"For ages China had discountenanced the military spirit and was laughed at by us accordingly, and thus, ever since intercourse under treaties has gone on, we have been lecturing the Government from our superior standpoint, telling it that it must grow strong—must create army and navy—must adopt foreign drill and foreign weapons—must prepare to hold its own against all comers—must remember 'Codlin' is its friend, not 'Short': our words did not fall on closed ears—effect was given to selected bits of advice—and various firms did a very remarkable and very remunerative trade in arms. But while the Chinese Government made a note of all the advice its generous friends placed at its disposal, and adopted some suggestions because they either suited it or it seemed polite and harmless to do so, it did not forget its own thirty centuries of historic teaching, and it looked at affairs abroad through its own eyes and the eyes of its representatives at foreign Courts, studied their reports and the printed utterances of books, magazines, and newspapers, and the teaching thus received began gradually to crystallise in the belief that a huge standing army on European lines would be wasteful and dangerous and that a volunteer association—as suggested by the way all China ranged itself on the Government side in the Franco-Chinese affair—covering the whole Empire, offering an outlet for restless spirits and fostering a united and patriotic feeling, would be more reliable and effective, an idea which seemed to receive immediate confirmation from without in the stand a handful of burghers were making in the Transvaal: hence the Boxer Association, patriotic in origin, justifiable in its fundamental idea, and in point of fact the outcome of either foreign advice or the study of foreign methods. {108}