Page 255 - Merchants and Mandarins China Trade Era

241.

in China as early as 1829-30. From the United States one

merchant predicted that the opium trade would ''ruin the

country by exacting all the specie to pay for the noxious

Drug." An alternative to "ruin" was for the trade to become

a "barter trade," although opium's "consumption. .is stead-

ily increasing & must eventually swallow up all. .gold &

54
silver as well as merchandise.11
By 1836 the drain of sycee had reached such monumental

proportions that the Imperial Court was compelled to act.

Several ministers memorialized the Emperor with the proposal

that opium be legalized and cultivation of the opium-poppy be

encouraged. These measures would check the flow of specie

out of the Empire. The memorialists did not list restrictions

on foreign trade. In response to his ministers, the Tao-Kwang

Emperor, enthroned since 1821, set in motion a massive investi­
gation of the opium trade at Canton. He issued edicts to the

governor-general to inquire into all aspects of the trade. At

Canton the trade froze: "Brokers have returned to the country;
55
& the smugglers have ceased to run." A minister at Court pro-

posed that the foreign merchants most heavily involved in the opium

of the Chinese Empire: The Period of Conflict, 1834-1860 (Shang­
hai, 1910), Chap. VI. The rate of expansion in the opium trade
makes this question moot.

54
Letter, J. Latimer to J.R. Latimer, Oct. 8, 1829, Lati­
mer Family MSS. Letter, J.P. Cushing to Bryand & Sturgis, Sep.
17, 1830, Harvard Business School, Baker Library, Bryant &
Sturgis MSS. Letter, J.P. Cushing to S. Cabot, Oct. 20, 1830,
Samuel Cabot MSS.
55
concerning the memorials on the legalization of opium,
see Chinese Repository, V, 3 (July 1836), 139; T.S. Tsiang, "New
Light on Chinese Diplomacy, 1836-49," Journal of Modern History,
III, (1931) 581-82. Letters, Russell & Co. to A. Heard, Oct.
31 and Nov. 5, 1836, Heard MSS.