difficult to substitute an open system, secret diplomacy is attended with grave inconveniences, for it becomes impossible to furnish that public who sit, as it were, in appeal, with the whole facts of the case upon which they are called to decide. It is then clearly the interest of the Foreign Office to encourage the dissemination of accurate political information in a popular form, when the publication of it does not involve a breach of confidence; and inasmuch as Blue-Books are not generally considered light or agreeable reading, and are somewhat inaccessible, the diplomatist who has a political story to tell, and can do it without betraying State secrets, is a public benefactor. In these days of official responsibility, it is not only due to the public but to himself that he should have an opportunity of stating his case. It may happen that his conduct will be brought publicly in question and decided upon before he has an opportunity of laying before the world all the facts. Great injustice is frequently done to officials serving in distant parts of the world, who even at last are unable to remove the erroneous impressions formed upon incorrect or insufficient information. This has been specially the case in China and the East: a policy based upon an acquaintance with the local conditions as intimate as it was possible for a foreigner to obtain, has been upset by a majority of ignorant legislators, who too often receive their impressions from superficial travellers, or residents with special interests at stake. It is clear that the opinion of a merchant is not so likely to be right in diplomatic questions as that of a trained official, who has passed half his life in studying the language, institutions, and people of the country to which he has been accredited; yet when it comes to be a question between the mercantile community and the minister, the latter is in danger of going to the wall. While, on the one hand, the traditions of the Foreign Office are opposed to what may be termed diplomatic literature—and they dole out their own information with a somewhat niggard hand—the British community resident in the East, hampered by no such restraints, and aided by a scurrilous press, may prejudice the public mind at home to such an extent that no subsequent defence is of much avail. We cannot wonder then, if, after five-and-twenty years’ experience of China and Japan, Sir Rutherford Alcock should take the opportunity of giving a full, true, and particular statement of the political difficulties by which he is surrounded, in anticipation of a crisis which he sees impending, which no diplomacy will be able to avert, but in which he will on his return probably find himself involved.