カントン學海堂の知識人とアヘン弛禁論、嚴禁論

Abstract

The Xuehai-tang was an academy established in 1820 by Ruan Yuan in order to make Han learning 漢學 take root in Canton. The Xuehai-tang was a Cantonese academy and its members were the city's intellectuals. In the proposals for relaxing the laws against opium use (viz. Wu Lanxiu's 吳蘭修 tract "Preventing evils" 弭害) that are often discussed as a contrast to the proposals made by Beijing intellectuals for strictly forbidding the use of opium, can be seen the interests of the people of Canton at work, a Canton that was not already calm and quiet. Huang Juezi's 黄爵滋 1838 memorial proposing the strict prohibition of opium was said in Canton to have been based on a draft made by the Cantonese intellectual Wen xun 温訓 (the "Continuation of the proposals for preventing evils" 弭害續議). In what it proposed can be seen, on the one hand, a critique of Wu Lanxiu's arguments for relaxing the laws against opium use, and, on the other hand, an expression of the common interests of the Cantonese.