Oct. 4.
Tie article under the above heading, by Mr. W. E... Leveson; formerly Secretary of the Municipal Council, which we reproduce to-day from the September "Fortnightly," will certainly attract attention. It is both timely and suggestive and although there may not be agreement with it on all points it gives form to ideas which are passing through many minds. It may seem to sonic old friends that the leopard has a little changed his spots in the fourteen years since he left the Far East. But other things have changed too; and this is only to say that Mr. Leveson has moved with the times, in contrast with others more truly interested in the affairs of foreigners in China who would appear to abe merely marking time.
affairs' can only be described og in an unhappy state of "pull devil pull baker," the prevailing Chinese notion' being that the foreigner will surrender nothing except to force, while to the foreigner it appears that the Chinese are bent on stripping him of all that he—possesse Both ideas, and we do not think we have exaggerated the two states of mind, are equally absurd. Here then is the chance for statesmanship.
The crux of all problems tween China and the Powers Shanghai. Mr, Leveson in his ts proposed settlement, includes Tientsin and Hankow, but if the Shanghai question could be solved the others would present no difficulty. We agree that "the exercise of consular jurisdiction in the province of Shansi, for example, confers an honoured privilege upon foreigners but is of no practical importance." In the interior of China extraterritorial privilege is practically invisible in times of peace, and in times of upheaval it cannot be enforced. But no scheme yet, has been evolved of relinquishing extraterritoriality with a saving clause for Shanghai. The Chinese official view (we may doubt whether it is really the private conviction) is that they can and will take over the entire control and running. of Shanghai, But the stiffness of this attitude is perhaps attributable to their belief, mentioned above, that foreigners are equally stiff. The reasonable view is that, while Shanghai cannot'for ever romain a close preserve for unalloyed foreign government, foreigners must always be allowed their due share in its control. After all, if it were not for foreigners, Shanghai, as it is now, would not exist:' they did not wrest it fron! China by. force; they bought the land it stands on, with certainly no idea in the Chinese mind of that day that what was sold was particularly
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.