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CHIU LING-YEONG
useless against a foe unless they are worked and guarded with intelligence, precision and judgment. Fast sailing cruisers, powerful ironclads and swift torpedo-boats are excellent weapons of defence as well as offence, but they are only tools and demand much skill, bravery, knowledge and experience in their handling. In the hands of the uninitiated and ignorant, they are clumsy and expensive toys fit only to be sunk or captured by an enemy after a brief resistance. Where will China find all the hands for her navy without going abroad for them? I am aware that the present order of things is to hire foreign instructors and establish naval schools. Indeed, the Naval College at Foochow was established many years ago, and has from time to time turned out a large number of students, and, I will add, some promising ones too. But were all the students treated properly and all promises made them kept? Were their salaries liberal, and were they punctually paid; and did their salaries suffer much diminution or become beautifully less ere they reached the several recipients' pockets? When the students were qualified, did they get all they deserved, or what had been promised to them? Were they not put under the same official despotism as the other ordinary officers? Have they not been placed absolutely at the command of and obliged to take directions from ignorant officers who have never been to sea and whose only merit consists in being high mandarins or the relations of such? Have there not been cases of desertion on account of bad treatment received, and have there been no frequent and loud complaints? Here more than anywhere internal reforms are required to induce promising young men to devote their time to necessary courses of study and training, and, when qualified, to risk their lives and all in the loyal defence of their dear country upon the raging billows. Get an efficient navy by all means, but before all get reform. Take timely warning by the naval encounter at Foochow, where so many of China's ships of war, though outnumbering the French fleet and carrying heavy ordinance, were sunk within the space of barely half an hour. Such a record should make a nation weep and repent in sackcloth and ashes.