ļ
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withdraw survey parties from the field for a period of two months. Further, no useful results in regard to discharges of rivers could be obtained owing to the almost complete failure of the rains.
As regards actual work accomplished up to date the commission has been instrumental in getting the following works executed in or around Tien-tsin :-
1. The cathedral cutting of the Hai Ho.
2. The improvement of the Hsin Hai Ho and construction of flood sluices.
3. The improvement of the entrance of the Grand Canal to the Hai Ho.
4. The construction of a flood dyke round Tien-tsin.
5. The construction of a new outlet channel to the Machang Canal (now on
hand).
Except for item (5) the civil authorities and the local gentry have provided a considerable portion of the funds necessary to carry out these works all of which benefit Tien-tsin as regards flood protection.
The commission has also approved a project for the reversion of the Pei Yun Ho, giving it a new flood channel towards the sea, which if constructed and properly maintained should prevent inundations from that river. It hopes further to be in a position to submit proposals for improving the Yung Ting Ho within the next few months. These two projects deal with the problem of the rivers north of Tien-tsin, and thereafter attention will be focussed on the river system on the south of that city.
..
As regards financial arrangements the commission is at present in receipt of a monthly grant of 30,000 dollars to cover the cost of administration, surveys, hydrographic and topographical work. This grant was obtained by arrangement with the Finance Minister and Foreign Legations in May last, with the promise that it should last until the surveys were completed. Lately, however, a suggestion bas been thrown out by the Ministry of the Interior that the commission might conveniently be dissolved as soon as the plans for the Nin Mu Tun Cutting has been worked out. This, as a matter of fact, has been done in connection with the Pei Yun Ho reversion, so the proposal amounts to dissolving the commission almost at once. It is scarcely necessary to point out the folly of dissolving the commission with the surveys still unfinished. If the commission is to do the work it was intended it should do. viz., to work out a scheme for the improvement of the whole river system of Chibli it must necessarily remain in existence until surveys have been completed and schemes have been formulated after a study of the results obtained from these surveys.
The crux of the whole matter would seem to lie in the necessary financial support being forthcoming. It would be a thousand pities if the commission should be dissolved before it has completed the survey work. It should also be pointed out too that when surveys are completed any improvement schemes which are advocated should be carried out with the least possible delay if the surveys made are to prove valuable. I need hardly remind you, gentlemen, that owing to the changing nature of the rivers of North China surveys made at the present time may be quite incorrect ten or fifteen years hence. As far as Tien-tsin is concerned the project which most nearly concerns us is the improvement of the Yung Ting Ho. This is the silt-laden river which makes constant dredging necessary to keep the Pei Ho in a navigable condition. Were this menace removed the amount of dredging that would be required in the Pei Ho. year by year, would be considerably lessened, and would consequently involve the expenditure of a much smaller sum than is now required. The Hai Ho Conservancy Board, which is concerned with the keeping in order and the improvement of the rivers in the near vicinity of Tien-tsin, has an adequate and assured income. The Chilli Commission depends entirely for its income on grants that have been made or may be made in the future, there is no assured source of supply. It is highly important that this income should be guaranteed until the work is completed or at any rate until sufficient has been done to make the results really
valuable.
CONCESSION QUESTIONS AT HANKOW AND TIEN-TSIN.
It was unanimously agreed :-
That this conference views with grave concern the attitude of the Chinese Government, which, in assuming control of areas formerly under foreign jurisdiction, bas deprived treaty Power nationals of their rights in regard to
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the ownership of land and municipal representation. This conference accord- ingly urges upon His Majesty's Government the supreme importance of safe- guarding to the fullest extent the treaty rights of British subjects residing and doing business in China, and of resisting every encroachment upon these rights. It further urges upon His Majesty's Government the absolute necessity of arriving at a satisfactory understanding with the Chinese Government as to the future administration of these areas on such terms as will ensure that the interests of British property-owners and residents shall be in no way prejudiced and the peace and good order of the other concessions fully safeguarded.”
In moving this resolution. Mr. Mounsey, on behalf of the Tien-tsin ('hamber, said in part:—
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Last year this conference passed a resolution that whilst sympathising with the desire of the Chinese to see extraterritoriality abolished it considered certain preliminaries essential, amongst which was a satisfactory code of laws and satis- factory arrangements for the administration of such laws. It needs no words from me to show how China has advanced towards those ends during the last twelve months, or how much nearer she has reached to a consummation of her desire to abolish extraterritorial jurisdiction.
All the evidence of administration in the case of such opportunities as have come to her is against her.
The administration of her own affairs is in a hopeless muddle. Confusion is becoming worse confounded. Each province is under the autocratic control of a military chief, owing at the best only shadowy allegiance to Peking, and. at the worst, none at all. Where the control of the Peking Government might be expected to be effective, law and order are almost non-existent: brigands roam the countryside at their own sweet will. ravaging and looting with practical impunity, and neither life nor property is secure. And when in the midst of all this chaos she assumes control of ex-enemy concessions and other foreign areas in a foreign treaty port, what sense of confidence or security is it possible for foreigners to feel!
"I am not so much concerned for the moment with the actual administration of the ex-German and ex-Austrian concessions except to use them as illustrations of what may be expected if abolition of extraterritoriality were to become an accomplished fact, and would proceed therefrom to the contemplation of the creation of an alternative situation acceptable both to foreigners and Chinese alike, and one which might have the effect of ensuring safety against encroachment on those privileges which foreigners in China now enjoy.
Almost the first thing the Chinese Government did when it assumed control of the enemy concessions was to abolish all vestige of municipal control formerly enjoyed by foreigners living in those concessions, and had not strenuous protests been made at once the same policy was threatened in the case of the recent assumption of control of the Russian concession.
In the enemy concessions foreign ratepayers had the right of suffrage and of election to the municipal councils of those areas. They had the power to tax them- selves and the right of control of all their monies for the benefit of the areas in which they resided. Full municipal control also existed in the Russian concession, and thanks to agitation on all sides exists to-day, though possibly a continued existence of that state is somewhat precarious.
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To take the ex-German concession as an example. When the Germans functioned there taxation was not excessive, the area was laid out on a sound basis and the taxes honestly applied towards its up-keep on progressive lines. To-day the Chinese Government is attempting to impose on all and sundry fees amounting to per cent. of the value of the land and buildings when transferred in addition to the municipal taxes levied by the Germans, and there is no guarantee that those fees or indeed the municipal taxes also will not be arbitrarily increased at any time, or that they will be applied to the area from which they are taken. Foreigners who purchased land in the German area prior to the Chinese occupation did so with knowledge of the conditions; have spent money in improvements and development and have had a voice in municipal affairs conducted on lines with which they are familiar.
"By the action of the Chinese the rights of treaty Power nationals in respect Those landowners are still entitled to land transfers have been interfered with.
to the maintenance of their treaty rights in this respect as in others, and to have
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