Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/34

14 why we should not work in harmony, as the French cannot dispense with our services in commerce, unless indeed, they foster a more intimate relationship with our German rivals. On the other hand, the Germans have every reason to encourage French colonial expansion as a factor not to be under-estimated in securing peace on their European borders. It is a sort of bloodletting of the military power of the latter, by which war fever is allayed and forces are spread over an extremely wide and unhealthy area.

Regarding the modern movement of China which had for its object the defence of the Empire, one of the most daring departures from her conventional and time-honoured institutions was promoted by the Viceroy of Hupeh and Yunan, Ching-Chi-tung, already noticed, by the erection, at a cost of about six million dollars, of rolling mills and arsenals at Hanyang. The plant covered seventy acres, and had its railroad, half a mile in length, from the Yangtize Kiang to the works. The arsenal was destroyed by fire soon after its completion, and finally the effort of this Chinese patriot had to be abandoned. He proposed not only to supply the Government with abundant, up-to-date munitions of war, manufactured by natives alone, but to produce the plant, steel rails included, and to build a trunk line from Hankow to Peking. The scheme proved a ruinous failure as had been predicted, Ching-Chi-tung having determined to dispense with the help of European experts and workmen, his own object being to prove, once and for all, that China, alone and unaided could supply herself with all that was requisite to sustain her position as the paramount power in the Far East. The money required for this disastrous venture came from the private purse of Ching-Chi-tung, how he came to be possessed of such vast resources has not been revealed. His