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and the Tung Wah Hospital asking them to discourage the populace from rash and violent reactions.25 The merchants themselves also looked to them to provide leadership. In the same episode, the large Chinese Landsmannschaft (Chung-hua hui-kuan) in San Francisco sent an account of the riots to these two organisations and asked them to petition the Chinese government on its behalf.26 Contemporary newspapers reported many instances in which merchants and officials referred cases to them for arbitration.27 In 1901, the Hong Kong newspaper, the Hua-tzu jih-pao, summed up the development of the charitable halls in Canton in this way: The charitable halls had begun with the aim of offering private social welfare, but they had since assumed a number of political roles. They were consulted by the officials on various occasions; as when surtaxes were needed, when commercial policies were decided upon, and when social disturbances in the community arose. The government regarded them as an organ where "titled merchants" (shen-shang and shen-tung) expressed the opinions of the merchant community. When the government sought their opinion, they deliberated with representatives of the various guilds, assessed their views, and then passed their judgements on to the government.28
Towards Community-wide Organisations
Besides the charitable halls, there were other types of merchant organisations which sought to embrace community-wide concerns. Mark Elvin's recent study on Shanghai shows the rise of specialised agencies in which gentry and merchants joined efforts in providing municipal services from the mid-nineteenth century on. In 1905, their activities culminated in the formation of the City Council of Shanghai.29 In Newchuang and in Swatow, the guilds in each of these localities got together and formed permanent assemblies. The Newchuang Grand Assembly (ta-hui) was composed of principal Chinese merchants and financiers of the city. It had two areas of responsibilities. First, as a combination of merchant guilds it was concerned with the laying down and the enforcement of trading rules between guilds. Second, it provided unofficial municipal services supplementing what the local government did. They included maintaining the streets, a public water supply and some social welfare.30 In Swatow, the Wen-nien-feng Assembly was concerned with regulating differences between the guilds. It also dominated the Swatow Landsmann guilds in the various cities, so