Extract from the "Courier clu Soir" (a journal published in Paris) dated Sunday, '9th July, 1882.
Wo are glad to be in position to contradict on good authority a rumour which has been in circulation for some days past.
is positively denied that foreigner will again be admitted as members of th ici il of our French Conce:
Indeed, how could such a measure be in contemplation even, when in a country far less distant from us, French since a long time and less under foreign influence, in Alveria, itis under consideration to exclude all foreigners from the Municipal Council of the colony in consequence of certain recognized dangers?
It is not at this moment that we can afford to allow Great Britain to strengthen—thanks to our supineness—her authority over a corner of the earth which has been French since the China war and where our have the English. Nevertheless it 1868 that an imperial decree, always to be pal Council to. the Foreigners, thereby royretted, opened the doors of the Munici-
ug dissension in the colony and preparing the way for the preponderance of England.
Could it be bolieved{that foreigners were actually electors of French Councillors, a state of things positively worse than the Algerian regime? To-day they elect only Foreign Councillors, and that seems to us quite sufficient. Would it be believed that French Councillors themselves are allowed to reside on the Foreign Concessions? The measures adopted at the instance of M. Ernest Millet, a delegate of the French Colonists, and a former Chairman of the Municipal Council of the French Concession of Shanghai, are by no means radical; but they will suffice to uphold the supremacy of our flag on French soil. In the future we shall always ave a Frenchman for Chairman of Council ina French town, Could we require less? After all, it seems to us that the English have sufficient sense to be masters at home, and there are sufficient places in Asia and even in China where they are at home. Besides, we must do them justice. If through our blunders they have been permitted to encroach too much in the government of our colony of septentrional China, they cannot complain if for the future we take measures to better protect our rights and interests.
Probably they would never have dreamt of going so far, had they not found unexpected auxiliaries among the Jemuits who great influence over the native ian population, and who became all at once anglophiles the day following the execution of the decrees. For the future the French Conce ion of Shanghai will be thoroughly ch; the staff of the Municipality will be amenable to the French Consular Court. The colonists till now so little known, who have sueceeded in obtaining justice for their awful claims, were worthy to be heard. They are patriotic, enterprising, intelligent, energetic; they are ignored in Franco because they have, themselves, a budget of nearly one million, and a commerce in silk alone every year of more than a hundred millions.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.