283 



The Review of Reviews. 



ilarch 10. 1906. 



THE CHINESE PRESS. 



The rapidity with which China is adopting the 

 devices of Western and Japanese civilisation is made 

 evident in an article in the North American Re- 

 view by Archibald R. Colquhoun, on the Chinese 

 Press of to-day. The Peking Gazette, he remarks at 

 the outset, is the oldest newspaper in the world. 

 Placards, pasquinades and broadsheets have long 

 been in existence; but there is no censorship, and 

 there are no press laws. Japan, on the contrar)-, has 

 very strict laws, and, till lately, imprisonment was 

 so 'common that most papers employed a " prison 

 editor or official scapegoat," whose business it was 

 to go to gaol for the newspaper, the real editor es- 

 caping by being treated merely as a contriVjutor. 

 The Mandarins control papers, not by censorship, 

 but by subsidy. 



THE BOOM IN NEWSPAPERS. 



The first real newspaper on modern lines in 

 China was the SMn Fao (Shanghai News), published 

 by an Eng.ishman in 1870. Until 1894 there was 

 not more than a dozen native newspapt^rs in the 

 whole of China. There were eight Chinese maga- 

 zines published by missionaries: — 



Pekiiiy; has now three daily newspapers and two fort- 

 nightly ones, Borne of these heinp partly illustrated. Tient- 

 sin has at least three dailies, one of these, the Takung Vao 

 (the Imparlinl), having the very respectahle circulation of 

 twenty thousand. The ofticial organ, which calls itself the 

 Times (the Sliih I'ao). although not so widely circulated, is 

 well written under European auspices, ajid has consider- 

 able influence. In Shanghai there are now sixteen daily 

 papers (price, eight to ten cash each), some of which have 

 circulations of as much as ten thousand, and besides tliese 

 there are many journals published there. Further south 

 fat Foochow, Soochow and Canton), there are in all some 

 six or se"' en daily papers, and at Hong Kong five, while 

 Kiachow has one which is supported by the local German 

 Government. In addition to these, several papers are now 

 published in the interior, but the majority, for various 

 reasons, flourish in the treaty ports. Wherever the Chinese 

 congregate ahroad tliey have their papers; at Singapore 

 there are three, at Sydney two, in Japan two, in Honolulu 

 several, and in San Francisco some half-dozen. It must he 

 added that the improvement in the postal arrangements 

 of China has brought the most remote parts of the Empire 

 into touch with the coast, and that in places where no 

 such thing had ever been seen, papers and books are now 

 making their appearance and are eagerly read. 



The papers are written in classical book style. 



Neither Japanese nor Chinese pressmen are well 



paid. ;^ioo a year is the maximum of the Japanese 



journalist ; the Chinese is even more poorly paid. 



Tn both countries statesmen own papers as their 



organ. 



LI HUNG'S ORGAN. 



A curious instance is given of a journal started 

 by the late Li Hung Chang: — 



An adventurer succeeding in convincing Li Hung Chang 

 of his bona fida, obta.ined from him something in the shape 

 of a concession which was to confer control of all future 

 Chinese railways. It was a peculiar transaction, in which 

 neither side has the power either to sell or to buy, and Li 

 probably did not imagine that he was granting anything 

 worth having. The douceur customary on such occasions 

 was the one feature which he considered essential. The 

 whole transaction was exposed before it was concluded in 

 an English paper at Shanghai, and by an error of the 

 native editor, who was " conveying " his foreign news, was 

 bodily transferred to lii's own paper, were he read the de- 

 nunciation of himself couched in most unmeasured terms. 



At first Li was for decapitating the editor and the 



stafiE, but decided to show his indiflVreiice to all 

 criticism by taking no notice of it. The very real 

 and powerful movement for the boycott of Ameri- 

 can goods has been largely stimulated by the press. 



HERBERT SPENCER A FAVOURITE! 



The Society for the Diffusion of Christian and 

 General Knowledge is opening a new world of 

 thought to the people: — 



lu 1904, they printed two hundred and twenty-four thou- 

 sajid copies of new books, and their reprints amounted to 

 seventy-seven thousand. This by no means represents the 

 total of European Ijooks circulated iu China, since these 

 publications are extensively pirated, all the best being 

 seized upon as soon as published, photo-lithographed or set 

 up anew in dillerejit type, and sold very cheaply. No less 

 thiui six editions of one book were found in llangchow at 

 the same time, and the Society estimates that, at the lowest 

 computation, their output is increased five times by pirati- 

 cal methods. The range of these books is very wide. Her- 

 bert Spencer and all philosophical works are naturally 

 favourites. 



But there is a demand for other and lighter 

 works. 



SPEED VERSUS FIGHTING POWER IN 



BATTLESHIPS. 



In B/ackzuood's Magazine, the author of "A Re- 

 trograde Admiralty " draws certain lessons from the 

 battle of Tsu Sima last summer, the chief of which 

 is that the present Admiralty policy of building 

 faster and faster battleships is mistaken. The 

 Japanese victory was due to superior skill in tactics, 

 not to superior speed: — 



The importance of the question lies in the fact that 

 speed is one of the elements in a ship of war, ajid cannot 

 be increased without the sacrifice of some other element. 



That is, to gain speed you must sacrifice armour 

 and armament — in other words, fighting power, 

 The writer thus sums up his argument: — 



Battles are the supreme test of the capital ship. They 

 are decided l:y superior tactics and fighting power. Supe- 

 rior speed confers little, if any, tactical advantage. Fight- 

 ing power depends upon its offensive rather than on its 

 defensive form — upon weapons rather than on protection. 

 Speed is not a weapon, and does not give protection, ex- 

 cept in running away. The aim should therefore be to 

 endow a fleet not with superior speed or protection, but 

 with superior offensive power — i.e., gun power. 



The large armoured cruiser or fast battleship is 

 based on two funilamental errors ; first, that it is 

 the most effective instrument for destroying com- 

 merce — an assumption contrary' to the whole expe- 

 rience of war; and second, that the enemy will 

 run away — a mistake begotten of a long peace : — 



On the day when Britain again fights for the dominion 

 of the seas the enemy will certainly not run away. He will 

 come out to fight, as did the Greeks at Salamis, the Romans 

 during the First Punic War, the Dutch during the eeven- 

 teenth century, and the French at Bea^^hy Head, Malaga, 

 and during the American War of Independence. Every 

 guinea diverted from fighting power to speed will be bit- 

 terly regretted on that great day. 



In fact, the conceptions of war held by the pre- 

 sent naval advisers of the Government are funda- 

 rcentally unsound and opposed to the lessons as well 

 of the remoter as of the nearer past. Admiral 

 Fisher's reply to this we should like to see. 



i 



