All foreigners residing at-the open ports of China are interested in a proper adjustment of the recent trouble on the Franch Concession at Shanghai. The: principles involved apply to every foreign Concession, and care and foresight should be observed before final decision. The ingenious suggestion in Mr. Drummond's letter, that the subject be referred to arbitration, is a shot aimed at the fundamental right of foreigners. Whatever the griovance, real or supposed, the attempt. to redress it by a riot cannot be justified. 'The constituted authority of a Concession has the right to preserve order on the Concession "and - oppose' such' force to'disorder as is necessary to suppress it; such authority: aleo has: the- right to' remove whatever threatens the sanitary: condition of the Concession; to abate the threatening agency of disease as a nuisance, or drive' it from the Concession by force. It-is* understood that the French Concession is under the Government of a French Consul-General and a French Municipal Council, and with'these authorities resides the exclusive right to police' the Concession in the interest of order, and to protect the health of the residents by sanitary precautions. And when in the exercise of' this right resistance is encountered, it is legal to meet the resistance with force sufficient to repel it. If the exclusive right to govern the French cession at Shanghai resides with the representatives of the foreign residents thereon, then it was within the province of the French Consul-General and the French Municipal Council to determine the means necessary to preserve the French Concession from disorder and disease. It is not to be presumed that the French Consul-General and the French Municipal Council would use excessive means for the objects indicated; it is legal to presume that they would not, and,: therefore, when they decide what' means are necessary to be employed, the suggestion that the right to judge for themselves should be referred to others, undermines the organic structure of the French and other Concessions. If the subjects of China have been shot down for defending what they had the right to defend, then China can complain to France for redress, but the Consular and the Municipal authorities of a Foreign Concession may not be willing to accept others as arbiters of defined rights which are the foundation and guide in the discharge of their duties:: There: is no here to undertake to define the limits of the French Concession, but only to say that if the Joss-House is situated' within' such limits, and is a danger to the health of the residents on the Concession, the French authorities have a perfect right to remove the danger, and the compensation to who-
estimated and paid as is provided in simi-ever may be entitled to it ought to be Jar cases by law. When fatal epidemics are annually ravaging Asiatic countries, it should not be expected that foreigners xt Shanghai will submit to houses full of dead bodies standing in the midst: of their homes, breeding pestilence and a continual menace to the health' of all. The customs and superstitions of the Chinese will be respected when they are not practised to the obvious detriment of health and'order, and certainly when China concedes by treaty places for the residence of foreigners, and assents by written regulations that the places so conceded shall be' exclusively for foreigners, and Chinese shall not own property thereon, it is difficult to cancel upon what grounds the French authorities on the French Concession at Shanghai are denied the right to do what China has agreed they may do. When the law is correctly understood, controversies are ily adjusted, and the best friend is the ly friend that speaks with frankne e855,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.