Dictate Quotes
3rd Viscount Palmerston. This historical quotations illustrates the worst of the British Empire. British merchants were making large profits shipping opium to China and selling it there. Drug addiction became a major problem and some local Chinese Authorities passed laws banning the importing and selling of opium. However, the English merchant ship captains paid no attention to these laws claiming their rights as Englishmen to free trade. The Chinese finally seized a number of shipments of opium and burned them. The British then appointed Captain Elliot to lead a squadron of ships to China, arrange for payment in compensation for the value of the seized opium and to open up the opium trade, by force if necessary. The Chinese position was not unreasonable and Captain Elliot was not able to secure the concessions the English government wanted without starting a small war with the loss of many lives. Temple, who was the Foreign Minister at this time, fired Elliot and replaced him with someone who was less concerned about problems of drug addiction and the Chinese. Thus began the First Opium War. Note that the then British view of equity was that if they had to send an expedition of ships and soldiers to force the Chinese to allow the English to sell opium, then part of the terms must be that the Chinese pay the costs for the British ships and soldiers who invaded their country and forced them to keep poisoning their own people. See {621319} for Captain Elliot’s view.
He was then the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Karol Jozef Wojtyla. At the time he was Archbishop of Krackov. He had seen Poland invaded and dominated by Germans and then dominated by Russia. The Communist government was embarrassed and furious.
The slave trade had been banned in the rest of East Africa but was legal in Zanzibar. The British Navy had great difficulty interdicting slave ships who would claim they were participating in the legal slave trade. The British decided that Zanzibar should ban slavery, but the Sultan and his advisors did not wish to give up their own personal involvement. Kirk was sent to deal with the Sultan, who under threat of naval embargo, signed the Frere Treaty. The slave market was thus closed.
