--Shanghai, Tientsin, and Hongkong. Turning to Britain for a helping hand in her effort to check the inroads of opium, she hears this cheerful doctrine from the one British colony which China can really see and partly understand, Hongkong--”It is up to China.” Dr. Morrison has stated in one of his letters to the _Times_ that Britain's att.i.tude towards China is one of sympathy, tempered by a lack of information. One very eminent British diplomat with whom I discussed the opium question a.s.sured me that that att.i.tude of his government was ”most sympathetic.” Later, in London, I found that this same government was quieting an aroused public opinion with a.s.surances that steps were being taken towards an agreement with China in the matter of opium. All this was in the spring and summer of 1907. Six months later, the one British colony in China, and the two great international ports, were cheerfully continuing their cynical policy of sneering at or ignoring the attempts of the Chinese to overcome their master-vice, and were cheerfully profiting by the situation.
It would perhaps seem fanciful to suggest that the great nations should unite to regulate the coast ports. It would appear obvious that such regulation, in so far as it might create a better understanding between the Chinese and the representatives of foreign civilizations with whom they must come in contact, would work to the advantage of commercial interests. Anti-foreign riots are in progress to-day in China which have their roots partly in racial misconception, partly in a long tradition of injustice and bad faith; and it is hardly necessary to suggest that an atmosphere of injustice, bad faith, and rioting is not the best atmosphere in which to carry on trade. But, nevertheless, the inevitable difficulties in the way of drawing the great nations together in the interests of a better understanding with the Chinese people would seem to make such a solution academic rather than practical.
But, still hoping that something may be done about it, something that may lessen the likelihood of the reaping of a whirlwind in China, suppose that we alter the phrase of that Hongkong editorial and state that instead of the problem being up to China, it is distinctly up to Great Britain? Great Britain brought the opium into China. Great Britain kept it there until it took root and spread over the native soil. Great Britain has admitted her guilt, and had pledged herself by a majority vote in Parliament, and by the promises of her governing ministers, to do something about it. Suppose that Great Britain be called upon to make good her pledge? It would be an interesting experiment. All that is necessary is to cut down the production of opium in India, year by year, until it ceases altogether, and with it the exportation into China. This course would solve automatically the opium problem at Hongkong; and it would put it up to the munic.i.p.al authorities at Shanghai and Tientsin in an interesting fas.h.i.+on.
It would in no way jeopardize Britain's interest in the diplomatic balance of the Far East. It would work for the good rather than the harm of the trade with China. And it would be the first necessary step in the arduous matter of cleaning up the treaty ports and setting a higher example to China.
To this course Great Britain would appear to be committed by the utterances for her government. But the world, like the man from Missouri, has yet to be ”shown.” In a later chapter we shall consider this question of promise and performance in the light of Britain's peculiar governmental problem.
VII
HOW BRITISH CHICKENS CAME HOME TO ROOST
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