CO129-351 - Public Offices - 1908 — Page 363

Sir,

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Inclosure 2 in No. 1.

Shanghae Municipal Council to Senior Consul.

Council Room, Shanghae, January 10, 1908. I HAVE the honour to inform you that the steady increase in the number of cases of petty crime brought under the notice of the police, and in the number of native prisoners in municipal custody have again brought into prominence the desirability of the reintroduction of the bamboo, a matter which has engaged the Council's attention at intervals since November 1905, when the change in procedure in this respect was inaugurated at the Mixed Court.

The method observed in affecting this change offers special features, and the exact position of the question is best recalled by means of a cursory review of what had passed.

Authority for the abolition of the bamboo is apparently based on an Imperial Rescript issued on the 24th April, 1905, which approved generally the terms of a

Report by the Land Revision Commissioners on a Memorial by the Nanking Viceroy. This Report referred to the abolition of torture, and contained a proposal for the substitution of fines for blows. On the 25th April an Edict was issued primarily in reference to the use of torture and the cruelties practised in the native yamêns, and briefly stating that the usual formal sanction had been given to the terms of the Report. There is thus reason to suppose that, in so far as these documents refer to the use of the bamboo, the promulgation of the new procedure was intended to be regarded neither as emphatic nor as universal. On the 15th October a Memorial upon the same matter, and from the same quarter, was similarly sanctioned, wherefrom it was understood that the application of the new rule would be general, though, in the light of what has passed, its terms as published in the native press, seem to express an intention to establish strict observance of the new procedure as an experiment at the Mixed Court alone. The foreign authorities were then at the beginning of November formally notified of the order received.

The views of the community generally upon the subject again unequivocally found voice at the ratepayers meeting in March last, and lately in the request for the active co-operation of the Consular Body contained in the Council's letter of the 13th April, to which there is little to add, On the 24th May last a telegram appeared in a well- informed native organ stating that the Nanking Viceroy had memorialized the Throne by telegram requesting the reintroduction of blows at the Court on the ground that criminality had largely increased since their cessation, and two days later a second message announced that the formal Imperial sanction had been given. The denial of this announcement had come to the Council's notice, and the grounds therefor may doubtless be verified by the Consular Body.

It is meanwhile beyond doubt that the recent increase in police cases of all kinds is to be traced directly to the fact that the Settlement, as the sole locality throughout China wherein the bamboo is known to be in disuse, offers an inviting field to habitual malefactors from all quarters. In Tien-tsin and Hankow the bamboo is applied as a matter of ordinary procedure. In the native city and the neighbouring suburb of Nantao the maintenance of order is aided by blows daily administered under orders of the officials in charge. The municipal gaol, moreover, compares so favourably with neigh- bouring prisons under purely native control, that alone it forms an inadequate deterrent in the eyes of the native criminal, a fact which was recently evidenced by the statement of one prisoner in open Court to the effect that he desired to return to gaol in order to obtain good food. The abolition of blows in the foreign Settlement, if genuinely an experimental administrative reform, has thus clearly proved an inequitable, premature, and perilous measure. I am confident, however, that consideration of the events concurrent with this innovation, and the manner in which it has been carried out, will confirm the Consular Body in the views expressed in the Council's letter of the 13th April.

In conclusion, it may be observed that in the Council's opinion the bamboo is eminently suited to the character of the native offender, is an adjunct of criminal justice rendered vitally necessary under present conditions if only by reason of inmemorial use, and, administered after guilt had been established under the check exercised by the presence of foreigners at the Court, is a wholly humane and salutary mode

of correction.

In inquiring therefore whether the contents of the Council's letter are receiving attention at the hands of the Diplomatic Body at Peking, I have the honour to request

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that, since this matter is now of the gravest moment to the security of the community, negotiations may be reopened or vigorously sustained to a satisfactory settlement,

I have, &c. (Signed)

Inclosure 3 in No. 1.

D. LANDALE, Chairman,

Doyen's Circular, dated January 27, 1908.

LE doyen a l'honneur de faire circuler une lettre du doyen du Corps Consulaire à Shanghai en date du 15 Janvier courant, avec une annexe, par lesquelles la question du rétablissement de l'usage du bambou, comme moyen de châtiment à la Cour Mixte à Shanghai, est soumise au jugement du Corps Diplomatique.

Il prie ses honorables collègues de vouloir bien se prononcer à ce sujet.

(Signé) A. J. VAN CITTERS.

Pékin, le 27 Janvier, 1908.

P.S.-Je suis d'avis qu'il sera nécessaire de se conformer au désir du Conseil Municipal et de consentir en conséquence au rétablissement de l'usage du bambou.

(Signé) A. J. VAN CITTERS.

It is, in my opinion, not desirable for the Diplomatic Body to take any direct initiative in pressing for the reintroduction of the bamboo. The return to the former practice should rather be made by the Chinese authorities under the pressure of the local public opinion, Chinese and foreign, which the Municipal Council may perhaps be able to direct towards the question.

J. N. JORDAN.

(Signed)

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