Mr. Quo Tai-chi left many friends in London when he
quitted Portland Place to become Foreign Minister of China, and they feel disappointment as well as perplexity at his displacement, after eight months of office, in favour of Mr. T. V. Soong, a former very able Finance Minister. No official explanation of the change has been given, but one probable enough reason suggests itself. Mr. Soong has been for some time in Washington on a special mission, and in view of the importance of the conversa- tions now going on regarding the Pacific, in which Great Britain is represented by her Prime Minister, and the United States by her President and Secretary of State, it is an obvious advantage to China to have someone with the status of Foreign Minister to speak for her. Mr. Soong is incontestably well qualified to fill that position—but it is a little hard on Mr. Quo, whose dis- ability in the matter of the Washington conversations is purely geographical, not personal.
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