Sir Beilby Alston's refusal jeall on the President on New Year's Day and talk polite artificialities when an anti-British jboyeott is proceeding unchecked at Amoy has evidently disquieted the Waichiaopu. The other day Mr. {Rodney Gilbert told us that the 1' Chinese Government was threatening to ask for Sir Beilby's recal!. This producing no effect, would {appear to have been followed by an inspired statement in the Chin-lose newspapers of Peking to_ the effect that the British Foreign Office iliad informed Sir Beilby ''that such diplomatic customs (as exiling at the New Year's Day reception) should not be discarded, and that ithe British Minister had consequently decided to call upon the President and tender his congrajtulations on Monday." Renter's correspondent {is authorized state that there is no truth in the {report, which is, of course, nothing but a childish attempt on the part fof the mandarins to save their {faces. In extreme cases the Foreign Office might recall a Minister but it does not lecture him like a little schoolboy. The plain fact is that i in the wrong over it. and it does not cing its defieiencies thus shown up.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.