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appropriated large areas on the left bank of the Hai-ho as future Settlements, while the existing concessions extended their boundaries very considerably. These developments have thrown all present and future landing facilities for direct sea-going traffic into foreign hands. The concessions have excellent and well-lighted roads, with an electric tramway system. The British Municipality has a handsome Town Hall, completed in 1889; adjoining there is a well-kept public garden, opened in the year of Jubilee and styled Victoria Park. An excellent recreation ground of 10 acres has been developed, in which tennis-courts, etc., have been laid out. The extra- mural area of the British Concession is very low-lying and is being reclaimed and filled in by the mud dredged from the bottom of the river in the Harbour and discharged through pipes to the required place. The various British areas-known as the British Concession, British Extension, and the Extra-Mural Area-have been amalgamated to form one Municipal Area under a Council elected on a broad franchise. New land regulations have come into force, and it is stipulated therein that the new Council consist of nine members, of whom five shall be British subjects. Candidates must be nominated by two electors and all electors are eligible to serve on the Council. Voting is to be on a sliding scale; the minimum qualification for a foreign voter being the payment of Tls. 20 per annum in respect of land-tax or the occupation of premises of an assessed value of Tls. 480 per annum, and for Chinese the payment of Tls. 240 per annum in respect of land-tax or the occupation of premises of an assessed rental of Tls. 3,000 per annum--the discrimination between foreign and Chinese electors being intended apparently to prevent the possibility of the foreign vote being completely swamped in an area set apart primarily for foreign residence and trade. The development of the various concessions continues to advance at a great rate; but the question of the terms required for the extension of Crown leases in the (original) British Concession-which expire in 1960-is agitating the holders of property there, for, until the actual terms are settled, the development of the area is, and will continue to be, retarded, to the advantage of the other concessions. The terms announced by the British Government in March, 1922, were more onerous than had been expected, and as the result of two public meetings a petition has been presented asking for their amelioration.
Upon the entry of China into the Great War in 1917 the Chinese Authorities took over the German and Austrian Concessions on the 16th March of that year, and these have since been administered by the Chinese Police Bureau, but authority has been received from the Central Government to form an advisory committee of local residents. In the autumn of 1920 the local Chinese authorities assumed charge of Russian Consular functions and the policing of the Russian Concession, leaving the Municipal Council, however, to continue to function in minor municipal affairs. The nationalities of the owners of land in the Russian Concession, based on the assessed value, is in the following proportion:-American, 13.95 per cent.; British, 41.52; Chinese, 10.92; Japanese, 23.58; Russian, 8.19; other nationalities, 1.84 per cent.
The following buildings and institutions were formally inaugurated during 1922:— Messrs. Jardine, Matheson & Co.'s new offices, the Bank of Agriculture and Commerce, the Kailan Mining Administration's new head offices, the new market in the French Concession, the Banque Belge pour l'Etranger's new building, a new Empire Theatre to hold 800 people, the Italian Catholic Hospital and the Pasteur Institute.
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A feature of Tientsin which arrests the attention of visitors is the open-air storage of cargo on the British and French Bunds, which have thus become in effect a "general godown." A great deal of confusion and congestion formerly existed from this practice, but the British Municipality has since elaborated an excellent scheme whereby the Bund is divided into numbered steamer-sections and storage-spaces, and the roadway is now kept clear of cargo. The result has more than justified expecta- tions, and the orderly storage of goods in marked-off spaces not only allows a proper control to be kept over all such cargo but has facilitated communications by keeping the carriage-way clear of obstructions. The congestion at the wharves on the right bank of the river has assumed a serious aspect. This will be considerably relieved by the construction of a thousand feet of sloping shore protection with eleven piers for the mooring of steamers on the Russian Bund just below the International Bridge. Steamers discharging at those wharves will enjoy the facility of railway sidings right up to the berths.
The Racecourse is situated about 3 miles to the west of the Gordon Hall and comprises a very valuable property to which about 350 mow of land have recently been added. New betting buildings of reinforced concrete, which surpass anything of the