304 National Life and Character 



tance of equality with him, even in point of num- 

 bers. The movement of population in China is to- 

 ward the south, not the north ; the menace is real for 

 the English and French protectorates in the south; 

 in the north the difficulty hitherto has been to keep 

 Russian settlers from crossing the Chinese frontier. 

 When the great Trans-Siberian railroad is built, and 

 when a few millions more of Russian settlers stretch 

 from the Volga to the valley of the Amoor, the dan- 

 ger of a military advance by the Chinese against 

 Asiatic Russia will be entirely over, even granting 

 that it now exists. The Chinaman never has been, 

 and probably never will be, such a fighter as Turk 

 or Tartar, and he would have to possess an abso- 

 lutely overwhelming superiority of numbers to give 

 him a chance in a war of aggression against a 

 powerful military race. As yet, he has made no ad- 

 vance whatever toward developing an army capa- 

 ble of offensive work against European foes. In 

 China there are no roads; the military profession is 

 looked down on; Chinese troops would be for- 

 midable only under a European leader, and a Eu- 

 ropean leader would be employed only from dire 

 necessity; that is to repel, not to undertake, an in- 

 vasion. Moreover, China is merely an aggregate of 

 provinces with a central knot at Pekin; and Pekin 

 could be taken at any time by a small trained army. 

 China will not menace Siberia until after under- 

 going some stupendous and undreamed-of internal 

 revolution. It is scarcely within the bounds of pos- 

 sibility to conceive of the Chinaman expelling the 



