7th Jan.
Tue price at which the Kuling has been sold to the Inspector-General of Customs is £18,000, and no conditions have been made as to the Upper Yangtze Navigation "Company's giving up. its attempt to reach Chungking or otherwise. We do not know yet what effect this sale will have on the promoters of the scheme, but we trust that it will not have the effect of inducing Sir John Walsham to relax his efforts to obtain for British subjects the confirmation of the right to run steamers between Ichang and Chungking, which was virtually secured for them by the Chefoo Convention. No doubt the Tsung-li Yamen feels it has done a good day's work if, by this operation, it has postponed for a year or so the settlement of this question, on which it has allowed itself to be. so worried by the obstractiveness of the Viceroy of Szechuan.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.