Tre iden of holding one's own on the high seas is an idea specially agreeable to Englishmen, and few rader shocks have been given to our self conceit than the discovery that our ships could not swim, It is somewhat startling to parallel the naval affairs of China with those of Great Britain, but history re-boats itself, It seems that some thirty-eight years ago a sudden conviction dawned on hi Imperial Majesty the Emperor of China that. his marine administration wns fa from being all that he could desire. The Chinese First Lord seems to have behaved very much as the English First Lords have recently done. So the Emperor took up his vermilion pencil and wrote as follows:—* On shore, a ability is mensared by his archery and his horsemanship; bat a sailors talent by his ability to fight with and on the water, A sailor must know the winds and the clouds and the lands and the passages among the sands. He must be thoroughly versed in breaking a spear with the wind. He must know like " god how to break through the billows, handle his ship, and be all in regaler order for action. Then when his spears are thrown they will pierce, and his guns will follow to give them effect. The ing tornadoes of the fire physic will all reach truly their mark, and whenever pirates are met with, they will be vanquished wondrously. No aim will uss its mark. The pirate banditti will be impoverished and crippled, and even on the th sens, when they take to flight, they will be followed and caught and slanghtertd. Thus the monster of the deep and the waves will be still, and the sea become a perfect calm—not a ripple will be raised. Bat far different from this has of late been the fast. The navy is a nihility. There is the name of going to sea, but there la no going to sea in reality. Cases of piracy are perpetnully occarring, and even barbarian barks anchor in our inner seas without the least notice being taken of them.
Stripped of its peculiar Oriental ima-gory, this Imperial communication is very like the periodical utterances of (he English people, when they are awaken-aster like the loss of the been spending large sums of money in the dockyards to no purpose. For years things have been going on smoothly. Phe ships look very effective at naval reviews "walking the waters like things of life," but an unlucky re-relation exhibits the painful and bumilinting trath that they are signally deficient in something essential. The little rift within the Into is discovered, and indignation, remonstrance and reproach are heaped upon the once trusted Admiralty Board. Now, when we speak of these panics in China, we smile, as of course the naval force of the Central Land is even now absurdly inadequate to the task of contending with the weakest European Power, but we cannot help seeing that to other States, John Ball in one of his fits must be, to use the mildest express sion, an undignified personage. A pigtailed and corpulent native who calls himself Brother of the Sun and Moon, livid with terror, is a subject for caricature that appeals to all; but a gentleman in top boots, who has for some years been addicted to roaring a chorus to the effect that he rules the waves, suddenly turned topsy-turvey by " very slight wind, isa figure not altogether free from a tinge of comicnlity. The moral for East and West is the same. Unworthy exhibitions of inefficiency, and consequent panies, can only be avoided by an upright, intelligent and trasted Board of Officials and by a steady and reasonable, not a spas-medic outlay of money. There is one sentence in the old Imperial document that reads strangely in the light of the present day. "Even barbarian barks," we read, "anchor in our inner seas," Since 1833 various vessels that may be thas characterized have penetrated into the sacred waters. The fleets of commerce and the fleets of war have both passed over the waves, and China has learned to look at them with accustomed eyes. Nay she has gone farther, and las built her ships after the models set by the barbarian. We are constantly inveighing against the torpid sloth of the natives and their lack of progressive energy. To do this is no doubt often wise and right, as there is nothing: so needful to Orientals as frequent reminders of the need for energetic action; still, on looking back over past years, we cannot deny that vast changes have been made, and we must believe that in the next thirty years far wider reforms will be inaugurated.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.