In. the last published minutes of the Municipal Council thera appeared, inter alia, the following "Tt is decided to call the attention of the Senior-Consul to a recent case wherein a native has been detained in custody at the Court for over slaty days, on remand, without any police charge standing against him."
'{o the casual: observer of our local government this would probably convey no impression beyond that of its being the dry record of an occurrence natural and common to the children of Han but to those among us who have witnessed the earlier stages and the latter growth of Shanghai, this official minute is pregnant with unpleasant significance, Like many another present feature of that imperium in imperia which force of circumstances and the euvergy of a former generation have combined to establish "in this Settlement, it bears grimly eloquent, testimony to the fact that where our predecessors so ably sowed we have in great measure failed to reap, and that owing to the very nature of our complex system of local government, the all-pervading and insidious forces of native encroachment have been permitter to regain ground that once was won for the cause of civilisation.
Let us consider briefly what the Mixed Court was originally intended to be, Ata meeting of Landrenters held in April 1865, referring to its recent constitution, the Chairman, Sir Harry Parkes, suid The object of a Mixed Court was to supply the want of some means of jurisdiction over the large numbers of Chinese who were residing in the Foreign Settlements. Pravious to its establishment, native offenders could only by brought before the Consuls and committed by them to the Chinese authorities inside the City for trial and punishment. The difficulty of sending in witnesses and of prosecuting was so great and the whole proceeding so tedious that in many cases the ends of justice were unattainable, In common with his colleagues he had thought it desirable that the Chinese authorities should be brought nearer to enable justice to be dealt out on the spot and he believed the experiment had succeeded. Latterly the Court had been invested with civil powers and authorised to deal with cases in which subjects of Non-Treaty Powers were concerned."
Herein the point to be chiefly borne in mind is, that the large numbers of Chinese residing within the Foreign Settlement area do not occupy the same position vis-2-vis their own authorities as those who live outside, and this vital point has been frequently lost sight of by those whose duty it was to uphold it. This Settlement, be it remembered, was set aside for the residence of foreigners, with privileges of extra-territoriality; at the outset, the only Chinese to be found there, were the immediate employes of foreigners, and when the first native merchants established their hongs within the limits they did so by virtue of Consular sanction and under adequate guarantees that they would abide by the existing local regulations. Then came the great influx of natives seek! a place of refuge from the Taipings, and while the foreign community, rejoining in mach unearned increment, permitted this invasion and allowed the unrestricted residence of Chinese, because of the material benefits directly accruing therefrom, the native authorities on their side were too demoralized to forbid—as they might have done—a step which undoubtedly placed a number of the Emperor's subjects under foreign supervision and taxation. It is open to question, even at this day, whether the foreign community (landowners apart) would not benefit by a return to the original conception of the Foreign Settlement, and the suggestion has not infrequently been made of late that the area of Chinese residence within the Settlement should be definitely restricted. It is also open to question whether the Chivese Government—if such an entity exists—could not order all its subjects to "come out from among them" and return to their proper allegiance, These, however, are matters of theory, and we are dealing in the case of the Mixed Court with matters of hard and unpleasant fact, The peculiar and disastrous views held by politicians of the Clarendon and Russell school in regard to the attitude to be observed towards the Chinese Government were largely responsible for the fact that the Rules for the Mixed Court at Shanghai, as promulgated by Consul Medhurst in 1869, were by no means calculated to carry out the original conception of the objects and function of that Court. "These Rules (og., Nos. 8 and 4) afford striking example of the undesirable results of our peculiarly British ultra-consideration for the rights and susceptibilities of the Chinese. They are instinct with that spirit of individual liberty and equal rights dear to the Anglo-Saxon, but utterly misplaced in dealing with Asiatics; they represent that fixed idea of "the autonomous rights of China to control her own people," undeniable in theory, but imil tain under the actual ing in the Foreign Settlements, The framers of the Constitution of the Mixed Court, as provisionally authorised, appear to have lost sight of two facts; first, that previous to its establishment, the committal of native offenders for trial rested with the Foreign Consuls,—second, that the Chinese officials were "brought nearer" to enable "justice to be dealt out on the spot." The code of rules bears strong internal evidence of having been drafted in Chinese and approved in English; nevertheless, and such as it is, had its provisions bean carefully maintained and had the Court's proceedings been ever subjected to the watchful supervision of the Consular authorities in general and of the Assessors in particular, it would not have become what it is to-day, a hotbed of corruption, petty tyranny, and extort tion—a byeword even among the Chiness—where native abuses ate carried on -practically with the ce-operation of the Foreign authorities, and where the type of justice adminis-° tered—hybrid in its methods—becomes purely Oriental in its results, There are doubtless still to be found in one midst well-meaning persons who would uphold "the autonomous rights of China" afore-mentioned, and who would contest the claims of the Consular and local authorities to jurisdiction of any sort over native offenders, so long as the "fathers and mothers" of the people remain. Lo such we would remark in the first place, that the day for such pretty sentimentalities appears to have finally passed, and that in the near future the wretched Chinese will be provided with official parents of a more enlightened type than their own. In the second place we would point out that those natives ho, by election or grace, reside in the Foreign Settlement and pay their share of Municipal taxation, ate morally and properly entitled to the benefits of good government, and that among those benefits should be included justice and freedom from oppression, Rarely, if ever, has a batter opportunity been afforded to the European official in China of exercising a marked and far-spreading moral effect upon his on-vironment than that which has been placed in the hands of the Assessors at the Shanghai Mixed Court. It was, from the outset, an opportunity: for showing by firmness, patience, and energy wherein precisely our Western philosophy and methods excel those of the Confacian system, an opportunity to build up in this Settlement such an object lesson as should speak, trumpet-tongued, to "China's millions,'—a place, in fine, where a man might "Do justice For trath's sake and his conscience, that his bones When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings, May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on them!"
That the opportunity~ has been neglected, few who are familiar with the Mixed Court and its present state will care to deny; and the cause is not far to seek. On the- one hand we have the ever-vigilant Chinese official, jealous of his time-honoured and lucrative prerogatives, and relying on the instinctive fears of his natural prey; on the other, a Consular Assessor who under the most favourable conditions cannot be
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.