2th April. We learn on the best authority that before the end of February Sir John Walsham was informed that Lord Salisbury desired his presence in London as soon as certain current matters would enable him to leave Peking, and that it was definitely settled he would not return to China.
Under a Foreign Office rule of about fifteen years ago Ministers are appointed only for five years, and this period in the case of Sir John. Walsham expired last year. But we are informed that this technical rule would not have been putin force if the Foreign Office were otherwise satisfied with the Minister's conduct, For eighteen months past, however, there has been serious dissatisfaction in the Foreign Office at home with Sir John Walsham, 'I'he echoes of the complaints of British residents in China have been heard in Downing Street; but quite independently of these the Foreign Office has its own complaints against the Minister. It suffers, as we have done, from that peculiar indisposition of the Minister to use his pen, and we believe that special complaint has been made of his omission to keep his chief acquainted with the articulars of the recent riots in the North which created quite a factitious excitement in Europe owing to the sensational telegrams from Chiva published in the European press. If our information is correct Sir John Walsham received in the last days of December or the first days of January a very sharp intimation of the feelings of the called' his "epistolary costiveness." Foreign Office in regard to what is
The result of this has been the recall of Sir John Walsham and the appointment of Mr. O'Conor; for the post was not offered to Sir Robert Hart, nor was it thought-expedient, on this occasion at least, to give Mr. Fraser, the present Minister at Tokio, promotion to Peking.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.