1918

SHANGHAI
715
have the force of law in the Anglo-American Settlement. They give the Council the
powers which it had been for nearly twenty years frying to obtain, including the com¬
pulsory acquisition of land for new roads, and the extension and improvement of already
existing thoroughfares, the promotion of sanitation, and the enforcement of building re¬
gulations. All these had been foreshadowed in the Original Land Regulations of
Captain Balfour, but they, 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 and native renters concerned are most care¬
fully guarded, for which purpose a board of three Land Commissioners has been con¬
stituted, one being appointed by the Council, one by the registered owners of land in
the Settlement, and one by resolution of a meeting of ratepayers. At the time of the
Taiping rebellion it was proposed by the Defence Committee, with the almost un¬
animous 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 hav¬
ing 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 “ Reglement
d’Organisation Municipale de la Concession Frangaise,” 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 hitherto
without success. Meetings of ratepayers are held in February or March of each year, at
f 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-
I 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
I 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.”
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 for a space of seventy years no clashing of authority, which could not be at
once removed by the exercise of a little common-sense on both sides, has been found to
occur. 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 Im¬
perial troops, aided by Gordon’s “Ever-Yictorious 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 Tim and T’ung 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 the 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
I an equally7 reactionary Taotai was appointed and a system of petty attempts at inter-
1 ference was at once inaugurated. The methods were worthy of the men, who did not