730
SHANGHAI
or
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 the Far East, and it is safe to say would have acted as a leaven, to the ultimate immense benefit of the whole Chinese 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 in 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 Settlement. 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 householder paying rates on an assessed rental of twelve hundred taels. 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 can be undertaken without being referred to a meeting of ratepayers, any twenty-five of whom can call a "Special Meeting," whose findings are of equal validity with the Regular Annual Meeting. The Council divides itself into Defence, Finance, Watch, and Works Committees. This cosmopolitan system of government has for many years worked well and, the peculiar needs of the community considered, economically, so that Shanghai early earned for itself the name of "The Model Settlement.'
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It is indicative of the wisdom of the principles laid down by Captain Balfour, and subsequently extended by Sir Rutherford Alcock, which, while granting the foreign residents full and complete power to manage their own municipal affairs, and holding them responsible for the peace and good order of the Settlements, carefully refrained from any interference with the sovereign rights of the Emperor of China as Lord of the Soil, that for a space of upwards of sixty years no clashing of authority, which could not be at once removed by the exercise of a little common sense on both sides, was found to occur. Twice, indeed, it may be said, the Foreign Settlements proved the salvation of Imperial rule over the whole Empire. It was, indeed, owing to the fact that the Imperial troops, aided by Gordon's "Ever Victorious Army," were able to make the Foreign Settlements their base of operations, that the capture of Soochow in November, 1863, and after it the complete suppression of the Taiping Rebellion was due. Later, in 1900, when the Emperor was a prisoner in his own palace, and the insurgent troops of Prince Tün and Tung Fusiang were actually besieging Peking, it was the loyal conduct of the Nanking Viceroy, the late Liu K'wenyi, backed up by the loyalty of the Chinese residents in the Foreign Settlements, that finally brought about the restoration of order in the North, and saved the empire from extinction and partition. These things were perfectly well understood by a long run of distinguished Statesmen, who in turn held for half a century the reins of power at Nanking, and in this category we may include such names, illustrious for their loyalty, as the late Tseng Kwohfan and Liu K'wenyi. It was not, indeed, till the advent in 1904 of a reactionary Viceroy, who under the specious pretext of seeking to restore the dimmed prestige of the Imperial Court, was really desirous of recommencing an anti-foreign campaign, with all the methods of the eighteenth century, that any interruption of the previous good relations took place. Under him an equally reactionary Taotai was appointed, and a system of petty attempts at interference was at once inaugurated; the methods were worthy of the men, who did not hesitate to call to their aid the elements of disorder always to be found beneath the surface in China.
The administration of the Salt Gabell, a monopoly of the Central Government, has ever been unpopular in China, and with the relaxation of a strong administration in any of the provinces, one of the first symptoms is sure to be a revival of an organised system of salt smuggling, often encouraged secretly by over greedy officials desirous of illegal gain. There has at all times existed a considerable amount of clandestine salt manufacture on the northern shore of Hangchow Bay. Its existence is well known to the provincial authorities, who, however, have not the means nor the desire to provide an adequate coast guard to effectually repress it. The proprietors of these illegal salines are in touch with a widely organised band of ruffians, who dominate the Pootung country, and are a constant source of trouble to the police of the Foreign Settlements. Under the administration of the Ex-Viceroy, Cheo Fu, and his then
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