Jan. 14.
ANOTHER extremely interesting letter reaches us to-day, giving a new aspect of the burden that militarism inflicts apon this unfortunate country. Latterly we have chiefly been concerned with what the army may do if, in its chronically unpaid state, it breaks out and helps itself. That danger is in no way lessened by the' facts which ''Y'' presents because, for the docile and defenceless Chinese, a hundred soldiers out to loot are practically as bad as a thousand. But when the Chambers of Commerce are called on to make good the soldiers' pay which officers and yamen harpies have purloined, it is insult added to injury that they must pay for four or five times many soldiers as could be produced on a general muster. Our correspondent "'Y'' is in a position to speak with first-hand knowledge and he quotes plenty chapter and verse for his assertion that the enormous exactions levied on China for the army bear no relation to the number of men actually under arms.
Now let us recapitulate a little.' ''X,' whose letter we published last Tuesday, urges that the first step is to call in the rifles of which there are some ten million distributed through China, and ammunition. If this be done, he says, the army will dissolve automatically. Otherwise it would simply disband to re-enlist in the near future; and that, no scheme of supervision could prevent. ''Y'"' thinks it would be more reasonable to stop the manufacture of arms and ammunition at Kiangnan, Hanyang and elsewhere—in passing, we do not see why the two should not go hand in hand, if either is feasible. But of the scheme of disarmament he asks Could it be done? Would Chang Tso-lin, for instance, submit to such a drastic measure?" 'And he advocates as "the most effective method' finding out how many soldiers there really are in China as compared with their supposed number. But with all respect, it seems to us that it would be no easier to find out exactly how many
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.