which had prevented the Parliamentary Committee of 1832 disavowing it altogether. The evil had already gone on too long. The opium trade had, by its financial operations, become so intertwined with the legitimate trade, that separate dealing with it was impossible. The import of opium into China, as it gradually expanded, gave an enormous impetus to the export of tea and silk from China to the European markets, and the whole opium trade had imperceptibly become a necessity both for China and for Europe; for China, because the craving for opium was so widespread among the Chinese people, that the demand for it defied the severest criminal enactments; for Europe, because the sale of opium, which had by this time come to form three-fifths of the whole British imports into China, provided a very large portion of the funds required for operations in Chinese produce destined for European markets. Indeed, as Elliot put it (February 21, 1837), the movement of money at Canton had come to depend, by the force of circumstances, almost entirely upon the deliveries of opium at Lintin. The tares could not be rooted out now, without destroying the wheat.
Lord Palmerston, and the other members of the Cabinet, whilst unanimous in their dislike of the opium trade, could not yet agree to any definite solution of the problem. On one point Lord Palmerston was perfectly clear, viz. that Her Majesty's Government could not possibly interfere for the purpose of enabling British subjects to violate the laws of the country to which they trade, and that therefore any loss which such persons may suffer in consequence of the more effectual execution of the Chinese laws on this subject, must be borne by the parties who have brought that loss upon themselves by their own acts. He wrote to Elliot to this effect (June 15, 1838), but at the same time declared that the Cabinet did not feel sufficient confidence in their apprehension of the opium problem to enter upon any negotiations with the Chinese Government regarding the repression or legalisation of the trade in opium. Nevertheless there are indications that Lord Palmerston had, in his own mind, already settled the leading
