Oct. 3.
The survey of the efforts made by the Shanghai Municipal Council to obtain a revision of the Constitution under which it operates may be usefully studied to-day in the light of the widely-expressed desire for amendment of the Land Regulations. How has that arisen? It comes, in the main, from percep~ tion of certain urgent needs which the Counci! seems unable to fulfil.
The inability is said to derive from the legal position in that the Land Regulations do not authorize the Council to take the action or institute the measures required It has come to be an accepted axiom that the Land Regulations cannot be amended, for want of the approval of the Chinese Government. It will be seen that this view is eminently justified by recent experience, but that in the earlier wed days of the Seltlement's history opposition to such amendment primarily came from the Diploma~ tie Body, even when there was evidence that the Ratepayers were overwhelmingly in favour of re~ form. The Land Regulations as they stand now came into force in 1869, replacing the original con stitution of 1854. The movement for revision actually started within a few years of the Settlement's inauguration on an international And when it took effect ultimately in the Land Regulations of 1869, the Council was confronted with yet a further demand for revision in 1873. So it will be understood that the records of the [Council generate a certain difid-Jence when proposals for revision Jare contemplated. Such amendments as have been carried and approved have really not enlarged the Council's general administra~ tive powers. Significant was the recent failure to secure the amend~
Jment proposed simply to change the polling hours in the annual election so as to make them accord with modern conditions.
It will be asked how the Council has managed to adapt itself and the growing needs of the administration to this rigid constitutional frame, The answer is clear: just as the conception of the Settlement was mainly British, so the Council managed to assimilate British traditions of compromise and practical development of policy. The British Constitution itself has never been formally codified. Its elasticity has consequently been equal to the demands made upon it by the changing conditions of the passing
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.