46. By retiring from the monopoly, the Government of India will avoid these and all other unseemly imputations. China wants opium: our traders and merchants are ready to supply it. The license duty will still support the revenue, and thus the action of Government will be that of check, and no longer of stimulus. The fluctuations in the demands of China will be met, in the ordinary course of trade, by corresponding variations in the supply from India. The area of cultivation will be adjusted by the direct action of the Chinese themselves upon speculators and producers, and will no longer depend upon the arbitrary will of the Government.
47. To bring about results so desirable in themselves, and so closely affecting the good name of the British Government, is surely a sufficient warrant for the appointment of a Commission.
The above Minute is the first of a collection of "Papers relating to the Opium Question," published by authority of the Calcutta Government in 1870. This important Minute went the round of the high Government officers in India, and became the nucleus of a formidable collection of official papers amounting to over 350 foolscap pages. It is to be regretted that this valuable repository of information is not in the hands of every Member of Parliament.
Sir William Muir's object evidently was to do away with that existing connexion between the Indian Government and Opium production which he deems immoral. The proposed change of system was opposed by many influential members of the Indian Government on the ground that it would endanger the revenue. The charge of immorality in this mode of raising revenue was boldly denied. In a short Minute signed with the initials H. S. M. we find the denial put thus forcibly:—
"The true moral wrong, if wrong there be, consists in selling opium to the Chinese, and the only way to abate it would be absolutely to prohibit the cultivation of the poppy in British India, and to prevent the exportation of opium from the Native States. The British Government is sufficiently despotic to effect this, and for moral purposes there is no distinction between what a despotic Government does itself, and what it permits its subjects to do. I am satisfied that Sir W. Muir's policy would greatly add to the supposed moral wrong by largely increasing the quantity of opium introduced into China, while the revenues of India would be seriously diminished. I would not therefore base any action on his Minute." Another gentleman, "W. E. M., thinks the discussion was "most effectually disposed of by the letter written under Sir J. P. Grant's dictation (1780) of 14th July, 1860, from
