SHANGHAI
843
It is indicative of the wisdom of the principles laid down by Captain Balfour, and subsequently extended by Sir Rutherford Alcock, which, while granting the foreign re- sidents full and complete power to manage their own municipal affairs, and holding them responsible for the peace and good order of the Settlements, carefully refrained from any interference with the sovereign rights of the Emperor of China as Lord of the Soil, that for a space of nearly seventy years no clashing of authority, which could not be at once removed by the exercise of a little common sense on both sides, was found to occur. Twice, indeed, it may be said, the Foreign Settlements proved the salvation of Imperial rule over the whole Empire. It was, indeed, owing to the fact that the Im- perial troops, aided by Gordon's "Ever Victorious Army," were able to make the Foreign Settlements their base of operations, that the capture of Soochow in November, 1863, and after it the complete suppression of the Taiping Rebellion was due. Later, in 1900, when the Emperor was a prisoner in his own palace, and the insurgent troops of Prince Tün and Tung Fusiang were actually besieging Peking, it was the loyal conduct of the Nanking Viceroy, the late Liu K'wen-yi, backed up by the loyalty of the Chinese residents in the Foreign Settlements, that finally brought about the restoration of order in the North, and saved the Empire from extinction and partition. These things were per- fectly well understood by a long run of distinguished statesmen, who in turn held for half a century the reins of power at Nanking and in this category we may include such names, illustrious for their loyalty, as the late Tseng Kwoh-fan and Liu K'wen-yi. It was not, indeed, till the advent in 1904 of a reactionary Viceroy, who under the specious pretext of seeking to restore the dimmed prestige of the Imperial Court, was really de- sirous of recommencing an anti-foreign campaign, with all the methods of the eighteenth century, that any interruption of the previous good relations took place. Under him an equally reactionary Taotai was appointed and a system of petty attempts at inter- ference was at once inaugurated; the methods were worthy of the men, who did not hesitate to call to their aid the elements of disorder always to be found beneath the sur- face in China.
The administration of the Salt Gabelle, a monopoly of the Central Government, has ever been unpopular in China, and with the relaxation of a strong administration in any of the provinces, one of the first symptoms is sure to be a revival of an organised system of salt smuggling, often encouraged secretly by over-greedy officials desirous of illegal gain. There has at all times existed a considerable amount of clandestine salt manu- facture on the northern shore of Hangchow Bay. Its existence is well known to the provincial authorities, who, however, have not the means nor the desire to provide an adequate coastguard to effectually repress it. The proprietors of these illegal salines are in touch with a widely-organised band of ruffians, who dominate the Pootung country, and are a constant source of trouble to the police of the Foreign Settlements. Under the administration of the Ex-Viceroy, Cheo Fu, and his then lieutenant, the Taotai Yuan, these bands of salt smugglers grew in numbers and audacity, and have so far advanced their organisation as to reach to the west of the Tai Hu. As in carrying the salt from the coast to the interior they must of necessity cross the river above or below the Foreign Settlements, nominally the stream is guarded by the River Police, mainly com- posed of a small body of foreigners under the orders of the Maritime Customs: they are, however, few in number for the distance to be guarded, and, moreover, by the express order of the high Chinese officials are not permitted to carry arms, while the smugglers are well armed and organised. Although it is no part of the business of the Municipal Police to undertake the thankless task of protecting the Imperial Revenue, they are occasionally called on to intervene when some outrage worse than usual takes place on the outskirts of the Settlements. Cases of this sort have of late become rather numerous, many cases of murder, of gouging out of eyes, and of mutilation having oc- curred in the immediate suburbs; and so complete is the terrorism that in few cases have the actual culprits been successfully traced, the country people not daring to give evidence. Under these circumstances, at the annual ratepayers' meeting in 1906, the Municipal Council were ordered to increase the force of Sikh Police to a thousand men. In a few cases where the perpetrators of these outrages have been arrested and brought before the Mixed Court, every possible means have been brought to bear to defeat the ends of justice by inadequate sentences, or by procuring that the accused should, under one pretext or other, be sent to the City Court for judgment; the almost invariable re- sult in the latter event being that in a month or so the prisoner has been permitted to escape to renew his depredations.
It was to these disturbers of the law that, in December 1905, as mentioned in a previous page, the provincial officials made their appeal at what they alleged to be attempts to nterfere with the dignity of the Lord of the Soil. As a fact, of course, the Municipality
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