29th Jan.
'Yue following important six-line paragraphic the last minates, published in the W.-C. D. News on Wednesday morning, of the Municipal Council' meeting, perhaps did not receive from all our readers the attention it deserves Bunding Yangtzepoo—'he Chairman reports that along with the Engineer he accompanied the Senior Consul to Yangtzepoo to meet the native authorities and inspect the uew bunding to which the country people there are said to object."
Phe anomaly in this to which we wish to call attention is that the Senior Consul, with whom the Chairman the Council and the Engineer went to
tities, should be the French Consul-Yangtzepoo to meet the Chinese autho-General. It is a very distinct grievance and a grievance that ought to be remedied, that the French Consul-General should accept and occupy the post of Senior Consul, and thus become the chief authority on what is known as the Anglo-American settlement. On the so-called French concession, the French Consul-General is all-powerful and no other Consul has a word to say, although the greater part of the business on his concession is done by English and German merchants, Yet, while he keeps the French concession to himself, he is allowed, because he happens to have been here longer at one time than any of the other consuls-general, to assume also the chief authority on this side. It is a fortunate thing that the French consul-general at the present time happens to be M. R. Wagner, a most excellent and popular official, to whom no-one could have any objection personally: indeed, it is the fact that it is M. Wagner that enables us to write strongly about the system, because every one in Shanghai knows that we. could have no objection to M. Wagner as an individual. The only suggestion we could make is that M. Wagner should have declined to take such an anomalous position when it fell to him to accept or refuse it, and this has been the course taken, as far as our recollection goes, by his predecessors.
There is no warrant in the Land Regulationn for this position of affairs it has simply come about as a matter of convenience that the Senior Consul should be the referee for the Municipal Council in all disputes between theCouncil and the Chinese authorities, It is obvious to any one who reads the joint minuteprefixed tothe present Land Regulations (those of 1869), which was signed by the Ministers of Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, France and the United States, that they were originally intended to apply to "all foreigners at Shanghai," including those resident on the so-called French Concession, as the previous reulations of 1854 did; but while the lations were in process of incubation, the French Government stole a march on the other Powers, and promulgated separate regulations for " that portion of the foreign settlement lying south of the Yangkingpavg creek and this piece of sharp practice has since been a permanent source of vexation. Up till quite recently, however, the French consular representative has recognised the anomaly that now exists, and has declined to accept the duties of senior consul; but we have now to put up with his being the exclusive authority on his own side of the Yangkingpang, and the supreme authority on this side, which ought notto be. The consuls-general of Great Britain, Germany, an the United States have been hitherto in turn senior consuls, and properly so as their interests lie on this sident the Yangking-pang; the offer of the post has fallen sometimes by seniority to the representatives of other Powers, and they have uniformly declined it, as we think M. Wagner should have done. Although we think it would be to the general advantage that all the foreign settlements here should be, as was originally contemplated under one municipality, no one wants to dispossess the French Consul-General of his exclusive authority on his own side, if the French Government prefers to maintain it; but it is an anomaly which should be suppressed that be should also be allowed to exercise the supreme authority on this side, as long as the French Concession keeps itself apart from the other foreign settlements. 'I'he Municipal Council would do well to make an urgent representation to the foreign Ministers at Peking on the matter. We repeat that in writing this, we are not actuated by the slightest objection to M. Wagner personally, and we are convinced that of all who object to the present condition of things, there is no one whose objection extends to the present French representative here as an individual.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.