yan and Sir William Muir wish to
substitute a "pass" system for the monopoly, it may be answered, as it has
been answered before and always with success, that monopolies are a part
of the system of Indian Government inherited from their Mohammedan
predecessors; and any argument against the opium monopoly applies with
tenfold force to the salt tax. Moreover, the Indian Government, it must be
remembered, is the great landowner in India, and consequently the only
undertaker of great enterprises, such as irrigation works and railways.
Still it cannot be denied that, technically, the objection is sound
enough, because monopolies tend to restrict labour and capital, and entail
considerable cost in the production of the article monopolized. But it
must not be forgotten that "in direct proportion to the removal of the
economic objections, the moral objections would be intensified in
degree."[112] For if the Government abandoned the manufacture of opium to
private enterprise, contenting itself with placing a duty on its export,
there can be no doubt that more opium would be manufactured and imported
into China, while the revenue would be less. Moreover, if it be wrong to
grow opium for Chinese consumption we shall not get out of the
responsibility of it by placing a duty on all opium exported instead of
growing and selling it ourselves.

Lastly, there is the objection that our introduction of opium into China
paralyses the efforts of our missionaries. We have reserved this charge
till the last, both because it has done more than any other with certain
classes of people to bring discredit on the traffic, and also because it
has been least adequately met by other writers on the subject. And the
question is a very delicate one to discuss. It may seem presumptuous to
call in question a statement of fact lying so entirely within the scope of
a missionary's observation; and it certainly will seem invidious to point
out, as we shall be obliged to do, the real causes of failure in our
missionary efforts, presuming them to have failed.

Our missionaries, then, almost unanimously assert that "opium has been
the means of closing millions of Chinese hearts to the influence of
Christian preaching," partly by setting the Chinese against foreigners in
general and Englishmen in particular, but chiefly by supplying them with a
ready-made argument against the Christian religion as one that tolerates
so iniquitous a traffic to the ruin of a friend