LOOKING FURTHER BACKWARD. Arthur Dudley Vinton

policy of non-intercourse with other nations. We became more and more an isolated people. But the present century (I speak now by your ancient method of computing by the Christian calendar) had not commenced, before our statesmen saw that so passive a policy as non-intercourse would not suffice. An era of propagandism seemed to have set in, and emissaries from the outside world managed in various disguises to enter the Celestial Kingdom and to preach the pernicious doctrines of Nationalism.

      It was then that our statesmen were convinced that sooner or later an appeal to arms would be necessary to preserve our own system of government, and it was then that China began to prepare for war. It was then that our Bureau of Foreign Intelligence was established, much on the same lines that it now follows; and then it was, that the system of compulsory mihtary service and training was required of every one of our citizens.

      The Chinese have ever been a conservative nation ; and on this occasion, knowing the immensity of the stake they might have to play for— knowing that sooner or later the choice would lie between conquering the world or being conquered by it — we moved more slowly and cautiously than ever. In one generation China has been transformed into a vast camp where every able-bodied man is a soldier or a sailor, armed and equipped with the most recent weapons of war. Our surface and submarine navies are the finest that have ever yet been seen.

      How much longer we might have continued our preparations there is no knowing. We saw the advantage which the growing discontent in France might afford an ambitious man — we found such a man in Ruy de Montalbon, chief of the guild of toy-makers in Marseilles; we furnished him with aid to scheme, and when the rebellion broke out at a preconcerted time we had munitions of war from our armories near at hand for his adherents.

      It may with truth be said that it was China who changed the form of the French government and placed the present Emperor on the throne of France. And yet strange to say, not one nation of the civilized world took warning from the fact.

      Professor West points out the reason of this fatal blindness, and later I shall dwell on it more at length. Suffice it now to say that the Nationalistic system when, under the mistaken idea that it was abolishing idlers, abolished the diplomatic corps, and allowed newspapers to decay, abolished really the eyes of the nation.

      On the 29th of September, when we declared war against the United States, we had four fleets at sea. One was at Brest, and it was the duty of this to prevent Great Britain or Germany from sending you assistance. The precaution was wise though utterly unnecessary as the National system had rendered those two countries as helpless as the United States.

      The second was more than half way across the North Atlantic.

      The third was at anchor in the French West Indies.

      The fourth was three days' sail from the Pacific coast of North America.

      Each of these last three fleets was under sealed orders, which, being opened on the 29th of September informed it of the declaration of war and instructed it what to do.

      Our North Atlantic fleeti was the strongest. It included six of our largest ironclads armed each with four pneumatic dynamite guns that had a range of fifteen miles; twelve light-armored cruisers each armed with one similar pneumatic gun and four guns of lighter calibre; two dispatch boats; and eight torpedo boats.

      It was the duty of the light cruisers in this fleet to seize upon the swift ocean steamers plying between Europe and the United States, and convoy them to France, where they would be used as transports for the army which we had been accumulating there. The heavier war ships were to destroy any fortiflcations which might be erected on the coast, and to hold the principal cities to ransom until the arrival of the troops; the torpedo boats, two of which were submarine vessels, were to aid the war ships.

      Fleet number three, composed of four of our heaviest war vessels, with six attendant torpedo boats, was to take possession of the Gulf of'Mexico and the Mississippi, and to act in conjunction with the army when it arrived.

      Fleet number four was composed of only two war ships, but these convoyed one hundred and two steamers on which was the army destined to begin the invasion of the Pacific coast.

      Our plans had all been carefully prepared beforehand, and were executed without a miscarriage.