except that they are pensioners and ride horses. Those who disbelieve in the courage of the Chinese say the Chinese never had any courage except of a passive order; that they would endure suffering against any race on earth, and that their whole history tells that tale; that they have been subject in turn to the Mongols, the Kins, and the Manchus; and that the period of the Ming dynasty when they were free, was only because the Mongols had reduced every nation within many thousands of miles to subjection, and then they themselves had fallen a prey, not to the Chinese arms directly, but to the enervating and destructive effects of Chinese civilisation which rendered them absolutely unable to fight.

Those who argue in this way point to that great feature of Chinese scenery, the fortified wall. That Great Wall of China, climbing hill and dale, was built to keep the northern and warlike tribes from harrying the peace-loving and industrious Chinaman. Behind that wall lie nothing but fortress after fortress; every city is walled, and those walls tell their own tale. A warlike race never dwells in walled cities. When the traveller enters Japan after visiting China, the first thing which strikes him is the absence of walled cities. The villages and towns lie along the roads as they do in our own country instead of clustering behind the tall and gloomy walls of China. Again, those who say the Chinese will never fight, point out that they have never been able to reduce two savage races right in their midst, the Maios and Lolos. One devoted missionary who had spent many years of his life in the thankless task of attempting to approach these savage Lolos, gave us an interesting account of the relation between the Lolos and the Chinese which certainly does not show that the Chinese have much military skill. The Lolos are a sort of Highland caterans who live in the mountains in the west of China, and from time to time raid the peace-loving Chinese villages. The Chinese then retaliate by organising a large force, who advance on the Lolo country and burn their villages. The Lolos rarely offer any direct resistance, as they realise they are hopelessly outnumbered, but take an opportunity to raid another village and to slaughter hundreds of defenceless Chinese. If the forces are anything like equal, the Lolos will fight, and even sometimes when the forces are wholly unequal. On one occasion seven Lolos and two women put to flight three hundred Chinese soldiers, killing forty and wounding many more. The Chinese consequently live in considerable fear of those Highland barbarians, whose fierce yells and savage onslaught produce absolute panic in their troops.

Officers who have commanded Chinese troops seem generally to believe in their capabilities. Gordon, for instance, spoke in the highest terms of the soldiers who formed his "ever victorious army," and the English officers who commanded the Weihaiwei regiment and those who commanded the Chinese volunteers at the siege of Peking spoke equally well of their men. It is reported that the Chinese soldiers at the siege of Tientsin would carry the wounded back out of the range of fire when no European soldiers could be found ready to perform this dangerous task, but of this story I could find no first-hand confirmation. But whether the Chinese in times to come will develop an efficient army or whether they do not, the most competent judges affirm that Chinese military greatness will always make for peace; that they will never wage a war of aggression; and that, so far from being a menace to the world, they will prove to be a security for the world's peace in the Far East. In fact it is the continuance of China's military weakness rather than the growth of her military power which is most likely to disturb the political atmosphere. China is far too rich a prize to be safe if unguarded, and the acquisition of her wealth will always prove a temptation to her needy neighbours.

The integrity of the Chinese empire is for many reasons a most desirable thing, and that integrity can best be maintained by an increase of China's military power.

One of the reasons why this is so much to be desired is from the commercial effect which China may have on the rest of the world. If the vast masses of her singularly excellent workmen are to be exploited by powers who have no thought for either hers or the world's welfare; if the sweated den of the alien is a menace to the healthy conditions of the working man in London; if the policy of such philanthropists as Lord Shaftesbury has been at all beneficial to the world at large, the sudden introduction of hundreds of thousands of ill-paid but efficient working men to the great Western market will have a deleterious effect on the social conditions of the civilised world. It is obviously far more simple to bring the factories to China than to bring the Chinaman to the factories, and this will be freely done if ever the flag of the foreigner waves over China. The great advantages that China can offer of cheap labour, cheap coal and cheap carriage, coupled with the security of a European flag, will have the effect of attracting to China a very large number of the world's industries. If this is done gradually, so that the internal market in China increases proportionally, this will not result in any evil to other nations. China will share in the wealth of the world, and will be at once a large producer and a large consumer; but if before Western civilisation has been assimilated by the working classes Western factories are extensively started in China the result will be one of those dislocations of social conditions which we include under the name of sweating.

Western conditions of labour in Western countries may be deemed by some to be hard, but no one can doubt that if Western conditions of labour were forced on a population which did not understand them, they would have a tendency to become definitely oppressive. The Chinese coolie will, I fear, be as little able to maintain his ground against the foreign contractor supported by the arms of a foreign power, as the Congo native is to maintain his rights against his Belgian oppressor; and unless Western powers have the humanity and wisdom to resist those of their own nations who will clamour to make money out of Chinese labour, Western dominance in China is not to be desired by Western wage-earners.

HANKOW, THE CHICAGO OF CHINA. RIVER AT LOW WATER, 600 MILES FROM THE SEA. HAN-YANG IRONWORKS

One of the most impressive sights in China is the Han-yang Ironworks. They employ three thousand men, and are owned by a body of Chinese capitalists. They have found it worth while to triple their plant within the last two or three years, and one can hardly wonder when one realises that, though the labourers are paid a very high rate according to Chinese scale, they only get sixpence a day, and even allowing that it requires three Chinamen to do the work of one Englishman, which is a higher proportion than is generally claimed, obviously there is a very large margin of profit to be made by the owners of the works. It is worthy of note that the Chinese have been unable at present to produce any native engineers; sixteen Europeans of various nationalities manage and control the works, though they are owned by Chinese, but the skilled work is all done by Chinese. For instance, we saw a man straightening the rails with a steam hammer; it was very skilled work, and I was told he was making 7d. or 8d. a day. If any social reformer, if any one interested in the