Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/94

fight, and at any rate the defeat suffered by the Chinese squadron on that occasion cannot be classed among the fiascos of the war, nor can it be said to have reflected any dishonour upon the vanquished. It was on shore that the troops of the Middle Kingdom showed incapacity, and on shore they were even better armed than the men at whose hands they suffered such disastrous defeats. It does not seem reasonable, therefore, to attribute their weakness in battle to the influence of corruption.

Nepotism is another often-repeated explanation. The units of each corps are taken, it is said, from one family or one clan. They are thus without territorial ties. Patriotism is not an effective motive of their actions. They will not be disciplined by men of another clan, and they are unsuited to form parts of a national organisation. But whatever force such a criticism may have in the case of the Chinese themselves, it certainly cannot apply to the Manchus or the Mongols. Theirs being essentially a national army, ought to be conspicuously free from the defects here enumerated. Further, if such defects exist now, it would seem that they ought to have existed still more powerfully in former times, when steamers, telegraphs, and newspapers had not yet brought the various sections of the Empire into moral contact and taught them to take a common survey of foreign politics. Here it is apposite to quote some of the statements made by British