As the Japanese nation has taught naval and military lesson to her grest Northern rival so the Japanese Steamer Company to this port oan teach in steamer; ent for, as things now the British and Chinese companies a lesson
are, the Japanese are the only steamers scheduled time, The rest running steamers, an: lers from the West, before leaving Obunging, are accustomed to time their arrival the day the Japanese steamer sails, knowing that it alone punctuality, and as regards the mails the feelings of the Ichang community are beyond. Five steamers will all leave Hankow within three days of, each other. Two of these will have letters and then in this low water season we must wait some ton days or a fortnight before getting news of the outer world. Surely the good management of the lower river be extended to the upper, and if three combined companies ran regularly, then with such a fleet as they united possess they would receive more cargo, more passengers, and the blessings of all the poor exiles west of Hankow.
Naval.
I would wish that the Lords of the Admiralty in London were readers of the "N.-C, Daily News" that they might see this protest from the Yangtze Vi against their withdrawal of our gunboats. A friend lately from Shanghai, in the thousand miles which intervene between Thong andthe coast, only meet the microscopic Snipe, which was lying at Hankow. We here are now without a British gunboat, while just lately each German in the port was Te, resented by gunboat. The British lion which once roared so loudly in the Yat ard. The very useful Yangtze dismantled in Hongkong.
Liang on his rounds it is no time for naval retirement. Admiral Fisher's battleships and first-class cruisers could be of little service in the inland waters of China, and it should be remem-dered that it was vessels of the now despised Algerine type that did all the work in the past at Taku.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.