service afloat only begins at fourteen to fifteen. Why then put the Britannia in competition with our admirable public schools? Why shorten the term of liberal education? Why make a boy vain with his uniform and his pretended command before he is fifteen years of age? Again, if this early entry be requisite for the young officer, it should be equally necessary for the young seamen of our fleet, whose education and training are the most successful of any body of men in the service of the Crown. Yet, what happens with them? Why, the early entry is so thoroughly ignored, that they only appear on board a harbour ship at the average age of fifteen years and six months, coming straight from their village school, in their brown jacket and corduroy trousers; and they are not transferred to the ships of the Fleet and to the life which has 'peculiar habits, unavoidable privations, and occasional hardships,' till they are nearer seventeen than sixteen years of age.

English naval officers are therefore held to be so peculiar a body that they are to be treated differently in this respect, not only from all others, north and south, east and west, but also from the very men they have to command; and, at what cost is to be seen when telling up the number of rising public men of the naval profession. Professor Main, looking back over an intimate acquaintance with the Navy of more than thirty years, says that in his opinion, in the higher branches of the service, we have more educated, thoughtful, and intelligent men than we shall have among those who are coming on now; although he is also of opinion that no men in the world work harder than naval officers when they have an object in view.'

I cannot conclude without giving an opinion as to what course should be pursued to improve the state of

things which I have been lamenting. I have explained that the Britannia usurps the place of a public school, and, that his service afloat as midshipman wastes the time and pains of a young officer, and passes like an uneasy dream, while it secures no definite instruction. But, if the special training of the naval officer were quite separated from his early education, then that education could be continued at the ordinary schools of the country, till the average of fifteen years of age. He would then enter the Naval College with some of the self-reliance of the public schoolboy, with some of the liberal feelings towards other professions which we naval officers are said to lack, and with a stronger individuality than can be the rule with those who, from twelve or thirteen, have lived a life of close companionship, with but one set of boys or

men.

Let him then begin his special training for the Navy at fifteen. He will take it up with greater zest than if he had already been three years at a special school. He should now begin to learn methodically all those parts of a seaman's work, and of an officer's duties, which are at present supposed to be attained, in some unseen and certainly mysterious manner, of which no one can explain the how, the when, or the where. He will, at the same time, continue his studies of mathematics and other subjects, giving more time to these in winter, and devoting three or four months of summer to trips in small school vessels at sea. If he passes two years in these studies and practices, he will reach an average age of seventeen. Now let him be sent to sea in a frigate for the best part of a year, and having already learnt to do a seaman's work with his own hands, let him be taught an officer's duties, and given an officer's responsibilities, under the guidance and

correction of experienced captains and commanders. Will he now want docility? will he fail in being able to encounter the privations of a sea life, or will he feel no vocation for the profession whose period of tutelage is past, for which he has been intelligently trained, and which opens for him a career full of interest, and not without adventure? I am convinced that it will not be so; and I believe that such a training will prepare him, not only to master the difficulties and dangers of a sea life, but also to appreciate the beauties of nature, to comprehend the laws which rule the phenomena which he daily witnesses, and which are now too often a sealed book to our young officers, to profit by the visits to foreign countries, and opportunities for the acquisition of foreign languages, and turn to account the incidents of daily life which now pass unnoticed and are little understood by him.

Sir James Graham once expressed his admiration for the naval character. He described it as the noblest this country could produce, and said that he could scarcely speak of it in terms too strong. The charge of maintaining such a character is

committed, no less to the naval service, than to the country of which it forms a part; and, whether in peace or war, we are bound to hand down to our successors an unimpaired reputation for skill in the conduct of our fleets, as well as for the maintenance of intelligent discipline in their personnel.

The Navy of England is her first and second line of defence, the guardian of her commerce, and her only means of carrying war into an enemy's country. I therefore conclude with questions which concern every British householder, and which the country would do well to examine. Has the training of our naval officers progressed, in proportion to the advance which has been made in the art of war, or to the increased spread of general knowledge, or even to the great stride which is perceptible in the intelligence of our seamen? And is the present training of our officers calculated to produce commanders of fleets and vessels, who shall carry future naval operations to a triumphant issue? The answer must be in the negative.

JAMES G. GOODENOUGH,
Captain Royal Navy.

IN

N our last article we were led by the papers analysed to a consideration of some of the leading facts connected with the labours of missionaries in China. Of the bad impression made upon the minds of the Chinese-the educated and the ignorant alike-we had abundant evidence. How has this come to pass? and what is the true explanation of a result so opposed to all our ideas of what should be the natural influence of the creed and the doctrines of Christianity? Is it in the people worked upon-or their rulers more especially-the form in which the creed is presented-or the mode in which the teachers prosecute their labours under foreign protection for the conversion of the heathen-that we are to seek for an explanation of effects so contrary to our best hopes and their desires? We think it is scarcely possible to have read the various utterances of statesmen, high functionaries, literati, and gentry, plainly reflected in the placards of the populace and the deeds of violence lately enacted at Tientsin and elsewhere, without such questions arising. They are for so far without a satisfactory answer, nothing proceeding either from missionary or politician having hitherto thrown much light upon this 'religious difficulty-quite as disturbing in its effects in the far East as in the West.

It has lately been suggested by a portion of the newspaper press on this side of the globe that the missionary question is less important than it seems.' We believe the exact reverse of this is nearer the truth, and that neither writers nor the public in England have fully understood its significance. The ever widening and deepening influence it exercises on all our rela

tions with China, is certainly not appreciated. It has proved a stumbling block to all who have sought to advance the work of progress in other directions, and a rock of offence to all the Chinese Mandarins who have struck their foot against it. Tseng-Kwo-fan, one of the most influential of the Viceroys of China, if he has not wrecked his fortunes in the affair of Tientsin, came out of it with grievous damage;-and the latest event in this series, the assassination of Ma, his successor in the government at Nanking, which was popularly attributed to his action in the matter of missionary troubles there, has introduced a new element of evil augury into Chinese history. The Chinese mob have from old time been accustomed to rise in insurrection upon their rulers, and slay or rend them in pieces; but the dagger or sword in the hand of an individual assassin was hitherto unheard of. A fan, a pencil, and a tobacco-pipe are as a rule the most dangerous weapons ever carried by Chinese when not actually in the field. Ma, the victim in this case, in the plenitude of his authority as Governor-General of the two provinces, may have anticipated insurrection or disgrace as among the contingencies attaching to his high position; but we will venture to affirm that, among all the possible chances and dangers of his career as a Chinese functionary on the highest rung of the official ladder, it never entered into his imagination that he might be stabbed in open day by a single assailant. Yet so it was. While passing in state through the gateway leading to his yamên after presiding over the military exercises, and in the midst of his attendants, he was struck down by an assassin. Whatever may have been the motive of his assailant, it

is certain that the popular mind attributed his immolation to a righteous anger on the part of the literati and people for his repressive action when they threatened another missionary outbreak, in sequence to the massacre at Tientsin and of like kind.

The State papers we have to deal with in this concluding series refer chiefly to other matters more directly connected with political relations, and giving the views of the leading provincial authorities on the projected revision of the Treaty of Tientsin,-and the changes it was incumbent on the Chinese Government to demand on their own side or to resist if proposed on ours. In these the missionary question forms only one of several subjects held to deserve serious consideration, in relation to the interests of China and the exigencies of Foreign Powers. These papers are the more interesting as the writers travel over the whole ground of their foreign relations, and we thus get the opinion of some of the higher functionaries as to the policy it behoves China to adopt under existing circumstances, and some insight into that which they would adopt, if left to themselves.

When the question of a revision of the Treaty of Tientsin first arose, some three years ago, the Foreign Board at Peking, it appears, sent a circular of a confidential character to all the GovernorGenerals of Provinces, directing them to communicate, for the information of the Emperor, their views on the modifications, if any, which they deemed necessary or expedient in the foreign relations of China, and more especially in the Treaty between China and Great Britain. This elicited from the high officers in the several provinces confidential reports in reply, which, so far as we know, have never been published by the Chinese Government, even in abstract, either in the

Peking Gazette or by any other channels. One of these reportsthat from Tseng-Kwo-fan, at the time Governor-General of the two Kiang-was apparently obtained in some indirect way from Nanking, and a translation appeared in the columns of the local press at Shanghai. The very fact that such a document had got into foreign hands, was supposed to throw a doubt on its authenticity; but there appears sufficient internal evidence to justify reliance upon the genuine character of the document. Most of the high officials, it is true, succeeded better in keeping their reports secret-but much, nevertheless, leaked out through the yamêns, and the contents were pretty well known in the course of a few months, though received in a more or less fragmentary form. Judging from what we now know on this subject (after it has been sifted and studied by those who are in the best position to form an opinion), it may be doubted whether the Chinese Government had anything to fear from the publication of the papers in extenso. It might, on the contrary, have been the best, as well as a bolder policy, to have allowed Merchants and Missionaries, no less than Foreign Governments, to see what the highest placed officials of the Empire really thought of the situation and the sweeping changes urged by foreign communities. A good deal of misapprehension on this head might, by such a course, have been removed, and many dangerous illusions effectually destroyed. We quite agree with a local print, that We really do want authentic details regarding the feelings and opinions of our opponents. . . There are weapons used against us secretly, and we want to know exactly what they are, before we prepare to meet them.' So also, we think, while we are criticising the action of the Chinese Govern

6

ment, it would be well to bear in mind the attitude taken by men like Shun-chun-Wang, commonly called the Seventh Prince (a younger brother of the Prince of Kung), Wo, and others of the same party. They are of the old anti-foreign school of politicians, who believe with Yeh, of Canton memory, that to admit foreigners into the ports was 'like keeping a tiger in one's verandah,' and that every patriot or true Chinese was bound to bring back, if possible, the past days of exclusiveness and isolation. Nor can it be denied, we fear, that if foreigners are not anxious to play the tiger themselves wherever they obtain a footing, the foreign communities in China are very reckless in opening the doors to other wild beasts, in the shape of rebels and revolutionists.

When people talk of 'doing good to China, it is obvious that the phrase is open to very diverse interpretations. Foreign residents at Hong Kong and the Ports mostly mean doing good for themselves primarily. They may believe that the development of the country, which they seek to hasten, will also be good to the natives;-but between the measures desired and the end contemplated- -a regenerated China with rail-roads, telegraphic lines, and reformed administration, with foreign agencies everywhere in full operation, developing the resources of the country, working their mines, introducing machinery wherever it can be profitably employed, and superseding generally all native means of transport and navigation in the interior, there lies a revolution. A yawning gulf, that is, of untried depth and width, to be bridged over by a transition stage, of the nature of which no one, Chinese or foreigner, can speak with either confidence or authority. There may be enterprising Americans, 'capable British merchants,' or Communistic French

men, who see no difficulties in the way of a complete transformation of both soil and people in a few years by means of foreign skill and capital. But Chinese statesmen can hardly be blamed if they have not the same robust faith-and, doubtful of the end, are profoundly averse to any joint-stock company proposals for revolutionising their country and enriching the projectors.

What missionaries mean by 'doing good to China,' bears, of course, a very different signification. With them no doubt it means 'the pure desire to benefit the Chinese, morally and physically, by giving them a new faith and better religious influences.' But it is quite clear that the two designs, however philanthropic both may be at bottom, do not work well together, and by no means go hand in hand. The material changes brought about more or less rapidly by Commerce must precede and lead the way. The missionary work, if pushed on in advance, will speedily block up the road and render progress impossible for either. All past experience demonstrates this plainly. The latter course has been taken, chiefly under Roman Catholic guidance. The Romish missions have preceded Commerce in the interior. They have been put in the van under the flag of France; and perpetual conflict with both authorities and people has been the result. Political complications have followed religious difficulties, and the whole question of progress hangs now upon the possibility of removing the latter out of the field of contention. On the coast and at the Treaty Ports, on the contrary, trade opened the way, and keeps it free from all serious obstruction. The Tientsin massacre, and other scarce less grievous incidents of like character at a few points in the vicinity of the Ports, are but the reflex action