THE CHINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1894— 95-536 suffering, and under competent leadership will fight bravely. The troops who suppressed the Taipings in the 'sixties,under the leadership of Charles Gordon and other European officers gave ample proof of this. Even under their own mandarins, at the fight on the Peiho River,the Chinese had once, though once only, defeated a British force. These facts alone show that the fault is not in the mere human materialof the Chinese armies when they have suffered utter trained on a system that seemed to belong to the regions of comic opera. There were drill exercises, the object of w-hich was explained to be to teach the warrior to assume an attitude and expression calculated to affright his opponents. A regiment marshalled for battle showed almost as manybanner-bearers as armed men. Pikes and halberds,bows and arrows,longsmooth-bore muskets and modern breech-loading rifles were issued together from the arsenals. There was no pretence at a commissariatto feed the men, or a medical servicetocarefor the sick and wounded, and reserve ammunition trains were regarded as a useless incumbrance.

In time of peace the armywaschiefly a machine for enriching a number of officials. The men's pay either failed to reach them, or suffered such diminution on the way, that inorder to live the soldiers had to beg in the streets. Money supposed'to be expended on arms and equipments mostly remained in the mandarins' pockets. One method of economising upon it was to purchase sundry disaster. Gordon's exploits, and the attempts of other Europeans and Americans to organise and train Chinese troops on modern lines, gave rise to the opinion that China was on a fair -way to develop into a military, and perhaps a naval, Power in the Far East. The trained troopswere few,but it was thought they might become the model for others. Chinesestudentshad been sent toEurope to learn something of civilised methods of warfare. The would-be Bismarck of China, Li Hung Chang,hadbeen endeavouring to form a body ofdisciplined troops that would LI HUNG CHANG.

obsolete rifles second-hand in Europe for the army, and charge for them at the rate of the newest andbest weapons. Another large saving was annually effected by buying only a tithe of the ammunition supposed tobe sent into store or issued. It would be no wonder if an army thus organised and thus treated absolutely declined to fight. Theonly marvel is that it has so often madesomething like anattempt to fight.

There is, thanks to itslong record of defeat, a populardelusion that the Chinese army is made up of cowards. But although inChina, a land of many races, there are some which are scantilyendowed with warlike qualities, the average Chinaman has a curious contempt for deathand secure his own power. English naval officers had done something for the Chinese navy, and ironclads, cruisers, and torpedo boats, built in European dockyards, had replaced the war-junks of forty years ago, and fortresses armed with modern guns had been erected on the Chinese coasts. Optimists who did not look below the surface, who did not realise that every effort at reform had been strangled and stifled by ignorance and peculation,spoke of China as the leadingpower ofthe Far East, the possible power that withEngland as an ally might soon be seen checking the growing powerof Russia on the Pacific and in Eastern Asia.