or really earnest in their wish to
prohibit either the foreign import or the native growth. While the Emperor
denounced the foreign traffic from Pekin, and sent Lin to make an example
of offenders, the Governor of Canton dealt in opium, and the Emperor's own
son was an opium-smoker. Whilst edict followed edict forbidding the growth
of the poppy, the Governor-General of a large province openly fostered the
cultivation, and the poppy plant flaunted itself in red and white over the
half of China. It is useless to assert, as is so often asserted, that the
legalization of the foreign trade tied the hands of the Government with
regard to the home production. The native growth was well established
long before the legalization was effected, and the admission of Indian
opium never affected the western provinces of the Empire. Had the
Government been in earnest they could have suppressed the cultivation,
just as the Taeping rebels did in 1860 in Yuennan.

But to return to the history of the foreign trade. As was mentioned above,
the Chinese Commissioners of their own accord fixed the tariff duty upon
opium at thirty taels. But, though bound, as they were by their own act,
to admit opium at this rate, as soon as it passed into native hands they
had power to tax it as they pleased, and they did not fail to profit by
their power, though this likin tax varied considerably at the different
ports[30] in accordance with the necessities of the provincial
governments. It is difficult to estimate the revenue obtained by China
from the foreign opium trade, but it is probably close upon two millions
sterling. That the Chinese Government were not satisfied with this amount,
compared with the profits gained by India, is quite clear; and we find
accordingly that various efforts were made by them, subsequent to 1869,
to have the tariff agreed upon in the Treaty of Tientsin revised. But it
was not till 1876 that any definite agreement was come to between the two
Governments. In September of that year Sir Thomas Wade, Secretary Li, and
Prince Kung concluded a convention, by which China opened four new
ports[31] and six places of call on the great river, while Sir Thomas Wade
agreed to recommend to his own Government, and through it to all the
Treaty Powers, the limitation of the area, within which imports should be
exempt from likin, to the actual space occupied by the foreign
settlements. As the treaty regulations then stood, imports, except opium,