15th July. Ir is possible that many Ratepayers, and especially these whose residence in Shanghai does not extend over any great number of years, may have read the report of the trial in the above case and mentally set it down as a somewhat trivial matter, whose issue could have but little interest for the average "plain man." Older residents, however, and more particularly those who have jealously watched over the gradual growth of the commonweal, who have devoted. time and care to safeguarding its rights and to establishing, tant bien. que mal, its civic foundations, these recognise clearly the fact that no heavier blow has been struck at the fabric of our local Government than that contained in the judgment iven in the Court of Consuls on esday last.
That our complicated and unique system of government rests on ularly light foundations, _we now; that our Regulations afford no satisfactory or solid basis for permanent administration, has been sufficiently demonstrated in the past. The entire system, built up of expedients, compromises, and tem-parising makeshifts, has worked satisfactorily enough, when all is said, until now, but the fact is chiefly due to the bonne entente which has alway existed amlong the several nationalities here represented and to the existence in Shanghai's earlier days of a certain spirit of easy-going camara-dene in public affairs, something of which is being gradually lost in the rapid development and competition of to-day. ith the ever-growing foreign population, the Model Settlement has to face new conditions, incurs new risks and responsibilities, and for this very reason requires every protection that legislation can afford for the safeguarding of vested interests, public and private. With the greatly increased value of property in our midst and in the absence of full and conclusive definition of its rights and liabilities, it was inevitable that legislation should, in due season, result; inevitable too, that as it proceeded, the latent inadequacy of our system should be exposed. Under happier auspices it is possible that the defects in the machinery of our form of local government, remaining inactive, might possibly have continued unchallenged for some time -to come, but the judgment now given in the Browett foreshore case has: suddenly brought us
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.