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would no longer be inadequate for the "requirements of the port so far as accommodation is conceined. Why then go to the expense of pulling down buildings that are adequate and erecting a new one?
GENERAL BLACK ON THE REFORM OF THE CHINESE ARMY,
(Daily Press, 7th November.) When General BLACK speaks he always has something interesting to say, and his speech at the China Association dinner to Sir CLAUDE MACDONALD was no exception to the rule. The gallant General responded to the toast of the Army, and in the course of his remarks said he had often regretted that we had not begun long ago to train John Chinaman to arms. If in the early sixties, he continued, we had raised two or three battalions they might by this time have become the nucleus of au
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JIFFAFONGFENG WIIFIY ITE§É AND
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[November 11, 1829.
relief and we are told that in the Central The development if the Boer plans shows Provinces the position is going from bad to Į that they must have been determined upon worse. The leave of officers whose services | tong ago and held in rendliness to be put are liable to be called into requisition ia into execution at the first moment that connection with relief work has been stop-might be deemed opportune. It is be ped and the cold weather military move coming increasingly evident that Mr. ments have been cancelled owing to the KRUGER never desired a peaceful settle- scarcity of fodder, from which it must be ment of the dispute, but that, as Mr. inferred that the Government takes a CHAMBERLAIN said in the House of Com- serious view of the position.
mons, the oligarchy at Pretorin, abetted by President STEYN, has consistently endea voured to undermine our paramountey. Mr. Chamberlain said he had striven to maintain peace with the utmost patience, buş finally came to the conclusion from events | and from the speeches of President KRUGER that war had always been inevitable. Cons- taut armaments, he continued, had made the Transvaal by far the strongest power in South Africa and ho believed the Empire had just escaped the greatest danger to which it had ever been exposed. The course of events is proving the correctness of that view. The military strength of the Transvaal is found to be far beyond what even outside estimates had placed it at, and there can be little doubt that if the country had been allowed continue in the course it was pursuing it would, the moment Great Britain was engaged in a dispute with any other Power, have seized the opportunity to unke an attempt to completely overthrow British sovereignty in South Africa.
these matters at the present moment, but.. in matters of clarity as well as in business affairs it is well to look a little ahead and to be prepared for impending demands.
THE TRANSVAAL WAR.
It is not unlikely, therefore, that before the winter is over we may be called upon to contribute to an Indian famine fund. And that is not the only heavy appeal that is likely to be made to the committnity. A fund has been opened by the Lord Mayor of London for the relief of the Transvaal refugees. Perhaps it may not be necessary to ask for colonial help in that matter, for if the war proves to be of short duration the refugees will soon be able to go back to their former positions, and the interval may he army, and he asserted, without fear of tided over with their own resources and contradiction, that a well disciplined army
the assistance that way he forthcoming was the school of national life; it was the locally and from London. It would not be only power that could regenerate China suprising however, if the ense necessitated a and infuse into that nerveless and turbid general appeal to the Empire. There is mass some of the military virtues and also another object to which all will wish patriotic spirit which was so lacking and to contribute, namely, the fund that without which, when nations were suffering will have to be raised for our wounded from land hunger, no State could ensure its soldiers and the families of those who lose independence. General BLACK does not
their lives in the campaign. It may per- tell us whether he thinks the battalionships scem a little premature to mention should have been raised on Chinese account or whether he thinks the experiment now being tried at Weihaiwei should have been entered upon in Hongkong at the period he mentions. We infer, however, that the latter was the idea he had in his mind. No doubt the existence of a few British Chinese battalions in Hongkong or Weihanwei would have some influence, by example, in improv- ing Chinese ideas of military organisation and discipline. Whether it is desirable that we should have Chinese Regiments in the British army is another question, but the British authorities seeni now to be almost unanimous in the opinion that the Chinaman can by training be made a good soldier. General BLACK's remark that a well disciplined army is the only power that can regenerate China goes to support Lord CHARLES BERESFORD's view that reform in China must cominence with the army. There are many, ourselves amongst the number, who have held that reform should commence with the finances, and it is cer tain that no thoroughly satisfactory_reform | of the army can take place unless the men are paid regularly and in full and the squeeze system entirely done away with. The two views, however, are not irrecon- cilable. The correct procedure would no doubt be to let the two reforms go hand in hand. An efficient army would enable the Government to enforce its fiunn ial decrees, and reform of the finance would provide the wherewithal to maintain the army.
THE INDIAN FAMINE.
(Daily Press, 7th November.} Reuter's telegrams have of late heen so monopolised with war news that there has apparently been no opportunity of inform ing us of the serious scarcity of food to which our Indian fellow subjects are beginning to be subjected. There was a general im- pression that the threatened famine was going to be much less serious than was at one time feared and that in fact the distress was not likely to become acute over any very wide areas. News received by the last mail, however, shows that the worst fears are being realised. Already there are - over a quarter of a million of people under
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COLONIAL ASSISTANCE IN TIMES OF WAR.
(Daily Press, 6th November.)
The auxieties of those responsible for the government of the Empire go far beyond the reach of the public eye. Reading bis (Daily Press, 8th October).
newspaper, with its news of the Transvaal There is a grim humour about the war, the ordinary reader is apt to forget telegram published to-day with its news of what the British Minister never can forget, the annexation of the Upper Tugela district that hardly less cause for vigilance in of Natal to the Orange Free State and the British interests exists in the affairs of issue of letters of maique by the Transvaal. Northern Africa, Asia Minor, the Persiau Light begins to be shed now upon the Gulf, and China. There rival jealousies reason for the Naval activity at home and are ever on the alert to take the fullest the convoying of the troopers by cruisers. advantage of our seeming preoccupation in The Government had presumably received | any one corner of our widely scattered information, or had anticipated for itself, | Empire. To-day we are concentrating this move of the enemy. The Upper 40,000 or 50,000 British troops drawn from Tugela District includes Colenso, Ladysmith, home and Indian quarters upon South and the territory to the North, the river African territory. That concentration has Tugela running castward scross Natal and its obvious perils, and may suggest to falling into the Indian Ocean some distance our rivals an opportunity for which they north of Durban, It appears to be part of only await the safe moment. Thanks to the Boer plan to try to reach the coast, thus our mastery of the seas, and the fact that the cutting Zululand off from Natal, securing a difficulties which we are now facing in South seaboard, and opening up a means of obtain-Africa leave our navy unhampered in the ing supplies from outside sources. It is defence of British interests elsewhere, we conceivable also that they may have received have no cause, as yet, for any pressing eroffs of assistance frisme unval Power | anxiety. But it is worth remembering that conditional upon their obtaining a seat- the years have brought a great change board, Without a port, too, the issue of letters of marque would not have much practical effect, as there would be no place to which prizes could be safely taken to be disposed of, for ueutral Powerscould | not admit them to their ports without sacri- ficing their neutrality and inviting res prisals. Even with a seaboard the Boers could not do much damage on the water, as the coast would be closely blockaded. The precautions taken by the Admiralty and the fact that the British men-of-war are closely watching the shipping at the Ca- naries show, however, that the Government does not regard the danger of privateering that can be lightly set aside, absurd as it as one seems that petty little inland state should enter on such a form of hostilities. Assuming that privateers are actually fitted out it may, we think, be taken for granted that they will be treated as pirates when caught and will have thort shritt.
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in another vital respect, and brought also a great opportunity, ii British statesmen did but see it and seize it. The Empire is no longer a gossanier net of sentiment. The moment of peril to British interests in South Africa has brought offers of immediate and substantial military help from Canada, Australia, and elsewhere-from those homes of the British race where peace and pro- sperity have for basis the vital principle of those equal rights between white men of Ahatever race to secure which England is prepered to draw her sword, as she now is doing in South Africa,
These offers have been received with keen gratification in the mother-land, but also with something of a lofty indulgence in the whim of a good child; it is not admitted that this Colonial help is really needed or can be of great help in the task before us. But why? Will anyone say that Mister ATKINS is 80 vastly superior in such unconventional war,
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