Is it suggested that the British and French occupants of Shameen, the Foreign Concession area of Canton, or in any Concession, do their own scavenging, tend their own public gardens and tennis courts, or perform their own household duties ?
But, no doubt, the China Association, in speaking of the occupants of the Concessions, refer only to those who are the occupiers of houses. Even so, their statement is very misleading.
In Tientsin, there are British, French, Japanese, Italian, and Belgian Concessions, extending together about four miles along the river. Residing in the Tientsin British Concession, quite apart from the Chinese workers, there is a majority of Chinese ratepayers who are governed by a minority of British ratepayers. Recently new Land Regulations have come into force, giving the Chinese ratepayers the vote, but on an immensely narrower franchise than the foreign ratepayers' franchise-the discrimination being intended to prevent the possibility of the foreign votes being swamped. With the same object, it is provided that five out of the newly-created Council of nine must be British subjects.
(V) Important as these matters are, they do not compare in significance with the question of Shanghai, which, as the China Association state, is by far the most important of the Treaty Ports. It is indeed the key of the whole British, and apart from Japan, of the whole foreign position in China. Not only is it immeasurably the largest of the ports, but nearly half the British residents in China live in Shanghai. It is, therefore, to be regretted that the China Association did not see fit to give a more accurate account of the population, the Government, and the general conditions of life in Shanghai.
The populations of the two foreign areas in Shanghai, according to the last Census, taken on October 16, 1920, were :-
International Settlement, foreign population
(Of these, British 5,341)
French Settlement, foreign population
(Of these, British 1,044)
Total foreigners in Shanghai Settlements
(Of whom 6,385 were British)
23,307
3,560
26,867
There were 166,667 Chinese in the French Concession, and a total popula- tion of 930,068 in the Settlement and Concession together.
The population of the native city, outside the Settlements, has been estimated by the Inspectorate of Customs at about 1,000,000; that is to say, nearly half the population of Shanghai live under foreign administration.
There are, however, many thousands of Chinese who work inside the Settlements and sleep outside; and it is estimated that the daytime population of the Settlements is well towards 1,500,000. Thus, three-quarters of the whole population of Shanghai work inside the Foreign Settlements, under the control of foreign administration.
The International Settlement (an entity separate from the French Con- cession) comprises an area of eight and two-thirds square miles, or 5,584 acres. It is ruled by the Shanghai Municipal Council, consisting of nine members, six of whom are British, two (including the Chairman) American, and one Japanese. The Secretary to the Council is British. The members of the Council are generally the directors and managers of business houses in Shanghai. The The Chinese ratepayers in the Settlement have no votes. 2,900 ratepayers qualified to elect the Municipal Council are all foreigners. In 1919 there was an agitation for Chinese representation on the Municipal Council, on the plea that there should not be taxation without representation, and some difficulty was experienced in collecting the rates. The Chinese had, however, to be satisfied with an Advisory Committee of five members, elected by the Chinese commercial bodies.
The Municipal Council not only controls a police force of Sikhs and Chinese, mainly officered by British, but a Volunteer Corps, commanded always by a British regular officer of field rank, who, with a few regular N.C.O.'s, is seconded from the British army. The Light Horse, the Machine Gun Company,
the Artillery, and three Infantry Companies, are also British. The rest of the Volunteers are of heterogeneous nationality. Chinese troops are not permitted to pass through the Shanghai Settlement or any other Settlement or Concession. The Shanghai Municipal Council does not permit the Chinese, who contribute the greater part of the revenues of the municipality, even to walk in its pleasantest places. "Chinese and dogs not admitted," was a notice displayed until recently over the main gates of the park; and though the notice has disappeared the prohibition against entry remains.
We thus have in the Shanghai International Settlement the representatives of 3 per cent. of the population (the foreigners) ruling 97 per cent. of the population (the Chinese) who are without votes, and without rights, but have the duty to contribute to the rates.
The Shanghai Municipal Council is indeed a unique survival from the past; for while it is essentially a committee of business men, it has powers far exceeding those of a modern municipality, claiming sometimes to transcend the authority of the Consular Body, and enjoys an international status guaranteed by treaty.
(VI) The China Association state that Chinese charged with offences within the Shanghai Settlement are tried by a Chinese judge, with a Foreign Assessor, The Association will be aware that, while this was true before the Revolution of 1911, since the Revolution the Mixed Court has been taken over by the Consular Body of Shanghai, and that now the Foreign Assessor virtually acts as judge, trying and deciding the case.
The jurisdiction of the Mixed Court has also been extended to cases where both or all of the parties are Chinese, contrary to the Treaty stipulation which provides that the Foreign Assessor can only attend when a foreigner is a plaintiff. Since the annexation of the Mixed Court by the Foreign Consuls, there have been negotiations for its restoration to Chinese authority, but without avail.
(VII) The China Association state that factories owned by foreigners in Shanghai and the other Treaty Ports in China are, in general, immeasurably superior to Chinese factories, as to construction, sanitation, and conditions of employment. There is no evidence of any kind to support this claim of general superiority-certainly not as regards conditions of employment.
It is not mentioned in the Report of the Shanghai Child Labour Commis- sion (1924), nor in the Report of a Member of the Staff of the International Labour Office at Geneva, who visited a large number of factories in Shanghai and other industrial centres at the end of last year. While these reports commend certain Japanese factories, the one for their modern construction, and the other for the elementary education which one Japanese firm provides for the young children of its employees, the Child Labour Commission also reports that a well-run and apparently prosperous Chinese filature at Hangehow largely dis- penses with the labour of children, who work in general under “ indefensible conditions of misery in the foreign and Chinese silk filatures in Shanghai. certain small places, such as Chefoo and Tsinan, foreigners are reported by the British Consuls to have taken the initiative in obtaining good sanitary conditions, and at Chungking two British firms are stated to have in their establishments sanitary and other conditions which are adequate and, of course, greatly in advance of purely native concerns.'
In
On the other hand, the Report of the Shanghai Child Labour Commission (1924) shows that over the whole field of factory employment in Shanghai the British, the Americans, the French, and the Italians employ a higher proportion of children under twelve in their factories than do the Chinese. In Shanghai 13 per cent. of Chinese factory employees, 15.9 per cent. of American, 17 per cent. of British, 46 per cent. of Italian, and 47 per cent. of French factory employees are children under twelve (Cmd. 2442, China No. 1 (1925) p. 102). The largest number of children employed in any one cotton mill in Shanghai (where work is generally on two twelve-hour day and night shifts) are employed in the British Yangtszepoo cotton mill, where, out of a total of 3,800 employees, 700 are boys and girls under twelve. The largest
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