Ip a good man struggling with the storms of fate is a sight to move the gods to sympathy, surely a well~ meaning community struggling with indifference and apathy must be an equally pitiful spectacle, Here Shanghai has been for very nearly seven years trying to get a new constitu. Viov, and apparently the achievement of that desirable end is as likely fas not to be postponed for another jon years. Seven years is a genera. tion in a Seltlemont with a fluctuating population like that of Shanghai; and by the time the new constitution is granted, the very names of the leaders who toiled day and night in its propre ration will be forgotten, and the Settle. ment itself will have outgrown its new garments, Chairman lias succeeded Chairman at the Manicipal Council boys who were at school when the firat draft of the new Regulations was made have become City Fathers, Sir The mas Wade, Mr. Grosvenor, Sic Harry Parkes, Mr, O'Conor and Sir John Walshman have one after the other taken the draft out of a Ministerial pigeonhole, and replaced it with sigh, and we are atill trying to keep our new wine from bursting the old bottles that were sewn together twenty years ago. It was at a special Ratepayers' Meeting hold on the 12th November, 1879, that Mr, F. B. Forbes brought forward and carried hie resolation, which Me, Wetmore seconded, for a Committee to present a report on the revision of the present Land Regulations, He pointed out that six years before thal 878, Mr, Rennie, then the Coan cil'e legal adviser, ad brought forward a similar motion, which bad resulted in a now code being submitted to the ratepayers in 1875, That code was allowed to drop,—and it would appear that Shanghai's fire of energy often have euch fruitless terminations,—but the Committee obtained by Mr. Forbes were not discouraged by the fate of the 1875 regulations. They went strevuonsly to work, and were enabled to announce good progress at the annual meeting in February, 1880, and to hand in their report, with the regulations they had drafted attached, to a special meeting of Rate-payors which immediately followed the annual meeting in February 1881. This was more than five years ago; and the Committee whioh, in Mr. Forbes' words, devoted "some fourteen months' tolerably continuous work" to their voluntary task, would Lave repudiated with ridicule the suggestion and a half years afterwards their Inbours would be so little recognised, that if one asked a. member of the Manicipal Coaucil what had be= come of the new Land Regulations, the answer would be, "I haven't the least idea"! Bat the fourteen months' work of Mr, Forbes' Committee was not enough. For ten days and nights in February and March, 1881, the Ratepayers eat in the Municipal Board room in " Committee of the whole," avd went through the new regulations word by word, paragraph by paragraph and clause by clause; with an amount of publio spirit that we should be glad to sce shown in 1886, On the 30th of March, 1881, an adjourned special meeting of Ratepayers was held xt which the new Regulations and Bylaws were finally adopted 5 and on the 8th of June, 1881, they were sent up to the Ministers at Peking for approval, with a covering letter from the then Chairman of the Manicipal Council. We may quote here one paragraph of the letter, for it is worth while to recall to the attention of the present community the fnole which it states "Tt la unnecessary for me to point. out the success that has go far attended the admi ion of Municipal affairs in Shanghai auderthe old Laud Regula. tions or to prove that with the lapse of time and growth of the community, revision of those Regulations has become expedient.... I may mention that except in trifling details, there has been no opposition by any section of ratepayers to the revision and extension of the regulations."
We have underlined (he tence to emphasise the praction! nnnnimity with which the now Reguintions were adopted. Ordinary people would think that unanimity was 9 guarantee that the proposed rules would soon pose ut alas) such is the pervert that this general consent to them been the biggest stumbling-block in the way of their adoption, If there had been an ener. getic party in their favour, and an equally energetic and nearly us wamerous party against their adoption, they would huve been kept in view, and some result would have been obtained.
But what nobody opposes nobody seems to care to support, and the precent. wretched condition of affairs la the result. But to return to the history of the revision, which is no longer of importance enough to be the subject of special mostings, bat has to depend on chance allasious in the annual reports of the Counoil—in the report preeented to the Ratepayers at the annual meeting in 1882 we find a letter from the then British Consul, annonuoing that Sir Thomas Wade hind determined to consult his colleagues before taking any farther step. With a most un. usual energy, Sir Thomas consulted his colleagues, #0 effectually that on the 22ud of April, 1882, the than Senior Consul was able to hand the draft back to the Council with the alterations and omissions suggested by the Ministers.
These were referred to the remains of the original committee and accepted by them on behalf of the community and in the report of the Council to the annual Ratespayers' Meeting held in 1884, the Council stated that, in ace cordance with a suggestion from Sic R. T. Rennie, they hud submitted the revised Regulations to their legal adviser for another revision, " with the view of having any alterations made in the wording of them which he may von. sider advisable, or to have anything added which may Lave been omitted." This was no doubt an exosllent bree caution, and ought not to have onused much delay, as the legal advisor in question was present at most of the meetings of the committee of the whole, in which the firet draft was revised and re-revised, It wns fatal however' to the speedy adoption of the new constitution, for the task ocoupied the legal adviser, with the assistance of a learned brother who also took a large share in the original revision of the draft, for more than a year, or na long as it bad taken the original committe to draw ap, although in the legal advises's cage the work was not voluntary, In the summer of 1884 our new constitu. tion was sent again to Peking for the npprovnl of the Ministers of the Treaty Powers, and there it has Lain for more than two yenrs. We need not be cure prised that the Ministers at Peking have not hurried themselves to approve our new Regulations, for they lnve been with more congenial matters of high policy since the summer of 1884; and if they are questioned, they may well retort that their apathy la equalled by that of thie community 5 fur 60 little lave recent Councila inter. ested themeclyes in the matter, that in the lust report, and at the last annual meeting of Ratepayers, i was not evert mentioned Surely it is worth the while, as well "g the daty, of the Cunneil, to it themselves before the Peiho is closed by ico this year, to get the now Regulations tually confirmed. An enormous amount of time and energy has been devoted by some of the best men in the community to preparing our new constitution, As we have pointed out before, it is suicidal to throw away this labour. We get along so well under our voluntary govern-mont, because in the past prominent and busy men have been willing to work for their fellow-residents with no pecuniary reward, What encouragement is there for men to do this in future, if all the labour which we have been recording is sacrificed to the apathy and indifference of Uke present times Our present Regulations are good enough for them, and the future must take cure of itself! Such a spirit is og unworthy as it is injarioue, The community decided almost nue ominously that it wanted a new constitution, and that the revised regula. king will respond if it is stirred up
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.