The Pekin correspondent of the Times is on a visit
to Hankow, and reports that the ridiculous clause in the Treaty forbidding the import of arms is producing the effect which we ventured to predict would follow. The Chinese, who can make anything they really care to have, are working strenuously in their arsenals manufacturing Manger rifles, quick-firing field guns, and immense stores of ammunition• The skilled Japanese whom they employ are doubtless aiding them, and it is reported that large contracts have been made With foreign firms, the weapons to be delivered, we presume, to any Power except China.. European manufacturers of arms require nothing except the illusory intervention of some neutral State, say Chili, and to watch such a Coast as that of China is practically impossible. When the next crisis arrives the Chinese will be found as well armed as ever, while their men will be better drilled, and their generals better selected. Moreover, the disappearance of their foolish idea that military service is discreditable to civilised men will greatly increase their readiness to take service, which in many provinces has been avoided, not through cowardice, but owing to the steady discouragement of the Court, which has been afraid of being governed by the generals. The great Mandarins now see that good soldiers are necessary to safety, and they will obtain them just as readily as they have obtained classical scholars. In that ocean of humanity every form of ability exists, only waiting for the prospect of good pay.
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