THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 1910. AN ARMED CHINA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10022, 19 April 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, APRIL 19, 1910. AN ARMED CHINA.

A casual remark by General Yinj Chang, the Chinese Minister for War to the effect that he contemplates in troducing compulsory military service into China, provokes some disI quieting reflections. General Ying Chang was the Chinese Minister at : Berlin before ne became Minister for War, and he has evidently been greatly impressed by the results of compulsory military service in Germany. The scheme of military reorganisation which was introduced in- ; to China a few years ago by Imperial Edict, set forth that an Imperial army should be constituted to replace the pre-existing provincial armies, which were little more than badly-armed irregular hordes, at the disposal of the provincial viceroys. The Imperial army is to consist of thirty-seven divisions, each division being complete with infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers, and army service - troops: .The organisation is expected to be complete in 1913, when the Chinese j army is to number 28,000 officers • a nd 430,000 men, all trained by Ger-1

man or Japanese instructors and equipped with the most modern weapons. At the present time the scheme has so far advanced thatthe troops number about 150,000. With compulsory military service in operation, it is clear that the existing very efficient organisation could be extender! so as to comprise an indefinite number of additional .divisions, each of which is a complete self-con-tained small army. The military machine, which is already working, is capable of an expansion only limited by the population, and as the present population of the Chinese Empire is estimated at about 430,000,000, there is no need to limit the army to thirty-seven divisions. A census is to be taken this year, and exact information should then bs available as to (he man-power of an armed China, ' Snould General Ying Chang's proposal be carried out, China is likely to become by far the greatest military Power, in weight of numbers, that the world has ever seen.

While military, authorities recognise that there is a numerical limit beyond which trooDS cannot be effectively manoeuvred and supplied in the field, and that, therefore, it would ha impossible for an armed China to throw her full strength into a conflict, it is necessary also to remember that the vast population of China would enable her to fill up her battalions depleted by the wastage of war for a longer period than any other nation in the world. In that sense she could hope to wear down the most powerful enemy by 3heer force of numbers. The result of the late Russo-Japanese war showed that numbers alone do not necessarily make a nation invincible. It also showed the difficulty which a nation finds in wielding ita full strength when the theatre of war is far removed from the main base. At the same time, when it is remembered that the Chinese Empire has approximately three times the populatiou of the Russian Empire, and fchac in Russia rather more than 1,000,000 men annually attain the age for joining the army, it seems clear that China, with compulsory military service, could count upon 3,000,000 new recrnits annually to replace the men passing into the reserve, and to supply the wastage, of war. A force of the magnitude suggested by the number even of the annual recruits, would neces-

sarily, even in peace time, exercise a potent effect upon national ambitions outside China. In the first place it would enable China to carry out that ! policy of "China for the Chinese," ' which its military and naval weakness has hitherto prevented it from doing. It would enable the Chinese Government to resist the intrusion of all the Powers that have hitherto regarded Chinese territory as their happy hunting ground, and to maintain uhina's integrity, not only as against Russia and Japan, both of whom are at present domiciled in the Chinese province of Manchuria, but as against the other European nations who have found a footing in various parts of the soil of the Chinese Empiie.