Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/281

principal exponent of the former was banished from the capital and condemned to work on the post roads.

Recent historians allege that politics influenced Peking's choice. The Empress, a lady of much light and learning, favoured legalising the sale of the drug. Her Majesty's enemies, therefore, took the opposite view for the sake of enmity, and the Emperor, Taou-kwang, supported their arguments, his judgment being warped by grief for the loss of his son, who had just died from the effects of the drug. That theory obtains credence among writers in whose eyes any hypothesis seems preferable to the direct assumption that opium was denounced for its own sake. Yet everything goes to indicate that the Emperor and his advisers were honestly shocked by the extent of the opium evil, and that their enactments reflected a frank sense of duty. They did not commit themselves to prohibition without taking wide counsel. All the principal provincial authorities were consulted, and their virtually unanimous vote was cast in favour of abolishing the traffic.

In Canton it had been supposed for a moment that the policy of legalisation would prevail at the capital. The local officials naturally advocated that solution, and Captain Elliot welcomed the prospect with a profound sense of relief. The immense task involved in abolition presented itself in truer proportions to his mind and to theirs