Sir Meyrick Hewlett has now left JChina, He will not return in the ordinary course of events, as an active Jmember of the great service of which he has been a conspicuous ornament. His retirement, at the end of @ consular career "of some 36 years, occasions many regrets tempered the pellet that it does not necessarily mean the severance of his association with Chinese affairs. Than he no Jconsular official has more successfully [passed from the complexities of the old regime to the perplexities of the now. This has been shown in the admirable way in which long after he hed the oftciat title of "Interpreter," he was able to interpret his countrymen to the people of this country and, also, to perform a similar office in the Feverse occupation. So at Nanking when unhappy memories clouded the air, his personality was a valuable solvent of racial animosity. In his last charge at Hankow he was able to give sympathetic support to, the British community in its remarkable creation of a spirit of mutual con-Adence on the uncertain ground of the Chen-O'Malley agreement. Before his departure from China Sir Miles Lampson paid a special tribute of apppreclation to this effort at co-opera tion. Sir Meyrick did not reach Hankow until it had firmly established Itself but it is generally agreed that was able to give it a special cachet as no-one else perhaps, could have Jdone. In his close and informed study. of Chinese matters and his gift seeing things from "the other fel-Tow" point of view, Sir Meyrick's influence has been specially potent. Nor has that quality diminished his posit essential loyalty to the spirit of British conservatism in the best sense of the term. Good wishes go with him and Lady Hewlett for a pleasant voyage and a not too long sojourn at Home.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.