But it may be urged that new conditions of service might have been devised, under which the men of the Chinese Regiment would have been exempted from the obligation of fighting against their own countrymen. Against whom, then, could they have fought? They might possibly have been led against the Japanese, but no one ever supposed for a moment that they were being trained with a view to action against a Power with whom Great Britain will probably be the last to quarrel: and in any case they would have been too few in number to be of effective service on the field, and by their inability to take an appropriate place among the other units they might even have been a source of embarrassment. As for the assistance they might have rendered in the event of an attack on Weihaiwei by any European Power, it is only necessary to point out that an infantry regiment would have been totally powerless to prevent the shelling of Weihaiwei by a naval force, and that if the British fleet had lost command of the sea, not only the entire Chinese regiment (or what remained of it after desertions had taken place), but Weihaiwei itself and all that it contained would have speedily become prizes of war to the first hostile cruiser that entered the harbour. It may be said, in conclusion of this topic, that if the British Government had taken the cynical view that China was doomed to remain in a chronic state of administrative inefficiency and national helplessness, it would no doubt have been fully justified, from its own standpoint, in maintaining the Regiment. That it decided on disbandment may be regarded as welcome evidence that Great Britain did not, in 1906, take an entirely pessimistic view of China's future. That the complete withdrawal of all troops was followed by no shadow of disorder among the people and no increase of crime, strikingly refutes the argument, sometimes advanced, that the real justification of the existence of the Regiment was the necessity of relying on a local armed force for the maintenance of British rule and prestige, which would otherwise have been outraged or treated with open contempt. No doubt the Regiment fulfilled a most useful function in suppressing or preventing disorder and in helping to consolidate British rule during the eventful year of 1900: and it may very well be that the people of the Territory then learned the futility of resistance to the British occupation. But it may be stated with emphasis that since the disbandment of the Regiment the people--perhaps from a knowledge of the fact that British troops and warships though not stationed at Weihaiwei are never very far away--have given no sign whatever of insubordination or restlessness.[58]