Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/339

 This arsenal, built as I have said, under the auspices of Li- hung-chang, was the first of its kind in China, and is conducted on the most advanced scientific principles under the superinten- dence of Dr. Macartney, now Sir H. Macartney. It is, indeed, a startling innovation on the old style of things. If the Chinese first taught us the use of guns (They are said to have employed them in 1232 at the siege of Khai-fung-fu), we are certainly repaying the obligation [with interest by instructing them how our deadliest weapons are to be made. In this arsenal some hundreds of tonsTJof guns and ammunition are manufactured every year, and I have no doubt its products have already proved of service in the suppression of the Mahometan outbreak in the provinces of Kiangsu and Shensi. Here the Chinese can turn out heavy guns for battery-trains, or field-artillery, howitzers, gatling-guns, torpedoes, rockets, shot, shell, cartridges and caps. The rocket factory stands on an open plot of ground some distance from the main building, and [this place is appropriated to the filling of rockets and shells with their explosive contents. With respect to these arsenals and their high state of efficiency, I have one further remark to offer — and that is, that were the strict foreign management under which they^^have matured to be withdrawn, they could not be carried on so as to be of the slightest effectual service. Probably the same amount of money would be spent on their maintenance, but it would be subjected to a process of official filtration which would admit of nothing more than the purchase of inferior materials and the employment of underpaid labourers. An experiment of this sort was once tried, to humour an officer who boasted himself able to produce everything in the shape of modern warlike inventions as perfectly as any foreigner in the Empire. But the attempt was not repeated, as the shells he manufactured turned out much more