Once upon a time there was an Minister who saw in a certain situation which the Kuominchun had created an_infringement upon foreign rights which it was. really dangerous to ignore. A treaty was so conspicuously violated that to have let the matter slide would have been suicidal. The gin phalanxes in the clubs were yapping and yelping like hordes of demons possessed about this flagrant violation of treaty rights and about the complete prostration of the Legations in face of it. To have let the matter slide would have been an official hint to all foreigners in North China to get out, a hint which our Governments were not quite ready to endorse. So this Minister got his colleagues together and presented the case to them as it stood. They could not refute him nor dodge the issue, s0, within 24 hours, war vessels of all shapes and sizes wore steaming, towards the mouth of the Hai Ho under full pressure of steam and an ultimatum had gone in to the make-shift Chinese Government iliators formed a procession and marched to the Legation to warn the_ 'American Minister that if he persisted in protecting the rights under which they operated they would have! him officially hung—or hanged it you like. The reaction to' this in local commercial circles was almost! atastrophie. If the club roof had! not been newly repaired last year it would have gone up in a puff of dust. The agents of big business in China's capital pranced up and down! along the bar, snatching gins be-! tween gasps of hate, and throwing! little fillets of fury at every third or fourth prance, 'The—Corps! Diplomatique had such popular} support, for a change, as it has. seldom ' experienced ' and stray' Legation secretaries who straggled in were staggered by offers of free alcohol, limpid or bubbling, from all the bitterest orities of Legation dolce far niente, It seemed: a happy opportunity for the embodiment of some of this spirit (and spirits) in a hearty. testimonial from the commercial community to the diplomats in support of their position, as an offset! to the cringing missionary attitude.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.