Among the most important items of news received this week
is the account of the riot at Wei-hai-wei. We have been raising a Chinese regiment there, and on May 5th the temper of the men was tried. The Chinese officials, who are, as usual, annoyed at the presence of the foreigner, which enables any specially marked man to escape their clutches, instigated a mob to make an attack on the Commission which is delimiting boundaries. So dangerous did the mob become that the new regiment was called out and the attack repulsed, with a loss to the assailants of thirty men killed on the spot. The Chinese soldiers behaved per- fectly, though they were firing on their own countrymen, and though their commanding officer, Major Penrose, was wounded. This means that an effective Chinese army could be formed, a fact of the gravest moment. if it were formed by the Imperial Government all Europeans alike would be held at arm's length, and this is perfectly possible. It is always assumed that the officers required must be Europeans ; but suppose they were Japanese or Ghoorkas, the latter of whom are reckoned by Pekin among her feudatories ? If, on the other hand, a European Power organised a Chinese army, she would have at her disposal a terribly massive instrument of conquest.
