104 China in World History
1807, when a government offi cial complained that China’s laws against
opium smoking were too lax. Occasionally foreign opium dealers were
arrested in Guangzhou, but because Qing government salaries were
low, foreigners were generally able to bribe local Chinese offi cials to
look the other way. In the mid-1830s, some Chinese offi cials argued for
the legalization of the opium trade so that the Qing government might
at least tax the trade. Other offi cials raised strenuous moral objections
to the legalization of such a harmful drug, and they prevailed.
In early 1839, an upright offi cial, Lin Zexu, became the commis-
sioner of trade in Guangzhou, where he was determined to suppress
the opium trade. When he announced a ban on opium, the Western
merchants handed over 1,000 chests of the drug, a small fraction of
the total supply in the waters around Guangzhou. Lin responded by
arresting 350 Westerners and confi ning them without their servants inOpium smoking induced feelings of elation and also lethargy, as these men show
by indulging in their habit in prone positions on their portable mat in a garden.
After British traders began selling opium in Guangzhou in the eighteenth century,
opium addiction spread rapidly among all social classes, producing serious social
and economic problems as addiction led to crime and broken families, while
Britain fi nanced its entire consumption of tea, silk, and porcelain with the profi ts
from opium and still came away with a growing trade surplus. Adoc-photos, Coll.
Gérard Lévy, Paris, France / Art Resource, NY