Passtva from what we have lately taken occasion to write about the condition of the Chinese army, it may not be uninteresting to draw a rough sketch of the navy. This consists at present, so far og foreign-built ships are concerned, of three detachments—the steamers built at the Foochow Arsenal, those built at Shanghai, and those employed in the blockade of Hongkong which are of foreign construction, We have here at the outset the same divided allegiance which hinders a proper organisation of the Chinese army, and must prevent in a scarcely Jess degree the attainment of efficiency in the navy, Neither army nor navy are Imperial, but belong to the Viceroys for the time being of the provinces by which the wages and expenses are paid, The plan is erader even than feudalism, for the vassal was bound to famish troops to his suzerain in time of war, whereas the Viceroys of China are not supposed to go beyond their own provinces. For the defence of these they are solely responsible; and there, theoretically, their responsibility ends, Before piracy was quite extinguished from the Chusan group, it: was not the "pidgin" of a Shanghai gunboat to police those waters, Chusan is under Ningpo, and Ningpo is in the vice-royalty of Fohkien and Chekeang; and to the Foochow gunboats, accordingly, was left the work—which they also failed to do—of policing waters remote from their station but close to Shanghai, while Kiangsu gunboats lay idle in the Hwangpoo. But it is not only as regards Imperial control, that the system of provincial seclusion is fatal it stands equally in the way of efficient instruction and discipline, though these are questions that will arise more naturally for discussion at a later period, after we have seen what are the men, and armament of which China can boast.
Incompnrably the best in every respect are the steamers built under the superintendence of Mr. Giquel at Foochow. Their cost—the cost indeed of the whole Arsenal and Dockyard Establishment at Foochow—hbas been enormous; but the Chinese have here at least good ships; they are built throughout of teak, and so strongly that they'will stand the wear and tear of gunnery and are fit to encounter any weather that a ship can be expected to live through. Two of them were lost in the typhoon of 1874, which caused so much damage at Hongkong and Macao, but they were lost on the coast of Formosa under circumstances which do not reflect on their construction. One broke adrift from her moorings in the harbour of Takow, touched on a sand bank, capsized and sunk, while the other was blown ashore; a third was caught in the typhoon in mid-channel, and made port in safety—though, it is true, with masts out away and guns thrown overboard. There may have been defective seamanship in all this; it is likely the vessels that were lost should have put to sea, and that the Captain of the third was over-nervous in dismantling her; but the accidents do not tell against the ships, which are undoubtedly well built and of good model and speed. Barring white anta or the accidents of wind or war, they will prove darable, Their machinery too is good, and what is more, is said to be well kept. Dirty as the Chinese are in their own habits, it seems beyond question that they do keep the chinery of their gunboats in good order. Whether they are sufficiently skilled to detect the place of a serious accident, and to remedy it, is another question, but they do appreciate the necessity for cleanliness, and in this respect are superior to the Japanese, who are unmistakeably slovonly in their care of machinery, and come to frequent grief in consequence. The Foochow ships are armed, almost exclusively we believe, with the Vavasseur gun; and the seamen are said to be fairly apt scholars in gunnery. These are taken from the coasts of Fokhien and the Chusan archipelago, and are a bardy and active race, accustomed to the soa, and likely to prove, as fighting men, superior to the land forces. Their ently training developed hardihood, and the comparative looseness of naval dri more suitable to the Chinese disposition than the rigid precision which is essential in the case of soldiers. It is when we approach the higher ranks that, as in the case of the army, we begin to appreciate the weakness of the service. The ships are commanded, some by pilots who are no more capable of commanding a man-of-war than would be the captain of a Newcastle collier; some by cadets who have been educated in the Foochow Arsenal school, and have a fair theoretical knowledge of navigation and naval tactics—though it is unlikely this theo-re tical knowledge would stand the test, as yet, of a typhoon or a severe naval engagement. But below the commander and, perhaps, the chief officer, there is no skilled control; second, third, and fourth officers, gunners, boatswains, and all the carefully selected men who go to make up the aggregate fighting knowledge of an English ship are greatly absent; and absent also is that sense of discipline and respect, that immeasurable measure of distance which is essential to the maintenance of proper discipline among a large body of men confined in the small space of man-of-war. We have said before that the pupils of the Foochow Arsenal have a fair theoretical knowledge of their work; but the ex-pilot commanders are hopelessly adrift if they fail to recognise a headland, and very certainly neither one nor the other would be able to support an admiral as Nelson's captains supported him in the splendid manceuvre which went far to win the battle of Aboukir. The seamen are good, apt at gunnery, and fairly prompt in boat drill and landing. parties. So that, though somewhat better than the army, and especially far as it possesses a few fairly. trained officers where the army has none, the navy is weak in precisely the same respects; its moderately trained officers are very few; and of highly skilled mon there are none. In writing this, too, we may repeat, we have had before us the Foochow squadron, which is incomparably the best. We shall go on in another article to say a word of the Shanghai vessels, and of the defects in organisation which as yet preclude the attainment of even moderate efficiency in a service on which China has expended so many million dollars.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.