The explanation offered by the Shanghai Municipal Council for the increased rates: published) jin this week's Municipal Gazette should be read carefully and regarded—seriously by all. ratepayers, Chinese fand foreign alike. A muni pality in any country is a busi-Mess organization, which has certain specific tasks to perform and which has to balance its budget by revenue from taxation. In the most advanced Jcountries, municipalities _are taken as far as possible out of ithe realm of polities. They! are managed with the efficiency lof a business corporation. 'The [Shanghai Municipal Council not' only is such an organization but jit has the further advantage, often lacking la other cities, that the most successful and most competent business men jin the community are selected to supervise its management, The Council determined to inlerease its rates only after the cost of all commodities had gone in Shanghai and after it beleave increasingly clear that a larger organization was required to do the work of the municfpality. This ety has grown from tiny Settlement on the Bund foreshore to the fifth port of! the world, With this growth Ihave arisen many—problems which did not bother our predecessors, who knew each other personally and knew whenever stranger came to town. Today, it is estimated that Shanghai has a transient population of approximately 150,000 Chinese a day. Foreigners of all nationalities come and go with hardly fany supervision. The task of! preventing and punishing crime becoming increasingly more! dificult as the city grows richer fand larger and more attractive to criminals. The fact that since 1924, Shanghai has _been ithe centre of civil war has left! this city a residue of defeated! Jand disarmed troops who have! [to earn their living by crimes, petty and serious. The increas un population has also places upon the port health officials an Jonerous task of preventing] epidemics. It is to the credit! lof the Council that last summer: when the Chapei Water-works fed cholera germs to the inhabitants, the cholera epidemic was kept within controllable bounds in the Settlement.
It is needless to repeat the whole tale of the work of the Council in running this modern city, which is easily one of the! best managed in the world. Such sible improvements as the control of traffic which reduces: dangers of the streets and roads least money. And now that the Customs duties have been inlereased, that imposts of every nature have been levied upon! goods and the movement of! goods by the Nanking Government, the cost of commodity rise even higher than wi estimated when the two per: cent. increase was decided upon. [For instance, the Shanghai Mu-Inicipal Council is the largest ingle consumer of coal in this vicinity. The coal tax will burden the Council with a huge expenditure not faced when the rates were raised. That will Ihave to be taken into account by the ratepayers who alone can provide funds for the Council's continued efficient administration of this city.
There ix an unfortunate misunderstanding among some Chinese with regard to the rates} paid in Shanghai. They do not seem to realize that the ratepayers alone are concerned with the question of rates and the management of this city. Even were we all to agree to the Chinese request "that there be Chinese representation on the! Council, no Chinese can possibly! nave a voice in matters affecting rates or the Council except those who pay rates. The International Settlement is so situat-fed that Chinese and foreigners who do not live in it ben fit by its efficient and beneficial management. Those who bya la. Coapel, Barite: Fores land even such distant places as Ningpo and Soochow, come to the Settlement for their shopping and amusements and use the Settlement as a place of refuge whenever their lives are endangered in their own But such transient: no voice in the discussion of the Settlement's affairs and the injerease or decrease of rates unless they pay rates. One of the saddest features of the opposition to the increase of rates is that many of those most excited by the increased do not rates here and, therefore, have no business to discuss our affairs.
As regards the opposition, there has never been an intima tion that the Chinese ratepayers jin the International Settlement fave really opposed to increased rates. They realize the necesity for the increase, and they are willing to pay it, They have however, been ill-advised by cer~ tain persons who are trying to make figures of themselves in Chinese polities, that if the oppose the increase and refuse to pay the new rates, the Coun-1 will be brought to its knees Jand agree to give them, not representation on the Council, but ithe control and management of the Settlement, For the Chinese Ihave been offered representation on the Council,—Conver sations have been held to determine the numbers of represent tives of the Chinese ratepayer The principle of Chinese representation has been agreed upon, But misreading the meaning of the return of the Hankow and Kiukiang Concessions, certain Chinese believed that they could force the Powers to turn Shanghai over to them, The first step in this general direction was a Chinese scheme to neutralize Shanghai. This plan had really for its objects the turning over of the International Settlement and a large adjacent area to a group of Chinese politicians who would then be in a bargaining position with the victors in the war. The fact that the plan was denounced by "Marshal Sun Chuan-fang, General Chiang Kai-shek and Mr. Eugene Chen showed how unanimous was Chinese opinion with regard to the persons who planned to perpetrate this theft ofa city. These men were not thinking of the interests and [welfare of the Chinese of Shanghai. Their concern was to win diplomatic victory which would look well compared with Mr. Chen's activities in Hankow {that should the opportunity offer itself, they could return to [Chinese political life with something to their credit.
Subsequently, the same nals organized a Provisional Executive Committee of nine members who thought that their mere self-appointment would constitute them a Council manage the foreign Settlement. They regarded themselves as equal in dignity and legality to the Shanghai Municipality. The fact that there were few names lof representative Foreign Settlement Chinese merchants upon this committee did not bother these politicians, as they belived that they could utilize the Nationalistie movement to forward their plans. That they have failed to accomplish any: thing is fortunate, for even the slightest success' would have brought Shanghai into the males-from of inter-factional C!: inese politics and would have resulted in the shambling of this great and wonderful city.
The Chinese ratepayers-of, the International Settlement "know
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.