Directory_and_Chronicle_1875 — Page 833

SHANGHAI.

General Condition of the Foreign Settlement.

Division of Settlement.-The foreign settlement is divided into three quarters- the French, English, and American, or Hongkew. These designations are given them for easy identification, and do not represent them as being quarters specially set apart for the location of the nationals whose names they take. Foreigners or Chinese can alike reside in any quarters they may elect.

The settlement is cosmopolitan, the community is cosmopolitan, as a reference to the enumeration of the population as given below will show.

Government.-The Government of the place may be divided under two heads : the judicial or paternal part, remaining entirely in the hands of the local foreign officials appointed by Western Governments, who deal with civil and criminal cases. The English Supreme Court is the only Imperial Court. The other Courts are Consular, with the exception of the Mixed Court. The Executive, or Local Government, is carried on by Municipal Councils, of which there are two.

In the extreme south of the settlement the French have a Council, while the affairs of the Anglo-American sections are managed by one Council. The first bears the title of "Conseil de l'Administration Municipale Français," while the official designation of the latter is the "Council for the Foreign Community of Shanghai."

The Land Regulations-Are the rules by which the Local Government is carried on. They were originally drawn up by—

1st, Captain Balfour, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul in 1845-46, and known as the "British Land Regulations."

2ndly, By Mr. (now Sir) Rutherford Alcock, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, Mr. R. C. Murphy, United States' Consul, and M. Edan, French Consul, in 1854, with the assent of the foreign community of the time; and—

3rdly, more recently in 1865 and 1869 amended and enlarged by the foreign community, passed by the foreign local Consul, and finally approved of by the Foreign Ministers at Peking in 1869.

Thus these Regulations, which may be said to take the form of the Charter of Incorporation of western cities, form our local les tena.

The French Consul, M. de Montigny, obtained in 1849 from the Chinese Government an assignment of space within which French subjects should be at liberty to acquire land and buy residences, &c.

In 1862, from an extension of the limits of the ground originally placed at the service of the French, the French Consul established a separate Council, which continued to administer its affairs under the Regulations framed jointly with his English and American colleagues by M. Edan, in 1854.

In 1868 a new code of regulations came into force on the French side.

There are therefore two sets of Regulations in force, viz., the "Réglement d'Organisation Municipale de la Concession Francaise," and the "Local Regulations and Bye Laws," for the division of the foreign settlement north of the Yang-King- Pang. Both regulations have the same end in view. The powers to elect a Committee or Council to levy taxes at public meetings, for the maintenance of the peace, good order, and government of the settlement.

The regulations for the French side, so far as I am aware, work well. In regard to those for the Anglo-American districts, the Municipal Council in their Report for the year ended 31st March, 1871, say :-

"The affairs of the Municipality are in a prosperous state. The financial condition is satisfactory; the expenditure is 1,120 taels in excess of the receipts. This