[B]
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
AFFAIRS OF CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[25161]
No. 1.
[July 29.]
SECTION 5. C. 0.
29.968
RECE
655
Sir J. Jordan to Sir Edward Grey.-(Received July 29.)
(No. 267. Confidential.) Sir,
\REC 21 AUG 07/
Peking, June 1, 1907. IN compliance with the instructions contained in your Circular despatch (B) of the 9th April, 1906, I have the honour to make the following report on the Heads of some of the foreign Missions in Peking
**
The doyen of the Diplomatic Body is the Italian Minister, M. Baroli, who is at present on leave of absence. Both he and his wife are most charming socially, but he seems to be a man whose power of work, if he ever possessed it, has prematurely failed him, and he was a most inefficient doyen. Circulars of importance were often mislaid, despatches remained unanswered, and things generally were allowed to drift into an unsatisfactory state.
The Netherland Minister, M. van Citters, who is doyen during M. Baroli's absence, is much more painstaking and conscientious in the discharge of his duties. He gave some offence by declining at first to accept the office, but, although a man of no great attainments and no special personal popularity, it has been a general relief to have more method and regularity introduced into the transaction of questions of common interest.
M. de Carcer, the Spanish Minister, who comes next in seniority, is an agreeable man who has no staff, and apparently little or no work.
Mr. Rockhill, the United States' Minister, is a distinguished traveller and Orientalist who combines a specialist's knowledge of the East with a practical acquaint- ance of affairs acquired in various posts and in the Foreign Department at Washington. He is perhaps somewhat lacking in reticence, and his colleagues occasionally find him rather unstable of purpose. His own countrymen are inclined to regard him rather as as a student than a man of action, and with the American missionaries he has never been very popular, but Americans, like Englishmen, in China are exacting in their estimate of their officials.
His wife is generally regarded as a model of all that a lady in her position should be, and is a great favourite with all classes of society here.
The Russian Representative, M. Pokotilow, has also been long and prominently identified with the East. Coming out to Peking as a somewhat uncouth student interpreter about twenty years ago, he soon showed a marked aptitude for the language and a grasp of the complex political problems which were then impending that gained him rapid advancement. When, in 1896, Russia initiated her policy of the conquest of Manchuria by railway construction, M. Pokotilow was utilized as the unofficial instru- ment of that policy, and as agent of the Russo-Chinese Bank he was credited with framing most of the schemes which, during the eight or nine years that followed, gave Russia her short-lived ascendency in the East.
M. Pokotilow's role as Minister is now very different from that of his predecessors, his chief preoccupation being to keep on good terms with the Chinese, and save what he can from the wreckage of his country's fortunes in Manchuria. He stands well with the Chinese, and is generally liked for his frank and outspoken manner.
His domestic relations are the weak feature in his character, and would probably be a more serious drawback at another post than here. The lady who is now his wife only became so after a long "liaison," but the step did not affect the irregularities of her husband's private life, which are a matter of common report amongst foreigners and natives.
The Japanese Minister is personally best known to me of all the foreign Repre- sentatives. He was my colleague for five years in Corea, and both there and here I have always found him perfectly straight in all his dealings. He has never told me anything that did not prove to be strictly correct, although he has often left unsaid
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