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Rh commissioner, Sir G. Scott, of duplicity, and wound up an insulting despatch by declaring that the British Foreign Office had secretly prepared the map attached to the Agreement of 1897 with a view to altering the line of frontier shown on the Hsieh map.

The British commissioner, on the other hand, held that if forgery had been committed, it was not in Downing Street but in Peking; and knowing something of the immense capacity of Chinese diplomatists for wasting time, judged that it would be better to complete the demarcation of the frontier first, and then begin to think about despatch writing afterwards. This was accordingly done, and the section of the frontier thus demarcated without the assistance of the Chinese, and known as "Scott's line," was forwarded with the rest of the frontier line to Peking. Here it remains, and is likely to remain, the subject from time to time of polite discussion between the representatives of Great Britain and of China, the former declaring that it is regarded by his Government as the frontier, and the latter