t one new concession
must, on any pretence whatever, ever again be granted to a foreigner.
And if this Western civilisation is to be forced upon the Chinese,
they intend to take it with all its attendant precautions. They are
naturally a peaceful and unaggressive people, but they have grasped
the fact that, as a strong man armed is in the best position to
safeguard his house, however peaceful his individual proclivities may
be, so too, if a nation is to defend its territory and its territorial
wealth against spoliation, it must be armed for that purpose.

For many years past Great Britain and France and other countries have
been sending missionaries to China to expound to the Chinese people
those sublime doctrines enunciated in the Sermon on the Mount. The
Chinese have diagnosed, from the acts of the European Powers generally
as well as from the actions of individual Europeans resident in China,
the precise value to be attached to Christianity. For purely defensive
purposes China will have almost immediately an Army which has been
effectively described by the _Times_ correspondent as being able to
relieve the European Powers of any anxiety respecting the integrity of
the Chinese Empire. People who have not visited the Far East, and who
entirely derive their opinions and information in regard thereto from
the newspapers, cannot possibly realise what effect the policy of the
European Powers has had upon nations like China and Japan. A
professedly Christian country like Great Britain going to war to force
the sale of opium on a people who did not want to be debauched; a
power like Germany annexing Kiaochao as a golgotha for two murdered
priests--proceedings such as these, and there have been many such
during the last forty or fifty years, have been taken seriously to
heart by the Far Eastern races, whether in China or Japan. All the
time the Occidental Powers, with a total lack of any sense of humour,
have persisted in sending missionaries to these people to inculcate
doctrines which are the very antitheses of the practices of European
nations to these people whom it is sought to convert. It would be, in
my opinion, nothing more than the outcome of eternal justice if this
great big, old, sleepy China, which has been for so many years pricked
and prodded and despoiled, were at length to take up arms for a great
revenge. But China, if my prevision be correct, is going to do nothing
of the kind. What she does mean to do is si