be few, if any, of her most ardent patriots but
would congratulate themselves on the miserable change.

China may, perhaps, be saved from an eventual collapse, or from falling
under the sway of all-grasping Russia; but it can only be by a universal
development of the existing system of extraneous aid. What has been done
for her customs revenue must be extended to all departments of the
State, and the employment of foreign heads and hands must be rendered so
general as even to permeate the ramifications of the executive in the
eighteen provinces. But then the difficulty suggests itself. Where is
the _personnel_ needful for such a mighty organization to be found, with
the talent and probity equal to the charge? England has proved it
possible, in the case of India, to produce a corps of administrators who
possess a character for ability, uprightness, and high-minded devotion
to duty, to which the world can show no equal. But, as experience has so
far proved, political balance at Pekin demands that the prizes open to
competition in the Chinese service should be distributed equally amongst
subjects of all nationalities in treaty relations with China; and in
such a huge army of _employes_ as the exigency would require, and most
of whom would probably owe their selection to patronage rather than to
merit, it could not be but that many would find a place who might prove
even greater curses to the governed than the worst type of the Chinese
mandarins themselves. Moreover, such an innovation would practically
amount to placing the entire nation under foreign authority, and it may
be queried whether it would not be more advantageous for the people to
have one uniform foreign rule universally substituted for the native,
than to be at the mercy of an executive formed of such heterogeneous
materials as those we have described.

It may not be out of place to consider here a suggestion, which has been
thrown out by more than one representative of the English press, as to
the identity of British interests with those of China in resisting the
insidious advances of Russia eastwards, and the expediency of giving the
former our sympathy, if not material support, in her endeavour to
recover _Kuldja_ from Russian cupidity. What British interests comprise
in that quarter of the globe may be summed up in a few words.
Rectification and consolidation of certain portions of the frontier of
British India, the maintenance as far as possible of neutr