Jan. 16.
Tue elections for the ndw French Municipal Council went through with the smoothness which may equally be the outcome of perfect satisfaction or profound indifference. Seeing that no more candidates presented themselves than the five that are strictly necessary and that barely a fifth of the voters registered their votes, the choice between these two explanations is fairly obvious. Most residents in the French Concession are so far pleased with their surroundings as to bother their heads but little as to who represents them on the Council. Complaints they may have, but these are hardly keen enough to induce them to interest themselves very deeply in the system on which the Concession is run, still less to accept the responsibility for it which the thankless job of service on the Council involves. So the five gentlemen who show sufficient public spirit to offer themselves as candidates are more or less thankfully accepted the requirements of the law, which demands an election even if there be no competition, so that the will of the electors may technically be known, have been fulfilled; and all goes on happily as_ before.
But this pleasant state of taking things as they come, and shoving off the cares and kicks on somebody else cannot continue indefinitely. It would be an exaggeration to describe the affairs of the French Concession as in any way approaching a crisis. But the financial situation is none too bright and the means of improving it are by no means apparent. At the close of 1918 the foreign house tax was raised from eight to ten per cent. It has now been further raised to twelve, and there appears no certainty that it will not have to go still higher. These increases, it should be emphasized, are rather designed in order to put Chinese, who always paid twelve per cent., and foreigners on the same level than for revenue, the extra two per cent. only yielding some sixteen or seventeen thousand taels.
And for that reason, in passing, the Council may very strongly be urged to think carefully before they raise the rate again. For
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.