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told that it is a luxury, if not abused. Dr. Little, the medical superintendent at Singapore, has observed: "I have searched everywhere for one who, with money, stopped short of partial insensibility. Many drink (alcohol), but do not abuse it; many smoke opium, but all abuse it." For purposes of medicine, it is entirely unfitted by its peculiar mode of preparation. "Poppy" is of opinion that the indulgence of opium is a milder evil than that of drunkenness. Again, the voice of testimony declares that the slightest indulgence in opium admits of no parallel, save of that with drunkenness. Nor do we admit, with "Poppy," that were the drug exterminated, some stimulant or other would be required to supply its place; or that it is a "useless attempt to wage war with the universal desire in man to indulge in stimulants." Neither the North American Indians, nor their ancestors, knew anything of the existence of stimulants, till the Europeans brought "fire-waters" among them. The numerous native races of Africa and of South America remain almost entirely unacquainted with them up to the present time. Entire races have lived and died, centuries have been buried in the past, and neither the desire nor its attainment has ever been felt. Again, we may ask, does any one, suffering from an inability to satisfy his usual craving for opium, recur to dram drinking? or does the reformed drunkard fly for relief to opium? These questions can only admit of one reply. We have now, we believe, answered every remark in the first article by "Poppy," that could be construed to have a bearing on this question. We only wish that the subject which he has treated in so able and argumentative a manner may at some future period form one of the themes of discussion in these pages.

Already one war has been forced upon us through the traffic in the opium poison, to the complete dislocation of our trade in the healthy articles of commerce. How long this question is to remain an obstacle to our friendly relations with China, we cannot foresee. All that is particularly clear is-that the mercantile interests of England have suffered, severely from this state of affairs. We emphatically ask-"Is this frightful evil to be allowed to work destruction in every direction?" Is it not enough that ruin should await the cultivator of the plant? Is it not enough that the district of its cultivation should be stained with crime? Is it not enough that pauperization and death should be caused among the subjects of another Sovereign, and against his strong opposition? There is a deeper depth still. War must be invoked in its behalf. Smuggling and piracy must meet with encouragement, and peaceful commerce, pro tem., be annihilated. We appeal to the love of right that exists in every man. We appeal to the sense of justice, whose name is disgraced. We appeal to the judgments of reason, whose attributes are disdained. Its horrors, its crimes, its wrongs, its cause of bloodshed, and its creation of oppression, make the heart to sicken, and the mind to mourn. Not until the winds of public opinion are unloosed will the ocean tempest break with

destructive fury against those breastworks of evil and of wrong, which have hitherto withstood the milder influences of reason and of right. S. E. L.

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-III.

THE very able articles which have appeared on the negative side of this debate have, I think, so successfully disposed of all the arguments advanced by the writers on the other side, that I feel that to enter into further reasons for giving a decided “No” to this question, is a work of supererogation, and I shall therefore; by way of coup de grâce, confine myself principally to the consideration of the sound principle which would be violated in agreeing to the proposed restriction on trade.

The article by A. is valuable so far as it furnishes the history and statistics of the opium traffic; and I accept as truthful the evidence adduced by him of the baneful consequences of an excessive indulgence in what De Quincey calls the "divine luxury of opium." But after performing this useful service, he and "Sinim" fail entirely of any attempt to show why, because of the abuse of a truly beneficial and mighty medicinal drug, the cultivation and sale thereof should be abandoned. It is not difficult to surmise the cause of this omission. Any reflecting person, at this part of the question, will be puzzled to assign any sound principle in political economy that is applicable to attain the end A. and "Sinim" have in view, which might not be applied, on some other occasion, to support what they would, perhaps, be the first to condemn as an infringement of civil or political liberty. Precedents accumulating constitute law; examples are supposed to justify the most dangerous measures.

The vice and misery produced in consequence of the abuse of alcoholic liquors in England is spread amongst an infinitely larger number of the population than is opium eating in China, with only four million votaries-a mere fraction of its countless population. "Suus cuique mos." * Man is a bundle of habits. Moreover, there is every reason to conclude that opium eating is, in proportion to the size of our community, equally prevalent in Britain as in China; therefore any principle that can be maintained for the prohibition of the drug into any Eastern country would equally apply to its exclusion from this island. Are our friends willing that the supply of wines, imported into this country from Spain, France, and Portugal, should be cut off, as an illegal and injurious department of commerce, because a large number of their countrymen take them to excess? Wines and other kindred drinks are, like opium, of essential value in not a few complaints; and I hold it is not unlawful to use them otherwise than as a medicine. All are aware that an attempt is being made by professed philanthropists to introduce the Maine Liquor Law into England—(ĥow natural * Every one has his particular habit.

VOL. III.

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that such a law should have sprung up side by side with slavery !)— notwithstanding the impracticability of executing such a law has caused its repeal in many of the States of America, which had adopted it, including the one from which it derives its name. secretary to the Alliance" formed for this object says, in justification of the project, "I claim, as a citizen, a right to legislate whenever my social rights are invaded by the social act of another. If anything invades my social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does. It destroys my primary right of security, by constantly creating and stimulating social disorder. It invades my right of equality, by deriving a profit from the creation of a misery I am taxed to support. It impedes my right to free moral and intellectual development, by surrounding my path with dangers. and by weakening and demoralizing society, from which I have a right to claim mutual aid and intercourse.'

John S. Mill, than whom no more eminent thinker lives, remarks on this:"A theory of social right,' the like of which, probably, never before found its way into distinct language, being nothing short of this that it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act, in every respect. exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof, in the smallest particular, violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty. I can acknowledge the consistency of those persons who are willing to assent to the pernicious doctrines advocated by the association I have named above, being advocates also for the prohibition of the sale of opium to the Chinese; but there is numerous class of Englishmen who deprecate the introduction of a stringent liquor law here, and yet are amongst the prominent disciples of the 'Anti-Opium Committee." How true it is that men are constantly

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Compounding for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to!"

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The line of argument, in solving this question, that I wish to pursue, then, is this:-Opium is designed by the Creator as apparently the one sole, catholic anodyne, and by many degrees the most potent of all known counter-agents to nervous irritation; consequently its beneficent characteristics will at all times ensure its use among medicines. This being so, it will be necessary that every country shall be duly provided with the drug and with such an immense population as that of the Celestial Empire, it is impossible (if desirable) to ascertain the quantity of this article yearly required for legitimate purposes. Acting on the principle of freedom of commerce, our merchants in India are only supplying the demand arising in China for this now legalized branch of trade; and ] maintain that the responsibility for an improper use of opium lies at the doors, not of the exporters, but of each individual Chinaman

who revels in the fascinating indulgence-possessing, as he does, as full a consciousness of the ultimate mísery it entails, as had Coleridge, Wilberforce, De Quincey, Macaulay, and other celebrated men, who were English_opium eaters. If this leading principle can be controverted, I am willing to relinquish my allegiance to the negative side of the controversy; for if the prosecution of the trade is an offence against morality, no tenable defence can be offered for its continuance, on the ground of the large revenue it brings to our Indian exchequer.

The tendency of philanthropists in the present day is to destroy the individuality and responsibility of man, and instead of allowing him to be the judge and guardian of his moral actions, to seek to preserve him virtuous by enactments of the legislature, acting as a sort of moral police, by allowing no temptation to evil to cross his path. This is the well-intentioned desire of the Maine Law advocate, and the prohibitor of the opium traffic. These persons find a certain evil existing in the world, but losing confidence in the power of moral agencies to remedy the unsatisfactory state of society, they wish to try to regenerate the human family by a gross usurpation upon the liberty of private life. In thus proceeding, they act in a similar way to many a thoughtless currency reformer in every monetary panic, who recommends as a panacea that there should be an unlimited issue of paper money, which could only be an apparent relief, and would eventually be an aggravation of the crisis. This attempt to exert the authority of society over the individual, in forbidding the growth of the poppy in India, or by prohibiting the use of fermented beverages in England, I regard as one of the most dangerous doctrines that can threaten the liberties of any nation. It is an attempt to carry out still further the analogous opinions of those who fear that were not Christianity taken under the patronage of the State, as in the establishment of a national church, and supported by its funds, it would be in danger of losing its existence.

This class of philanthropists would bring our country into a state of moral purity no more real than there was reality about the sham villages which Potemkin got up to show to the Empress Catherine on her journeys, as evidence of the flourishing condition of her empire. The advocates of these restrictions have not yet learnt the maxim, "Not to do evil, that good may come," or they would not wish to violate a general rule for the sake of any particular good consequence they may expect. It has been said with truth, Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest." Each person is more interested in his own moral and physical well-being than any other can be; consequently, society is not warranted in coercing any human being to do otherwise with his life for his own benefit than he chooses, so long as his actions do not interfere with the rights of others.

Lord Stanley, when Indian Secretary, urged that there was no

argument in favour of the total abolition of the opium culture in Bengal, which might not be equally urged in favour of the introduction of the Maine Liquer Law into the realms of England. John Stuart Mill speaks in these terms:-" It is essentially a question of liberty; the object of the interference is to make it impossible or difficult to obtain the commodity. This interference is objectionable, as an infringement on the liberty of the buyer." Of Sir John Bowring's opinion (and he was accounted a philanthropist when he went to China) in favour of the continuance of the opium trade, the readers of this Magazine are already informed. The practical effect of our ceasing to send the drug to China would be that the white poppy would be cultivated within that empire, or else other foreigners would quickly grasp at so profitable a trade. It must, then, be the result of other agencies than the suppression of the Indian opium trade, if ever the opium smoking be discontinued in China.

The question of the limits of the power of society over the individual is likely to become the vital question of the future. Let us then, as a people, beware how we give heed to any threatened invasions upon the natural rights of man, for there can be no permanent greatness to a nation except it be based on freedom; and so long as we adhere to our old landmarks and experiences, so long may we postpone the decadence of our national grandeur, which our matchless historian has hinted at, when the New Zealander shall stand on the broken arch of London Bridge, and gaze on the ruins of St. Paul's. The penalty for any tampering with liberty inevitably comes sooner or later.

"The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite,
Nor yet doth linger."

R. R.

Social Economy.

ARE THE OPERATIONS OF TRADES' UNIONS BENEFICIAL TO WORKING MEN?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-III.

"The accumulation of that power which is conferred by wealth, in the hands of the few, is the perpetual source of oppression and neglect to the mass of mankind. The power of the wealthy is further concentrated by their tendency to combination, from which number, dispersion, indigence, and ignorance equally preclude the poor. The wealthy are formed into bodies by their professions, their different degrees of opulence called ranks, their knowledge, and their numbers."-Sir James Macintosh.

"L'OUVRIER" has taken the field as the Achilles of capital, and, like the Grecian hero, has done good battle in their cause; but, unfortunately for their perfect success, he has, like the son of the

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