Mar. 19.
Tue Municipal Gazette last 'Whursday contained the text of the new by-law for the control—a very mild form of control—of printing establishments and their offspring and output, which is to be proposed for ratepayers' ap-"proval at a special meeting to be} held on the same day as the impending annual meeting. It enacts that anybody who indulges in the pastime of printing or} publishing, or causes others so to indulge, any newspaper, pamphlet, circular, leaflet, hand-bill or other potential firework must register his name and address—if foreigner, with his consul; if a Chinese, with the Municipal Council. Furthermore, that all such publications must bear, clearly printed in specified places, the name and. address of the printer or publisher. Finally that ''any person who shall publish or disperse or assist in publishing or dispersing''—this, it will be seen to get at the hhawker—any such paper not thus marked will be liable to a fine of not more than $300 or imprisonment for not more than three months, ''or to any such other penalty as shall be prescribe ed by the law to which such person is amenable.'' The vagueness of that last clause gives it suitably terrifying sound.
This by-law is merely the one which the Council tried but, for want of a quorum, failed to get passed at a special meeting preceding the regular ratepayers' meeting last year. It was draft—ed, we understand, by one of the choicest spirits of our legal fraternity. It has received the exequatur or placet or nolle prosequi, or whatever be the -eorrect solemnity of approbation of the Consular Body. And we would breathe a heartfelt prayer that the thing may at last get passed. For one begins to weary of the Press By-law. For five long years the Council has been trying to get powers, to control the output of seditious literature, which no sane man could call unreasonable and of which no one with any experience of our municipal administration could fear any improper use. And for five years it has been defeated, sometimes by interested obstruction, sometimes by sheer ineptitude. In 1916 it brought forward a@ number of new and amended by-laws including one for the licensing of press and printing establishments, which Mr. E. Little, tilting at windmills, shivering at potato-bogles and generally making the ratepayers' flesh creep, succeeded in getting referred to a special committee! for redrafting. Quorum pars magna (and not at all ''little'' in; this instance) fuit. Everybody remembers the new set of laws which Mr. Little's committee produced in 1917, with the famous regulation that you might spit in a tramear but not out of or outside it. The code, after some ineffectual attempts by the ratepayers to lick it into shape, was sent to the Consular Body to see if they could do anything with it; and in their hands the dust accumulated on it for exactly eleven months, Their memories then being jogged by the Council's inquiry as to what the"state of the by-laws might be, the Consular Body fished the things out, hurriedly scribbled a few alterations and returned them almost on the eve of the ratepayers' meeting, in such form as would not only not have increased the Council's powers, but would even have diminished what powers they had. So back they went to the Consular Body, and after this the Council seem to: have lost heart and, under correction, we recall no further mention of the by-laws until the strumer of 1919 when, the events of the year having thrown rather a strong light on the necessity for limiting the output of inflam-motory' literature, the Council called a special meeting of ratepayers at which the by-laws, as now proposed by the Consular Body on mature consideration, were passed, together with one making it compulsory for printers and publishers to take out a licence. But this particular en-letment was frowned upon by the Consular Body, or at least by some of its members. And so the unhappy regulation underwent further revision and appeared once more last year, and failed, as told above, and comes up once again, begging for public sanction.
Tu all seriousness, it is much to be hoped that the by-law will go through this year without further delay. We are all far enough now from bygone controversies to see only the comic side. Yet it is within the memories of all then living in Shanghai that a very bitter fight Was waged over the licensing of the Press and some not very fair insinuations were made. Now it is no more a question of licensing, but of registration. Nobody can be-denied the right to print and publish. He merely has to inform the authorities that he: is going to do so and to put a responsible name and address upon what he issues. The same law is in force in most countries, certainly it is in England, where the freedom of the press has latterly degenerated almost to licence. And at least equal powers are required by the governing body of Shanghai, as everybody in his heart of hearts wholly admits. It is simply impossible to permit the Settlement to be flooded with the seditious stuff that has at times been poured out upon it. Furthermore it is necessary so to arrange matters that, when the conduct of any printing establishment becomes obnoxious, the authorities should know who is" responsible for the place, and be able to ask by name for someone more important than the coolie who is infrequently the only person seemingly in charge.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.