We have often expressed our doubts as to the practical utility of the steps being taken by China to strengthen the military power of the Empire. In fact, we have pointed out that, in some particulars, and notoriously in that of self-respect, the Chinese of to-day are really weaker than they were when as yet their old military system was untried against the warlike arts of the West. Various causes have been at work to produce this unsatisfactory result; notoriously, the utter corruption of the Empire has found a fine field for its exercise in the new and, to China, untried field of military preparations. Independently of this evident source, there is another equally powerful, and that is the inability of the Chinese mind to grasp the long series of inductive processes which have led up to the present state of Western science, To imitate what is before him, without thought as to the reasons of its existence, is the natural limit of the Chinese in. tellect; and this is no less marked in military than in civil arts. It is thus that external form takes the place of internal organisation, The means are confounded with the end; and a bat. talion which under a drill sergeant can contrive to "face about" and "form fours," is supposed to be capable of doing effective work in the field, even when placed under command of an officer to whom all systems of drill are alike unknown, When, early in the present century, we desired to make an effective barrier of Persia against Russian encroachment, we not only granted a subsidy from the Indian Government, but did our best to introduce European military science into the armies of the Shab, The result is thus described by a competent authority, Major-General Sir H. Rawlinson "Tt can be proved, we think, that what. ever benefit Persia may have derived, as far as regards centralization of power of her monarch, from the introduction into her armies of European discipline, she has been, as a substantive power, progressively weakened by the change, and rendered less capable of sustaining a pressure from without; and it follows, therefore, that if she had been in danger of absorption by Russia under the old system, she must long ere this have ceased to exist under the new. It would detain us too long to explain the seeming paradox. of discipline engendering weakness. If it be remembered, however, that when the system is affected with chronic paralysis, the attempt is vain to restore any particular member to a healthy action, it will be understood that, to a nation devoid of organisation in every other department of government, a regular army was impossible. It thus happened that, not withstanding the admirable material for soldiery which was offered by the hardy peasantry of Azerbijan, and the still hardier mountaineers of Kermanshab,—notwithstanding thatadue proportion of physical courage appertained generally to the men—the disciplined forces of Persia, considered as an army, and for the purpose of national defence, were from the epoch of their first creation contemptible. Beyond drill and exercise they never had everything in common with the regular armies of Europe and India. System was entirely wanting,—whether in regard to pay, clothing, food, carriage, equipage, commissariat, promotion or command, and under a lath and plaster government like that of Persia, such must inevitably have been the case."—Substituting China for Persia, we have in the above a not inapt description of the present state of affairs here. In one respect, probably, China is in advance of Persia, a
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.