26th Feb.
Wane the foreign ministers are firmly upholding the dignity of their countries vis-d-vis the Chinese, we are in great danger, owing to the apathy of the Municipal Council, of giving away our dignity altogether vis-a-vis the local Chinese authorities. It is more than a month since we warned the Council that if they did not move soon the Czarevitch would be invited to visit Shanghai by the Taotai, and the inference would be that the Taotai has authority to speak for the foreign settlements as well as for the Chinese city and what we feared is actually coming to pass. The uew Nanking Viceroy Lin Kung-yi is coming to Shanghai, as we have already announced, to receive the Czarevitch, and is to reside at Mr. Chu Vu-chee's house in Kiukiang Road, as H.E. Li Hung-chang did on his last visit to Shanghai. Czarevitch is to be received at the Customs' jetty by the Chinese authorities, and to be escorted from there along the Bund and up the Kiukiang Road to the Viceroy's temporary residence through a double line of Chinese troops. There is no objection to this if it is distinctly understood that this ceremony is being performed on the foreign settlement with the consent of the Municipal Council, and if the Senior Consul and the Chairman of the Municipal Council take part in the reception. The Municipal Police will obviously have to assist the Chinese troops to keep order, and it would be well that the Volunteers should also be represented. But the community will protest strongly against this, if the Chinese authorities are going to doit as a right. If it is to be a purely Chinese function, let the Chinese authorities land their guest at Namtao or at the Arsenal, and take him into the City. The visit of the Czarevitch must not be made use of by the Chinese as an opportunity to assert rights over the foreign settlement which we have been combating for forty years or more. I'he recently published Municipal Report shows that attempts have been made by the Taotai during the last year, and not opposed with too much energy by the Council, to re-assert rights hitherto disallowed over the foreshore of the settlement. Mr. Nieh, the resent Taotai, isa very pleasant, obliging, and affable person, and it is of great importance that the Municipal Council should keep on good terms with him; but it is still more important that the Chinese should not be allowed to take any step that would threaten our independence. The Consuls and the Municipal Councils are the local authorities in the foreign settlements, and they should be the first to receive the Czarevitch when he lands, The foreign local authorities would not ask to join in any reception if the Czarevitch were to land outside the boundaries of the settlements; but if he lands officially within those boundaries, the Consuls and the Councils are the proper persons to receive him. We commend it to the incoming Council to see that this is distinctly understood, and that the reception of the Czarevitchon the english bund with a guard of Chinese soldiers is only by the courteous permission of the Municipal Council. There was trouble between foreigners and the Chinese soldiers when the Viceroy Li was staying in the Kiukiang Road, and there will be more trouble this year if the soldiers and their officers are permitted to believe that their presence is of right, and that they are not amenable to police contro}. This will be the first, time that the municipal authorities have taken second place to the Chinese in the reception of a distinguished foreign visitor to the settlements,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.