'THe new and revised edition of Mr.
Curzon's Problems of the Far East, of which the publishers, Messrs. Archibald Constable and Ca., have sent us a copy, is a book that should be on the study table of every resident in the Far East whose thoughts and interests are not entirely bounded by his special everyday work. It makes in its new form a handy volume of some 440 pages, with a number of pertinent process illustrations from photographs, and a couple of maps on rather a small scale, and it has been carefully revised throughout. Additional matter appears in it, the revised. treaty between Great Britain and Japan and the Shimonoseki treaty between Japan and China being printed as appendices and there is a new and specially interesting chapter in which the author has summed up the main issues of the recent war, and endeavoured to forecast its bearing upon the Asiatic situation. Mr. Curzon adds that the greater part) of this chapter was written before he was appointed to the position of Jess freedom and greater responsibility which he now so adequately fills, It will no doubt be remembered that Mr. Curzon wrote this book before the late war broke out, the first edition being published in August, 1894. He showed in it a remarkable faculty of appreciation of the true strength of the two contending Powers, so that he is able, as he tells us in the preface to this edition, "to issue a fourth edition of the book—after the conclusion of a war that was seismic both in its character and consequences—in substantially the same guise as it originally wore, with alterations and additions that, while required to bring it up to date, only confirm the former argument." He adds that the central theme of his book when first published "was the utter rottenness of Chinese administ tion, and the certainty of military aster in the case of conflict with a well-equipped foe; the confident ambitions and swelling power of Young Japan; the corrupt though picturesque imbecility of Corea; and the onerous responsibilities likely to be entailed upon Great Britain in the inevitable readjustment of Eastern Asia." And he recalls with natural satisfaction the criticism of "the most thoughtful of English newspapers," the Spectator, which pinned its faith at the beginning of the war to Lord Wolseley's exaggera ated opinion of the military capabilities of the Chinese, Lord Wolseley, however, was right to a certain extent, for the Chinese rank-and-file do possess potentially every military virtue, as the meu showed who made a stand under 'I'so Pao-kuei at Pingyang until their General was killed; but Mr. Curzon explains with his usual ability in his new chapter how it was that. Lord Wolseley's estimate was so falsified in the field "Man for man, the Chinese rank-and-file were reported by observers to be phy-sicelly superior to the Japanese. In any test, either of strength or endurance, they ought, apartfromarmament, to have swept their little opponents off the field. But under-fed, ill equipped, unpaid, and disgracefully led—driven, in fact, like sheep to the shambles—who could expect them to fight for a cause in which they took no interest, and against an enemy with whom they had no passionate quarrel? Spears, tridents, cutlasses, jingals, pikes, old muzzle-loaders stuffed with stones and nails, which were the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.