in the different parts of the city, for speaking in public without permission of the police, without having had time to adopt any definite plan of action, nor had they any knowledge that there were arms stored in the station.
Can any fair-minded Englishman believe the story that the police station with the arms therein was in danger? Why did not the police close the gates and telephone for reinforcement if they were really on the defensive? The police officer who was responsible for the outrage, for outrage it was, told the story about the "storming" of the station because, after the excitement was over, he could not think of anything else to justify his action. What overwhelming proof would be required to substantiate his case if the same thing happened in the streets of London! And what actual evidence have the Shanghai police so far produced? The most charitable view one can take is that the subordinate officer lost his head and acted in pure panic; but that would neither lessen his responsibility nor defend the system that allowed a non-commissioned officer to shoot down unarmed citizens at his own discretion.
Mr. Chamberlain pointed out quite rightly that "the seat of the trouble lies in the discontent of the Chinese people with their present conditions." But there is a special kind of discontent resulting from our foreign relations which Mr. Chamberlain has failed to realise, namely, the resented privileges of extra territoriality.
We need not discuss the whole question here, but in order to make the British people understand the gravity of the situation it is necessary to explain the status of the Shanghai International Settlement. The latter is a part of Chinese territory originally set apart by treaty for foreigners to live in and do their trade by treaty. Foreign laws cannot be applied to Chinese within the Settlement in cases where both the plaintiff and the defendant are Chinese. They must be tried in the purely Chinese courts. If the plaintiff is a foreigner and the defendant a Chinese the case is still to be tried in a Chinese court, but the foreign consuls may be present as assessors." If the defendant is a foreigner and the plantiff a Chinese, it is to be tried by the consul of the defendant's nationality.
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The Shanghai Municipal Council was empowered by what is known as the Land Regulations to look after the strictly municipal business, including policing. During the Manchu Dynasty a special Chinese court known as the Mixed Court was created in Shanghai to try cases where foreigners were plaintiffs against Chinese, the judges being appointed by the Chinese Government. When the republican revolution took place in 1911 the foreign consuls took over the Mixed Court and appointed their own judges without reference to the Chinese Government and in direct violation of China's treaty rights. All kinds of evils have grown up with this practice: evils admitted by most fair-minded foreigners.
In the meantime the Municipal Council has gradually and steadily increased its governing power, also in direct violation of treaty rights. It has framed all sorts of "by-laws" and "regulations" which are in reality laws of first-class importance. The Chinese, who form the overwhelming majority of the population and pay 70 per cent. of the taxes, have no vote at the municipal elections. Consequently their interests have been systematically ignored. According to treaty, foreign laws cannot be applied to Chinese residing in the Settlement. In reality they have been made to submit to laws made by Shanghai foreigners whose interests are often very different (4)
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from their own, and tried by illegal courts where the real judges are the consular officials, representing the interests of their respective nationals, and against whose decision there can be no appeal.
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Worst of all, the Shanghai police, in whose hands lies the execution of the numerous "by-laws" and "regulations," is far from being an efficient organisation. The officers are mostly British, under whom are Sikhs and Chinese. When the Shanghai Settlement first came into existence, as the result of the Opium War, the feeling against the foreigners was naturally very intense, and the Municipal Council was obliged to recruit from the worst element of the population. Thus a bad tradition has grown up and the very term police has become a term of contempt. As the controlling officers are foreigners who do not speak the Chinese language, their subordinates enjoy a good deal of freedom in furthering their own ends. It is an open secret that they monopolise the opium trade, protect secret prostitution, and patronise illicit gambling. Some of them whose pay is less than 100 dollars a year have become millionaires. They took good care, of course, not to disturb their foreign masters, who are either ignorant of the actual state of things or deliberately shut their eyes.
In this way the Shanghai International Settlement has become a sovereign State governed by an oligarchy, through a bureaucratic official in the person of the secretary of the Municipal Council in the interests of the foreigners alone.
It is because of this long-standing grievance, which is becoming every day more and more intolerable, that the Shanghai Chinese have solidly stood behind the students. For, apart from the details of the incident, the fact that Chinese citizens have been killed on Chinese soil by the foreign police, which for the last eighty years has gained for itself the intense enmity of the Chinese population, is sufficient to rouse a nation-wide indignation. It is to be remembered also that the demonstrators were not only trying to enlist sympathy for the strikers in the Japanese factory, but were at the same time canvassing against the proposed by-laws relating to the wharfage dues, the freedom of the Press, and the licensing of the Stock Exchange, which were to be voted upon in the foreign ratepayers' meeting on June 2, and against which the whole Chinese community had expressed strong opposition by advertising in the local English papers, the only means of voicing their opinion open to the Chinese.
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It is interesting to note also that a ratepayers' mecting had already been called once to vote upon the proposed regulations concerning child labour in the factories, and the meeting failed to take place because of lacking a quorum. We ask the British public to consider whether this is not the most damaging piece of evidence against the Shanghai oligarchy; and whether it is not their duty to press for reform in order to save the good name of Great Britain in the eyes of the civilised world.
It may be asked why we should place the whole responsibility on the British, who form, after all, only part of the foreign electorate in the Settlement. To this we reply that, although the Settlement is nominally international, the whole administrative machinery is in the hands of the British; for the Municipal Council consists of six British, two Americans, and one Japanese, and the secretary, who is the executive of the oligarchy, is also a British subject.
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