Island 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.
The Shah of Iran was one of the worst violators of human rights in the world. His secret security service were brutal thugs who murdered and tortured with impunity. Carter however in most other instances made human rights a centerpiece of his foreign policy. In Iran he overlooked the human rights abuses as the United States needed the Iranian oil. When the Iranians finally revolted against the Shah, they resented Carter and the United States for allowing the Shah to operate his empire with no regard for civil rights while the U. S. continued to preach about human rights. When the Iranians established their revolutionary government, they got the worst of all worlds. Iran became a fundamentalist theocracy, had their economy deteriorate despite their oil wealth, and the Human Rights violations of the Revolutionary Government were worse than the terrible record of the Shah.
Great Britain however did join the European Common Market although it did not give up its own currency and adopt the Euro as most of the other European nations did.
