Ar the present critical stage of affairs in China, it is but natural that general attention should be attracted by the position of the man who has been looked upon for years past, and with reason, as the most enlightened and influential of Chinese statesmen. That Li chang has cause for the gravest anxiety on purely personal grounds is, we fear, bat too true, For the last fifteen yen the present Viceroy of Chibli has been the foremost bulwark of the State. His presence at Tientsiv, where he has considerable army at his command, and. where defensive operations have been cartied on upon a very extensive scale, makes him in a very literal and significant sense the Guardian of the Throne. He has disbursed enormous sums of money in the establishment and carrying-on of arsenals, the building of gunboats, the employment of foreign experts, and the fortification of the const defences. It is therefore not un-nataral thet the Empress, immured within the impenetrable walls of the Winter Palace, should expect grent results. na was to have been made impregnable, and impervious to attnok—snfo against: invasion, and prepared to engage in hostilities with strongest Power which should venture to molest her repose. But no sooner does urgent occasion arise for putting these preparations to the test, than they are found wanting, and the humiliating confession has to be made that China is almost as unprepared for war as ever. It is only too clour, of course, where the defect has Lain. Extensive as the Viceroy's measures huve been, they have been rendered almost nugatory by mismanagement. 'The Arsenals, on which so mach money has been lavished, have been. mis managed badly; gunboats have been scamped'; fands have been squandered; gaus allowed to rust und spoil 5
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.