March 20.
IL is over 33 years since Sir John Brenan entered H.B.M. Consular Service and was posted to Siam as a Student Inferpreter. Two years later he was transferred to China, with which, as Brenan Road reminds Shanghai, he had already family associations. Except for the normal spells of leave, during one of which, in 1913 he. was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple, for two years in France during' the Great War as a Captain attached to the Chinese Labour Corps, and eleven months in 1923-24, the whole of Sir John's last' thirty-one years have been spent in China. With China IML_be concerned when, after a well-earned holiday, he takes up his new post at the Foreign OMice in succession to Sir John Pratt, To-morrow when the Empress of Canada receives this veteran in the China service she will note that the figure is alert and. spare, and that Sir John Brenan shows little sign of wear and tear. Therein perhaps will be discerned the admirable balance of his! temperament, He has given altention to the claims of physical exercise, developed his prowess at polo and lawn tennis, yet never allowed them to get out of hand. As Vice-Consul in charge of the Land Omice he had his first taste of Shanghai whither he came from Nanking in 1920 and was immediately welcomed as an Interport polo player who had represented, Peking and Tientsin. During his! stay here then and, later, as Consul-General, he was 'a keen supporter; of the Polo Club and played in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.