44
J. H. HAAN
and above I have already mentioned the swamping number at the Public Meeting of March 12, 1866.
One more danger which could well have appeared was the so-called plural voting system. This meant that each person was given more votes according to the acreage of land he possessed or the amount of taxes he paid. In several other foreign concessions in China, plural voting was part and parcel of the established administrative structure; as, for instance, in the British concessions at Hankow, Kiukiang, Canton, and Tientsin, as well as in the Russian and German concessions at Tientsin.31
In Shanghai, however, it was never practised, and in article XIX of the Land Regulations 1869, it was explicitly stated that no one should have more than one vote (apart from proxies).
Earlier, it had already been rejected at a Public Meeting of May 25, 1852, but ten years later, an attempt was made to introduce it. At the Public Meeting of November 30, 1863, Mr. E. M. Smith moved a resolution which would have allowed plural voting.32
The text of the motion was published in the North China Herald of November 21, and the following week, a fiery letter to the editor from “Civis” appeared in the columns of the paper, in the following terms: “Just, however, as the slave-holding planters of the Cotton states of America felt the necessity of dominant power in the Federal Government, so the principal landholders in this settlement, true to the instincts of a monopolising class, are convinced that their influence to be secure must be paramount, and relying upon the specious boldness of a few and the moral apathy of the many, they propose a revision of the constitution which will place the Municipal power in the hands of a plurality of votes according to extent of Mowage or direct taxation
and it was his opinion that “in the guise of much-needed reform, a coup d'état of no ordinary boldness is in contemplation.”3
Maybe this sharp opposition contributed to the defeat of Mr. Smith's proposal, for at the meeting of November 30, the motion was not even seconded and therefore could not be voted upon.
With these details about voting qualifications in mind, we might well ask: how did they work out in practice; in other
44
J. H. HAAN
and above I have already mentioned the swamping number at the Public Meeting of March 12 1866.
One more danger which could well have appeared was the so called plural voting system. This meant that each person was given more votes according to the acreage of land he possessed or the amount of taxes he paid. In several other foreign concessions in China plural voting was part and parcel of the established administrative structure; as for instance in the British concessions at Hankow, Kiukiang, Canton and Tientsin, as well as in the Russian and German concessions at Tientsin.31
In Shanghai, however, it was never practised and in article XIX of the Land Regulations 1869 it was explicitly stated that no one should have more than one vote (apart from proxies).
Earlier it had already been rejected at a Public Meeting of May 25 1852, but ten years later an attempt was made to introduce it. At the Public Meeting of November 30 1863 Mr. E. M. Smith moved a resolution which would have allowed plural voting. 32
The text of the motion was published in the North China Herald of November 21 and the following week a fiery letter to the editor from “Civis" appeared in the columns of the paper, in the following terms: "Just, however, as the slave- holding planters of the Cotton states of America felt the necessity of dominant power in the Federal Government, so the principal landholders in this settlement, true to the instincts of a monopolis- ing class, are convinced that their influence to be secure must be paramount, and relying upon the specious boldness of a few and the moral apathy of the many, they propose a revision of the constitution which will place the Municipal power in the hands of a plurality of votes according to extent of Mowage or direct taxation
and it was his opinion that “in the guise of much needed reform a coup d'état of no ordinary boldness is in contemplation" 3
+
Maybe this sharp opposition contributed to the defeat of Mr. Smith's proposal, for at the meeting of November 30 the motion was not even seconded and therefore could not be voted
upon.
With these details about voting qualifications in mind, we might well ask: how did they work out in practice; in other
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