Belated R.S.V.P.

During the four years since Britain recognized Red China, the British charge d'affaires in Peking suffered the kind of humiliation that a century ago would have led Lord Palmerston to dispatch a gunboat. The top Communist brass snubbed him; their juniors let him cool his heels in anterooms. His mission consisted largely of trying to free Britons who had been clapped in jail by Mao Tse-tung, and trying to get compensation for British firms whose assets had been expropriated by the Reds. The Communists never bothered to send diplomatic representation to London.

Last week Sir Winston Churchill announced in the House of Commons that the People's Government of China was sending a charge d'affaires to London. All over the House there were murmurs of approval. Laborite Desmond Donnelly rose to remark that here at last was "long-delayed justification of the initiative originally taken by Ernest Bevin in 1950"; Socialists cheered, and Clement Attlee, who is leaving in August on a junket to Peking, nodded his approval.

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