SHANGHAI
733
March 1898, and in November the Council received a formal notification that the additions and alterations and by-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 obtain, including the compulsory acquisition of land for new roads, and the extension and improvement of already existing thoroughfares, the promotion of sanitation, and the enforcement of building regulations. All these had been foreshadowed in the Original Land Regulations of Captain Balfour, but these being unskilfully drafted and their immediate necessity not appearing evident to the struggling community were permitted to fall into temporary abeyance. The rights of the foreign renters and native owners concerned are most carefully guarded, for which purpose a board of three Land Commissioners has been constituted, one being 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 land renters 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 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 franes. 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,'
44
or
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 ocenr. 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
Digitized by
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.