SHANGHAI
709
Nanking Road also the police found it necessary to fire on the mob with ball cartridge, two rounds of blank cartridges having failed to overawe them. In addition to the Volunteers, the Municipal police, European and Sikh, who appeared on the streets armed with rifles and fixed bayonets, upwards of 3,000 bluejackets were landed from warships of various nationalities for the protection of the Settlement. The men behaved with great moderation, but speedily convinced the rioters that their conduct was ill-advised. The Viceroy himself came to Shanghai to settle the dispute, and the Mixed Court, after being closed for a fortnight, was re-opened with Mr. Twyman, the British Assessor (whose dismissal the Taotai had demanded), still on the Bench. The Corps Diploma- tique at Peking somewhat unfortunately yielded to the demand of the Chinese officials, and this prevented any satisfactory conclusion being arrived at, both parties, the Municipality and the Chinese Magistrates, being unsatisfied. Shanghai in August, 1913, was the scene of some fighting in connection with the abortive rebellion against Yuan Shih-kai. A large force of revolutionaries made several determined attempts to capture the arsenal, but did not succeed.
GOVERNMENT
As at all the open ports, foreigners are in judicial matters subject to the immediate control of their Consuls, British subjects coming under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which was opened in September, 1865. Subjects of His Britannic Majesty have to pay an annual fee of two dollars, for which they have the privilege of being register- ed at the Consulate and heard as plaintiffs before the Court. There is enforced re- gistration at several of the other Consulates, but it is free of charge. In the autumn of 1906, the United States Government established a High Court for China on much the saine lines as H.B.M.'s Supreme Court. Chinese residents in the Foreign Settlements are subject to their own laws, administered by a so-called Mixed Court, which was established at the instigation of Sir Harry Parkes in 1864, and originally sat at the British Consulate. It is presided over by an official of the rank of Tung-chi or sub- prefect. The cases are watched by foreign assessors from the principal Consulates. Foreign Assessors also sit in most of the civil cases. In the French Concession there is now established a new Mixed Court in a building erected at Lokawei where is also to be found the new headquarters of the French Police. During 1917 a French judge was appointed to exercise judicial functions in the French Consular Court hitherto exercised by a consular official. There is a Court of Consuls which was established in 1870, the judges of which are elected by the Consuls annually, its purpose being to enable the Municipal Council to be sued.
In local affairs the foreign residents govern themselves and the natives within the Settlements by means of the Municipal Councils, which exist under the authority of the "Land Regulations." These were originally drawn up for the British Settlement by H.B.M. Consul in 1845, but have since undergone various amendments. In 1854 the first general Land Regulations--the city charter, as they may be called-were arranged between the British Consul, Captain Balfour, and the local authorities, acting under Imperial instructions, by which persons of all foreign nationalities were allowed to rent land within the defined limits, and in 1863 the so-called "American Settlement" was amalgamated with the British into one Municipality. The "Committee of Roads and Jetties," originally consisting of "three upright British Merchants," appointed by the British Consul, became in 1855 the "Municipal Council," elected by the renters of land,. and, when the revised Land Regulations came into force in 1870, the "Council for the Foreign Community of Shanghai North of the Yang-king-pang," elected in January of each year by all householders who pay rates on an assessed rental of five hundred taels, or owners of land valued at five hundred taels and over. The Council now consists of nine members of various nationalities, who elect their own chairman and vice-chairman, and who give their services free. The great increase of municipal business, however, is proving so much a tax on the time of the councillors, the chairman especially, that some new arrangement is generally considered necessary. A move in this direction was made in 1907 by the creation of a paid Board, exercising much the same functions as a Com- pany's Board of Directors, for the supervision of the Electrical Department. The Sec- retariat was in 1897 strengthened and its efficiency increased, but no move in the direc- tion of a change in the Council's constitution has yet been made. A committee of re- sidents was appointed in November, 1879, to revise the Land Regulations, and their work was considered and passed by the ratepayers in May, 1881, but the "co-operative policy," under which a voice equal to that given to Great Britain, is given to small Pow- ers having practically no interests in China, caused a delay of seventeen years. Regulations were again revised and passed by the ratepayers in March, 1898, and in November the Council received a formal notification that the additions and alterations
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