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any supporters to give his words more weight. In other words: there were no political parties which might have mustered support for one cause or another and through which persons not eligible to vote might have been represented at a Public Meeting.
Moreover Public Meetings were in principle held only once a year to discuss matters of a financial and municipal nature. Only if there were other important affairs for which approval of the ratepayers was necessary, would more meetings be convened.
And there lay the second defect, and a very glaring one when compared to parliamentary systems in Europe or America.
Apart from the annual meeting, the Municipal Council was irresponsible in the sense that it did not regularly have to answer questions about its policy.
Likewise information about the sessions and policy making of the Municipal Council was considered too scarce and meaningless. Until 1860 no minutes were published if ever they were taken, which is not certain. It was only after the Herald, in its issue of October 13, 1860, had accused the Municipal Council of negligence with regard to a big fire on Nanking Road, that the newly appointed municipal secretary, Edwin Pickwoad, offered to release the council minutes for publication.
For a time the minutes, as well as committee reports and annual reports were published in the North China Herald, until in 1908 the Municipal Council decided to issue its own bulletin, the Shanghai Municipal Gazette, first in English only, but afterwards also in Chinese.
But the value of these minutes as a true insight into the decision-making process of the Municipal Council was doubted from a very early stage, when the North China Herald wrote on October 29, 1864, with regard to plans for improvement of the Bund: "The very brief allusions which are contained in the minutes of the Municipal Council meetings to the subjects which have been discussed, are not always intelligible to general readers. In many instances the object of publishing minutes, which we presume is to afford information regarding the current Municipal affairs, is completely defeated by this brevity".
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any supporters to give his words more weight. In other words: there were no political parties which might have mustered support for one cause or another and through which persons not eligible to vote might have been represented at a Public Meeting.
Moreover Public Meetings were in principle held only once a year to discuss matters of a financial and municipal nature. Only if there were other important affairs for which approval of the ratepayers was necessary, would more meetings be convened.
And there lay the second defect, and a very glaring one when compared to parliamentary systems in Europe or America.
Apart from the annual meeting, the Municipal Council was irresponsible in the sense that it did not regularly have to answer questions about its policy.
Likewise information about the sessions and policy making of the Municipal Council was considered too scarce and meaning- less. Until 1860 no minutes were published if ever they were taken, which is not certain. It was only after the Herald, in its issue of October 13 1860, had accused the Municipal Council of negligence with regard to a big fire on Nanking Road, that the newly appointed municipal secretary, Edwin Pickwoad, offered to release the council minutes for publication."
For a time the minutes, as well as committee reports and annual reports were published in the North China Herald, until in 1908 the Municipal Council decided to issue its own bulletin, the Shanghai Municipal Gazette, first in English only, but after- wards also in Chinese
But the value of these minutes as a true insight into the decision-making process of the Municipal Council was doubted from a very early stage, when the North China Herald wrote on October 29 1864, with regard to plans for improvement of the Bund: "The very brief allusions which are contained in the minutes of the Municipal Council meetings to the subjects which have been discussed, are not always intelligible to general readers. In many instances the object of publishing minutes, which we presume is to afford information regarding the current Municipal affairs, is completely defeated by this brevity”.
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