Directory_and_Chronicle_1899 — Page 585

SHANGHAI

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charge. Chinese residents in the Foreign Settlements are amenable to their own laws, administered by a so-called Mixed Court, which was established at the in- stigation of Sir Harry Parkes in 1864, and originally sat at the British Consulate. It is presided over by an official of the rank of Tung-chi or sub-prefect. The cases are watched by foreign assessors from the principal Consulates. The working of the Court, especially in regard to civil suits, is far from satisfactory, as the judge has not sufficient power to enforce his decisions. The matter has for some years been supposed to be engaging the attention of the authorities at Peking. For the French Concession there is a separate Mixed Court, which sits at the French Consulate. There is a Court of Consuls which was establishel in 1870, the judges of which are elected by the Consuls annually, its purpose being to enable the Municipal Council to be sued.

power

In local affairs the residents govern themselves by means of the Municipal Council, under the authority of the "Land Regulations." These were originally drawn up by H.B.M. Consul in 1845, but have since undergone various amendments. In 1854 the first general Land Regulations--the city charter, as they may be called-were arranged between the British Consul, Captain Balfour, and the local authorities, by which persons of all foreign nationalities were allowed to rent land within the defined limits, and in 1863 the so-called "American Settlement" was amalgamated with the British into one Municipality. The "Committee of Roads and Jetties," originally consisting of "three upright British Merchants" appointed by the British Consul, became in 1855 the “Municipal Council," elected by the renters of land, and when the revised Land Regulations came into force in 1870, the “Council for the Foreign Community of Shanghai North of the Yang-king-pang," elected in January of each year by all householders who pay rates on an assessed rental of five hundred taels, or owners of land valued at five hundred taels and over. The Council now consists of nine members of varions nationalities, who elect their own chairman and vice- chairman, and who give their services free. The great increase of municipal business, however, is proving so much a tax on the time of the councillors, the chairman especially, that some new arrangement is necessary. The Secretariat was in 1897 strengthened and its efficiency increased, but no move in the direction of a change in the Council's constitution has yet been made. A committee of residents was ap- pointed in November, 1879, to revise the Land Regulations, and their work was considered and passed by the ratepayers in May, 1881, but the "co-operative policy," under which a voice is given to small powers having practically no in- terests in China, equal to that given to Great Britain, caused a delay of seven- teen years. The Regulations were again revised and passed by the ratepayers in March 1898, and in November the Council received a formal notification that the additions and alterations and bye-laws have received the approval of the Diplomatic Body at Peking, and have the force of law in the Anglo-American Settlement. They give the Council the power which it has been trying to get for nearly twenty years, to compulsorily acquire land for new roads, the extension and widening of existing roads, and the extension of lands already occupied by public works and for purposes of sanitation, the rights of the foreign renters or native owners concerned being most carefully guarded, for which purpose a board of thres Land Commissioners is to be constituted, one to be appointed by the Council, one by the registered owner of land in the Settlement, and one by resolution of a meet- ing of ratepayers. At the time of the Taiping rebellion it was proposed by the Defence Committee, with the almost unanimous consent of the landrenters and residents, to make the Settlements and City with the district around a free city, under the protection of the Treaty Powers. Hal this proposal, which was thoroughly tifiable owing to the Imperial Government having lost all power in the provinces, be rried out, Shanghai would have become th chief city in China, and it is safe to say would have acted as a leaven, to the ultimate immense benefit of the whole Empire A separate Council for the Franch Concession was appointed in 1862, and now works under the "Réglement d'Organisation Municipale de la Concession Française," passed in 1868. It consists of four French and four foreign members, elected for two years, half of whom retire annually. Their resolutions are inoperative until sanctioned by the Consul-General. The members are elected by all owners of land on the Concession, or occupants paying a rental of a thousand francs per annum, residents with an annual income of four thousand francs. This, it will be noticed, approaches much more nearly to "universal suffrage" than the franchise of the other Settlements, which, however, it is the intention to considerably reduce

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