Directory_and_Chronicle_1902 — Page 723

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SHANGHAI

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 established in 1870, the judges of which are elected by the Consuls annually, its purpose being to enable the Municipal Council to be sued.

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 various 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 had received the approval of the Diplomatic Body at Peking, and they have the force of law in the Anglo-American Settlement. They give the Council the power which it had been for nearly twenty years trying to get to compulsorily acquire land for new roads, the extension and widening of existing roads, the extension of lands already occupied by public works and for pur- poses of sanitation, and to introduce building bye-laws. The rights of the foreign ren- ters and native owners concerned are most carefully guarded, for which purpose a board of three Land Commissioners is to be constituted, one to be appointed by the Council, one by the registered owners 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. Had this proposal, which was thoroughly tifiable owing to the Imperial Government having lost all power in the provinces, been carried out, Shanghai would have become the 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 French Concession was appointed in 1862, and now works under the "Règlement 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 franes per annum, residents with an annual income of four thousand franes. 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 under the new Regulations. The qualification for councillors north of the Yang-king- pang is the payment of rates to the amount of fifty taels annually, or being a house- folder paying

rates on an assessed rental of twelve hundred taels. For the French Concession the requirement is a monetary one of about the same amount. Several efforts have been made to amalgamate the French with the other Settlements, but hitherto without success. Meetings of ratepayers are held in February or March of each year, at which the budgets are voted and the new Councils instructed as to the

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