Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/370

290 scarcely concluded an arrangement on these lines when the short-lived Cabinet of 1885—"the Cabinet of caretakers"—went out, and were replaced, early in February 1886, by a Ministry drawn from that party whose advent to power is always hailed with satisfaction and delight by all and sundry intent on knocking off corners of the empire, and extracting concessions from Great Britain abroad. Lord Rosebery, the new Foreign Minister, took the earliest opportunity of reversing the decision of his predecessor and agreeing to the despatch of presents from Burma only, "thereby unequivocally admitting China's claims to suzerainty, and gratuitously tendering a most abject submission to the Son of Heaven."

The proceedings which followed upon this decision provide a light and comic interlude in the usually ponderous annals of serious diplomacy. The Chinese envoy in London,