after our two wars with China are sufficiently remarkable. By the first
treaty we gained a trade of L2,000,000; by the second of L3,500,000
annually. In our commercial dealings with the Chinese we have to deal not
only with "the obstructive policy of the mandarins, but also the passive
and unconscious resistance of a people of stagnant ideas, of very limited
enterprise, and possessing only primitive means of
inter-communication."[132] For a further development of our commercial
intercourse, Medhurst goes on to say, two things are wanting:--1st,
access to new markets by having new ports opened and by procuring a right
to navigate inland waters, and to improve the means of communication; 2nd,
a full and frank acknowledgment by the Chinese at all the ports of the
right of foreign goods to be covered and protected from inland dues by
transit passes. Some such concessions the anti-opiumists would have us
demand; but these benevolent protestors against forcing the Chinese forget
that concessions of this kind, wrung from an unwilling people, would be
far more galling than any importation of opium, which it is quite clear,
even to them, that they need not buy if they do not wish it. Moreover, the
important point seems to have been overlooked, that _India_ would lose her
revenue, while the gain from increased intercourse would be wholly on the
side of _England_. As it is, the native community in India can hardly
believe that there is not a selfish motive at the bottom of this agitation
in England, and, should this last proposal be carried out, we could hardly
blame them if they pointed to this as a proof that their suspicions were
well founded.

We may here briefly notice[133] Li Hung Chang's latest proposal, that he
should farm or purchase the monopoly of all the Indian opium; with the
intention, he would no doubt himself say, of getting the control of the
trade into his own hands, and limiting the import, just as on a previous
occasion, in a communication to the Anglo-Opium Society, he asserted that
the only object of the Chinese authorities in taxing opium was in the
past, as it would be in the future, the desire to repress the traffic.

Considering, then, the sudden abolition of the opium traffic as
practically out of the question, and leaving out of sight the undoubtedly
possible, though not likely, gradual cessation of the trade between India
and China owing to the competition of the native drug, it only remains for
us to