Directory_and_Chronicle_1925 — Page 801

SHANGHAI

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ultimate immense benefit of the whole of China. 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 an- nually. 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, or residents with an annual income of four thou- sand francs. This, it will be noticed, approaches 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 so far 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 meet- ing 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 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." >>

An agitation was started in 1919 for Chinese representation on the Municipal Council of the International Settlement on the plea that there should not be taxation without representation, and some little difficulty was experienced in connection with the collection of rates. Although, as explained on page 731, the Chinese reside in the Settlement on suffrance, the Council offered to accept an Advisory Committee of five members on Chinese affairs, and the agitators had to be content with this concession.

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 re- sidents 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 no clashing of authority, which could not be removed by the exercise of a little common-sense on both sides, has occurred. Twice, indeed, it may be said, the Foreign Settlements proved the salvation of Imperial rule over the whole Empire. It was 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 Fu-siang were actually besieging Peking, it was the loyal conduct of the Nanking Viceroy, the late Liu K'wen-yi, 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 per- fectly well understood by a long run of distinguished statesmen, who in turn held for half a century the reins of power at Nanking. In this category we may include such names, illustrious for their loyalty, as the late Tseng Kwoh-fan and Liu K'wen-yi. It was not, indeed, till the advent in 1904 of a reactionary Viceroy, who, under tlie specious pretext of seeking to restore the dimmed prestige of the Imperial Court, was really de- sirous 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 inter- ference 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 sur- face in China.

FINANCES

The Ordinary Revenue for 1923 was the highest on record. The growth of the Settlement is shown by the rise during the past thirty years in the chief sources of Municipal Revenue, namely:-Land Tax, Tls. 54,645 to Tls. 1,595,680; Foreign House rate, Tls. 44,477 to Tls. 1,467,453; Native House rate, Tls. 104,740 to Tls. 1,521,548; Wharfage dues, Tls. 64,322 to Tls. 427,364; and Licence fees, Tls. 109,559 to Tls. 920,024.