It cannot be said, on the other hand, that the British Ambassador's visit to the north was quite as warmly welcomed in Japanese military circles. They were very suspicious of what it really portended. Peiping has now been so long without ambassadorial representation of any kind, and the Japanese have already got into the habit of regarding North China as their own territory, that this sudden incursion of a foreign Ambassador seems to have come rather as a surprise to them, All the more, as he is the representative of a Power that still accords full recognition to and is on friendly terms with the naughty Chiang Kai-shek government which is so obstinate and aggressive that it still refuses to admit that it has been completely defeated.
The Japanese news agencies and the local Chinese press which is entirely in the hands of the Japanese were, therefore, full of deep suspicion and have been putting out the most absurd stories as to the "real purpose" of his visit. As, for instance, that the British Ambassador had come north, on behalf of General Chiang Kai-shek, to see Marshal Wu Pei-fu and persuade him not to come out on the Japanese side, Needless to say, there is not a word of truth in any such rumours: the Ambassador did not see any leading Chinese of any party or group. One Chinese paper had a ridiculous story, giving details of the discovery in Tientsin of a plot against the Ambassador's life, needless to say by those dreadful Communists with which North China has always been swarming, in order to embroil England and Japan.
An even stronger rumour was going the rounds in foreign press circles i Peiping at the time of the agitation of the correspondents, because they had been warned the day before that on Saturday afternoon there would be some imprint news for them, and when they duly turned. up on Saturday with their tongues hanging out, the Japanese press officer had after all nothing of any importance whatsoever to communicate to them. Anyhow, nothing did take place at Tientsin. And the Ambassador after spending two more days there and another two at the Kailan Mines at Tangshan, embarked in H.M.S. Sandwich for Shanghai.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.