This completes the survey of the American inland water fleet in China. No attempt is being made to disparage the service which all of these good ships have rendered in the past or which they would render in time of need so far as their material disabilities permitted. Their fighting equipment is in all eases the best they are capable of carrying and is probably all that any emergency in China would de mand. Gunboats are not kept in China, to fight one another and certainly not to check the Chinese Navy. They are not fighting machines in the sense which the great seagoing units of the various navies are. They are simply patrol boats designed to protect foreign shipping, life and property in emergencies. Having this single purpose in mind, it is obvious that river gunboats should be above all things mobile and swift. They should be designed with proper draft so as to have the greatest possible cruising range at all seasons and should have speed enough to fight all currents and to respond to an eniergency call in the shortest possible time. Leaving the age of many of the American boats entirely out of the question, it will be apparent to any one who has read through the list that mobility and speed are the two characteristics in which most of the American river gunboats are most conspicuously wanting. Tt is this consideration which is agitating the mind of the American resident in China in this season of change and possible turmoil.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.