Directory_and_Chronicle_1903 — Page 679

•

202

SHANGHAI

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 à 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 justifiable 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 francs 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- holder 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 policy they are to pursue. No important measure is undertaken without being referred to a special meeting of ratepayers. The Council divides itself into Defence, Finance, Watch, and Works Committee. This cosmopolitan system of government has for many years worked so well and so cheaply that Shanghai has fairly earned for itself the name of “The Model Settlement.”

FINANCES

or

The Ordinary Revenue of the “Anglo-American" Settlement for 1901 amounted to Tls. 1,097,720," an increase of Tls. 52,443 over that of the previous year, and was derived from the following sources :—

Land Tax, five-tenths of 1 per cent.

General Municipal Rates, Foreign Houses, 10 per cent. General Municipal Rates, Native Houses, 10 per cent.... Dues on Merchandise ....

+++

...Tls. 218,749,80

162,229.82

282,383.34

140,170.17

263,086.69

31,099.89

Digitized by GTIs.

G.Tls. 3,097,719.71

Licences, principally vehicles, opium shops and lotteries Markets, Cattle-shed and Slaughter-house fees, etc.

...