omitted to have set down in black and white the effective strengths of these two branches. Taking advantage of this error, Norway transfers as many troops as she chooses to that branch which is kept at home; and this is the more easily achieved, as on matters of military organization a Parliamentary resolution has no need of the royal

assent.

And twenty years later, the Radical Doctor Sigurd Ibsen declared himself in the same sense:

To my mind the proposed amendment of

Clause 25 is the logical outcome of our Should the proposed Joint Foreign Sweden be made equals as regards the conclaim for equal rights: if Norway and Office come into being, all these re-trol of foreign policy, it is just that the strictions must go by the board. When military responsibility be made equal too. Sweden alone directed both countries' foreign policy, there was, perhaps, Now, the Norwegian method of some excuse for them. With a divided manipulating the clause forbidding the responsibility, the reasons for such re-employment of the Landvärn beyond strictions cease; and the restrictions the Norwegian frontier, makes its rewill cease with them. The Swedish peal imperative. For, be it noted, that Parliament will have no right to de- when we sanctioned that clause, the bate the question whether such and Landvärn was something quite other such troops shall be garrisoned here than what it is. It was then no part of or garrisoned there; and, on the basis the regular army; it was simply a reof equality which Norway claims, the serve of nine thousand men as against Norwegian title lapses too. Neither twenty-three thousand troops of the will the Norwegian Parliament decide Line. So things stood in '14, when the what proportion of Norwegian troops Treaty of Union was drafted. But, by shall be detailed to execute the opera-'44, these proportions had been so tions which a joint foreign policy may altered that the Joint Commission necessitate. If Sweden acknowledge charged with the drafting of a new Act Norway's right to share in the direc- of Union, described the Landvärn as tion of the foreign policy of the Union," perhaps the most important branch Norway, on her side, must acknowledge of the Norwegian forces." And, her obligation to contribute to the execution of that policy. And the stipulation must be drawn in terms so definite as to make it impossible for her to evade her responsibilities.

So obvious is the justice of the Swedish claim, that even Norwegian politicians have frankly admitted it. The Conservative Professor Aschehoug spoke as follows in the Norwegian Parliament in '71 : —

thanks to the recent re-organization under the Army Act of '85, the description is truer now than it was before. By the new law, the effective force is classified under three heads - Regu lars, Landvärn, and Reserves; and there is a further sub-division into thirteen groups, according to age. Five of these groups are included among the Regulars, whose strength must not exceed eighteen thousand men, save by special grace of the Norwegian ParliaAll rights or privileges entail correspond-ment; the remaining eight are divided ing duties. Should a new Act of Union equally between the Landrärn aud concede to us a share in the direction of the Reserves; so that the Norwegian foreign politics, we must be ready to incur the specific obligation of contributing towards the expense of executing the policy of the Joint Council. Privilege and duty are so intimately connected that their separation is impossible. And in this question of Joint Defence, I am convinced that we shall never acquire at least, by con

troops available for the defence of the Union, as compared with those available for home service only, are in a ratio of five to eight! And, in truth, the disparity is even greater; for the law of '85 reduced the length of service of the Regulars and extended the term

From Blackwood's Magazine. CHINA'S EXTREMITY.

for the first division of the Landvärn, so that the proportion is as thirtyseven to sixty-three. And the thing (FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN CHINA.) works out thus. By the Act of Union TIENTSIN, January 25. one-fourth of the Norwegian force was HER best friends would fain look for to be employed solely for home ser- radical reforms in China as the result vice; in '94 the proportion of Norwe- of her present tribulation. Such exgians escaping the duty of defence is pectations have been formed after almost two-thirds. Further, by the every exposure of her incapacity for treaty of '14, twenty-three thousand self-defence which has occurred during Norwegians were available for de- the last half-century. But they have fence. Since then, the population has been disappointed, as they are not unmore than doubled; but the num-likely to be once more. The principle ber of men effective for this purpose of regeneration seems wanting in the has fallen to eighteen thousand. As Chinese; possibly the nation is overfor the Norwegian fleet, the sovereign grown, and wants adequate vitality in has unrestricted power over it. Conse-its nervous centres. quently, it has been so starved, that it Other countries, it is argued, have. can scarcely count an efficient ironclad. emerged from as deep abysses as that Before the suggested transfer of for- in which China is now engulfed. The eign affairs can take place, it is our abasement of Prussia, for example, imperative duty to insist that the Nor- under the Napoleonic scourge may be wegian obligations as regards the de- pointed to as a degradation which fence of the Union be set forth in worked its own cure, for the whip of terms so definite as to end all shuffling. the conqueror in that instance did That these terms will be unacceptable rouse the spirit of the people. But the to Norway is likely enough. But with case is not parallel with that of China, Norwegian wishes the Swedes have no and the apparent similarity of the two immediate concern. The first duty of situations is deceptive. Two subthe Swedish government is to foster stances may look much alike, and yet the interests of the Swedish people. give very different chemical reactions. Equality of rights implies an equality So with men. You must look behind of duties. Sweden is asked to share the visible to the invisible which aniher privilege of exclusive diplomatic mates it before drawing valid comparpredominance with a nation whose con-isons.

ception of reciprocal duty is — as we Between the condition of China and have seen of a somewhat primitive that of Germany in the Napoleonic kind. Did she consent to this, without era, the radical difference seems to be, assuring herself a corresponding in- that the Western country really was crease of defensive strength, her neg-degraded, had fallen from a higher to a ligence would amount to a national crime. In view of the nature of the Norwegian Constitution, in view of the political tendencies of the Norwegian people, she owes it to herself to exact the guarantees herein set down. The Union was founded to protect the interests and the honor of the land; and we are determined that by no manipulation shall the Union be made the instrument of its ruin.

A SWEDISH M.P.

lower state, and might therefore recover itself, while the Eastern has not been degraded at all in any proper sense of the word. She has not fallen, but has only been discovered and found out in the state in which she has ever been. With China, therefore, recovery would be a miraculous birth, lifting her to a plane of existence never before touched.

The diversities between the Chinese and other races, though proverbial, need to be insisted on if we would avoid erroneous conclusions from false analogies; and it is highly important,

in the present critical situation of middle; and again an illusory concord eastern Asia, that Great Britain, at all of mental processes at the surface. events, should avoid fallacious infer- Through the refractions of this upper ences from the disclosures that are medium, we are apt to be led astray in taking place. Doubtless underneath all our attempts to follow the operations of diversities lies the bed-rock of common the Chinese mind; for as soon as we humanity, the sensations of hunger travel beyond the well-mapped province and thirst, and the passions of love and of simple commerce, we begin to mishate. Above these diversities, again, take Cape Flyaway for solid land. there is a region of superficial likeness Using the reasons and deductions between the Chinese and ourselves; stamped with the hall-mark of Chrisfor, when we get to reading the same tendom as if they were current coin books and talking the same language, also in the Chinese mart, is like it is difficult to realize the gulf that ploughing the sand. This is by no may still separate the Chinese mind means an academical, but an eminently from our own. A Europeanized sec- practical thesis; for from our fallaretary of legation, or naval officer, or cious appreciations proceed our fatuous raw student, or what you will, may dealings with the Chinese outside of descant on the corruption and impo- the commercial sphere our Tibetan tence of China more unsparingly, and Burmese farces, our opium conperhaps, than the harshest of foreign critics. A score or two of this sort, one is apt to say, would surely reform the empire. Yet among their native surroundings these prophets of altruistic purity usually drop the lip-born virtues as easily as one slips off a cloak, and opportunity only is needed to prove their kinship with the unregenerate.

ventions, and the rest of our sterile attempts to conciliate, by sacrifice, a people and government who are moved by our caresses no more than the dean and chapter of St. Paul's would be moved by scratching the dome of the cathedral. Conciliation is no doubt good if gone about on a basis of fact, but the method of Great Britain These superficial strata of conscious- towards China has been both expenness furnish a medium which serves sive and destructive of the very end in the purposes of business intercourse, view. And if the British government, though it does not carry us beyond the misled, it may be, by people having a merest commonplaces of social rela-personal interest in feeding the fallacy tions. When we dip into the middle-although it had its own qualified strata, we are met by contradictions of agents on the spot to tell the truth thought and of feeling which defy when required could be so far deaccommodation. The duties, the aims, ceived as to the character of the gov and the pleasures of life, the bonds ernment of China, it is small blame to which bind men together, and the the general public if they also have forces which drive them apart, all failed to make a juster appreciation. assume a complexion so different that we cannot longer reason from the one to the other as if they were things of generic identity. As far as the east is distant from the west are the mental springs of the Eastern divided from those of the Western peoples.

--

Without further preamble, then the world has been looking on for the last nine months at the strangest thing it has seen for many centuries, perhaps indeed the most notable thing that has ever been seen in the Eastern hemisphere. It is not only that one part of These fanciful mental compartments the great East has risen in arms against may serve to suggest a possible recon- another, for that has frequently hapciliation between apparently opposite pened; but it is a nation new-born, views of Chinese character as seen which, though the farthest east-so through European spectacles. Prim- far east, indeed, as to approach the itive humanity uniting us all at the meridian of the extreme west — has bottom; an impassable chasm in the equipped itself cap-à-pie in the whole

The causes of the military collapse of China are many. The system of administration is like a ship with a hundred leaks, any one of which is sufficient to sink her. Whether the men under a different system could be formed into an army fit to cope with a serious enemy is a matter of speculation. For the present it is the men under existing conditions that claim our attention.

armor of the West, which has risen on their retreat with exaggerated terror the grand Rip van Winkle of nations, of the enemy; and resistance practiand has not only conquered but routed cally was at an end. it, and walked over one of its proviuces, like a sportsman among the September turnips. From all the accounts that have come to hand, it appears that, with the exception of the naval battle off the Yalu, and the stubborn stand made by General Tso pu Kwei at Ping Yang, there has been no real fighting. The campaign has been a series of autumn manoeuvres, in which the obstacles were standing crops, indifferent roads, and slow transport. One epithet describes not only the The Chinese troops which have been military, but every other State departmassed at various points have with ment in China: it is "make-believe." the exception of General Tso's Mo- No matter how excellent any system hammedans and part of the force under may be in theory, it would break down General Sung-fired a few random in practice under this fatal qualification shots and "skedaddled" along pre-as soon as it came into collision with arranged routes. The men have thereupon made the best of their retreat, helping themselves as they went along to the necessaries of life, and the more evil-disposed among them falling into violence and outrage. Many have no doubt strayed off and taken to brigandage, some have returned with spoils to their homes, and perhaps the better Thus, when we speak of numbers, half have rallied round their leader, there is no possibility of ascertaining ready to repeat the same formalities a them. Nobody knows, and nobody hundred miles nearer home. Eye- immediately concerned cares to know, witnesses declare there has been-as how many troops are here, there, or there always is much exaggeration anywhere. In making up estimates, in the popular apprehension of the outrages of the beaten soldiers, and that wherever the men received reasonable hospitality, and were enabled to satisfy their hunger as they passed, the villages had little to complain of in the way of violence.

anything that tested it. In war, the Chinese are in the wooden-gun-andpainted-tiger stage, illusion pervades everything, and there is a general tacit acquiescence in deception. This base coinage serves internal needs, since it passes current in the country, but for external use it is naught.

the total number ordered, or authorized, is reckoned as already with the colors, even though not a single recruit may have gone through the goose-step. It is the same with arms. The order is deemed equivalent to the execution in any returns that may be called for. In the beginning there may have Armies are in this manner conventionbeen some hope that by masses and ally represented as already in the field, sheer doggedness the Chinese might at specified points, fully equipped, make some stand against their invad- which have not, in fact, passed into ers. But when, at the very first en- the paper stage of existence. The emcounter, it was proved to them that peror and his court, the men who may with their defective arms, their loose be considered the authorities of China, discipline, and antiquated organization are firmly persuaded that there are they had no chance whatever, the two hundred and fifty thousand men Chinese forces thenceforward aban- now under arms in northern China, doned all idea of fighting. Fugitives and Wu Ta-chêng, the imperial comwith their backs full of bullet-holes missioner for the defence of Shanimpressed all the troops they met in hai-kwan, and Liu Kun-yi, lately

appointed to the supreme command of | hemisphere stand out like a rock as the forces, both of them civilians with- falsehood or rank perjury, is in China out any military training whatever, are covered by the tide of the prevailing said to be perfectly confident of their morality. Deceit itself ceases to depower to repel any Japanese attack. ceive in such surroundings. Thus the confidence of the government is built up on transparently fictitious grounds. There is no conscious fraud in this. It is but the mental habit of a people who use facts and numbers in a more or less abstract sense, always excepting when they relate to the one subject on which the Chinese compass-needle never deviates, money. And it is the paramount authority of money that perverts Chinese executive methods, so that the service of the State is wholly subordinated to the personal profit of the officials.

Obviously these loose mental habits of the nation admirably subserve the private schemes of officials, which are anything but loose. That nebulous region of numbers is their richest pasture-ground. No device could be more seductive than the faculty of drawing pay for non-existent troops, nor could there be imagined a more convenient stepping-stone to extended and comprehensive frauds on the Statefrauds which must be tolerated because every one who could criticise is himself in need of toleration, and there is none to raise the hue and cry. Let us imagine a commander intrusted with funds to raise one thousand men. He does not in his own mind contemplate more than five hundred, and perhaps has not got beyond one hundred when he begins drawing funds for arms for his full complement. As nobody is looking on whom any one cares for, the general, if an economical man, will perhaps consider it a waste of good material to arm more than half the men who answer the roll-call. Of all the forces of Chinese in the field, it is, in fact, only a small proportion that are armed at all. And so the vista of temptation opens wider and wider in a system which is one gigantic makebelieve. The generals in the army and the officials in all other lucrative posts in the empire of course protect their good husbandry by liberal douceurs to their superiors, which secure them iu their posts, and consequently in their means of living and doing well by their families. Needless to say how perfectly the clan and family arrangements fit into these schemes of economy!

Almost everything connected with public affairs is made up of a reality and a fiction, and is understood so to be. This duality seems to belong to the mental structure of the people, so that it is customary to make use of the fiction to save the truth for perhaps great occasions. The true reason is neither given nor expected to be given even for the simplest thing; and when the right thing is done, it is usually on false grounds. An official, for example, may be condemned deservedly, but it is ten to one that he is not guilty of the charges actually preferred against him. The natural instinct of the race prompts them to this peculiar form of economy of truth. An English missionary doctor who had a very small and inconvenient hospital, into which Chinese stragglers were crowding while he was attending to the patients, told his attendant to clear them out, and he did so. But the man explained to them that they had all sorts of infectious diseases there, which some of them would be sure to catch, then there would be great trouble, and It is, then, under this system that "who would be responsible ? ' So, thousands of troops have been hurried exhorting the crowd, he hustled them to the front not, however, above gently to the door. To lay falsehood one-third of the official numbersto the charge of the Chinese on ac- without any drill, great numbers withcount of this peculiarity would be as out arms of any kind, a small percentinept as to charge a butterfly with age armed with rifles, the rest with frivolity. What would in another spears and extemporized weapons. A