Tie French authorities having indicated that they will not join formal promulgation of the Revised Land Regulati until all other states concerned accept the regulations set up by the French government for the so called French Concession, the moment is an appropriate one to consider whether the members of the commercial community at this port should not urge on the ministers the propriety of asking the several governments to invite the French to lay aside their assumptions, and to take up their former position in the cosmopolitan control of the police and other municipal institutions of the place.
1 A review is necessary of the conditions under which both sets of land regulations have come into existent Regulations of some sort were required, "because those of the country could not be applied to foreigners, who by treaty agreement remain under the control of their own authorities. On the other hand, the it difference of the Chinese to such matters rendered it at once a necessity fur foreigners themselves to make roads and landing places, to light cleanse and drain their settlements, to establish a police, and to raise a revenue for those objets by an equitable assessment.
The first step was as follows just after the port was opened, the local Chitiese officer for foreign affairs and the British consul, then the only regularly constituted foreign consul here, together surveyed and set off, for the use of British residents, the plot of growmd between the Yang-king-pang and the Soochow creek, and agreed upon certain rules should be enforced upon all foreigners I withi these limits, Two of these rules.
XXILL, gave the British consul authority over the residents of other nations to the extent of obli them to apply to him if they wanted land, submit to ing jurisiliction in cases of dispute coming under the regulation:
At that time the ground ¥ occupied by the French settlement and extending a third of a mile from the Yang: pang to the city walls, was a densely populated Chinese suburb, the centre of the Chinese trade, and therefore the plot of ground. nearly three fourths of a mile wide, thus appropriated Cly the British consul included all the desirable land then available for foreign mercantile houses. Beyond the Soochow creek, a wide stream, the locality was too distant for business establishments.
The residents of other nat therefore were com-polled to take ground within the so called Enligh concession; but, relying on the rights secure to them by treaties which in' positive terms allow them to rent land directly from Chinese owners without imtervention or restriction, and also place them under the authority of their own national representatives for all disputes or offences, they refused to acknow-Jedgo the pretensions of the English consul under this local arrangement.
In consequence, the English authorities after a few years, abandoned these pretensions unreservedly, as Injudicious in themselves, and asso contrary to the wauls as well as the spirit of the treaties that they could not be enforced.
In 1849 however, before this was definitely settled, the French consul M. de Montigny obtained from the Chinese local officer a similar concession, with the oblectionable clauses in the same words, of the land between the Yang-king-pang and the city wills, containing on the river bank the busy Chinese suburb already mentioned. Neither the English nor the French grant gave the consul any power over Chinese subjects, He proceeded immediately to exercise his nowly ae. quired powers, but within a few weeks the inutility of the grant was proved by the successful resistance of an American, who had purchased land in the rear, and who, by the aid of his consul, forced the Tautai to issue his titledeods through the American consulate.
The English settlement increased in importance, the gible portion—the river bauk—was occupied by the uch remaining undeveloped, chiefly becase the Chinese suburb, and the land was thus too costly for foreign purchase.
good order.were so great and the municipal arrange-By 1854 the interests involved in the maintenance of ments so insufficient, that need arose for more perfect regulations, and all the consuls of that day, including the English and the French, joined in a comprehensive scheme, the representatives of those two great powers abandoning entirely and without reservations, all their previous pretensions to any exclusive rights or jurisdiction over any portion of the two plots in question.
Upon the so called English ground we are to-day administering our municipal government under that scheme, The experience of fifteen years, however, has developed defects which have Ted to a revision, and the Revised Land Regulations now under consideration are the result of the action of the community in this direction. People of all nationalities were invited to join in the revision, and to all governments interested, including the French, the revised code has been referred for approval and acceptance.
1 But a change has meantime taken place in the French plot.
In the civil war the suburb on the river bank was destroyed by fire, and by various measures the French authorities caused the whole of the river bank to pass into foreign ownership. As the frontage here has the deepest water of the whole foreign settlement, and also the nearest to the native city, it is in natural advantages the choice locality of the place, and the French naturally expected it woul! immediately rival its neighbour across the Yang-king-pang.
In 1862, which was soon after the Jast appropriation of the river bank, greatly extending the area of French ground, the French consul established a separate council, and thenceforward, reverting to the original design, abandoned in 1854, they have persistently attempted to enforce Frouch control within the so-called French limits.
In 1866 the present French regulations were issued, which definitely put all municipal affairs, whether affecting foreigners or Chinese, under French control, setting aside both the rights of the (hinese emperor over hie subjects and those of other residents under their respective treaties.
These regulation da translation will be found printed in the oppon {t will be observed that though a council is allowed, all real power is in the hands of the French consul-general, who is only responsible to his superiors. The regulations are ostablished by virtue of the will of the French emperor. There is -no reference to the, Chinese authorities They are put out of question, as are the representa tives of the several western powers concerned, In the appendix are also A translation of the original document from the Chinese to M. de Montigny in 1819; The articles XIV and" XXL from the original English Land Regulations, referred to herein Extracts from the Regulations of 185+; The articles from the earlier treaties relative to hiring and purchasing land, which show clearly that there can be no restrictions as to the quarter in which any foreigner may rent or bay houses or lands.
Invitations to take part in the control of the general municipality, have consistently and continuously been extended to the successive French consuls.
As in the revision of the regulations of the cosmopolitan settlement, the consent of all governments having subjects of citizens resident therein waa desirable, that of the French was requested in common with the others, the rights secured by eaid regulations to jects and French authorities being identical with those secured to all other nationalities.
It has up to this time, as we have seen, been refused unless all other governments will approve of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.