H.M.S. Woodcock arrived here just in time-to see the fighting. Two gunboats. had been here, but both had orders to leave - before the water got so low as to keep them here all the winter. The Woodcock has been sent up to see what is happening, but it also has. orders to leave before the water falls too low. The Changsha British Chamber of. Commerce wired to Shanghai to get the C. there to help their appeal to keep the Woodcock here throughout the winter. The answer from the Admiral in command of all the ships in China, is a mere repetition_of the order. Of course, when the water falls so low, that, a boat here cannot get away, a boat not here cannot come up. As soon as the water has fallen another foot, the passage to and' fro of even so small a boat as the Woodcock is stopped: Admirals do not, of course, answer newspaper correspondents, one therefore is only wasting paper in asking what policy has the British government in keeping gunboats in China. If at a time like this, in a port like Changsha, the British Government decides that there will. be no need of a gunboat for the coming two, more likely, three quite possibly four months, what is likely to happen in any port which will justify the presence of some unit of the British navy:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.