A rumour was widely circulated at this time that the Chinese authorities, realising that they were powerless to prevent Taiwan and the Pescadores falling into the hands of Japan, had offered to cede them temporarily to Britain, presumably on the understanding that they would be returned at a later date. According to this rumour, the Chinese proposal was discussed by the British cabinet, and the British prime minister Lord Rosebery and the foreign secretary Lord Kimberley refused even to consider it. Apparently, the British cabinet's reluctance to accept this poisoned chalice was based not, as has sometimes been suggested, on the fear that accepting Taiwan would immediately embroil Britain with Japan, but rather on the calculation that if Taiwan became a British colony, even temporarily, a wholesale partition of China would have followed.