apr. 13, Mk. Austen leaves to-day, to take formal charge of his new post in Peking, with the sincere wishes of his fellow-countrymen in Shanghai for his prosperity and every confidence on their part that those wishes will be fulfilled. As already noted, the Minister does not enter permanently into residence until the autumn. It is four and a half years since he was in London and there are things both for him to say to the Foreign Office and to hear from it. With all his wide experience and statesmanship, it is an open secret that Mr. Balfour had not that knowledge of, and intense personal interest in, Far Eastern affairs which the present Foreign Secretary and former Viceroy of India possesses. There is reason to think that, under Lord Curzon, the Foreign Office will give that attention to this part of the world which is so vitally necessary but which, to put it mildly, has not always been too visible. More can be done in an hour or two's conversation than in weeks of letter-writing. There is to-day a general feeling, based, one believes, on something more solid than the incurable optimism of mankind, that we stand on the threshold of a new era. Things have come to such a pass in China that they must, shortly, take a turn one way or the other and it is therefore the more important that Mr. Alston should know exactly how matters stand at Home before taking up his work in Peking. For that work we would venture to think he is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.