Whilst this work is far from complete, improvement has been brought about in staff organization and much unnecessary routine work, between the Secretarint and departments has been removed, thus: simplifying administration, increas. ing: efficiency and speeding up public service, Provisional Court and Shanghai Speciat On February 17, 1990, the text) of the Agreement relating to, Chinese Courts in the International Settlement was signed at Nanking and immediately made public.
The publication of the text of the Agreement gave rise to much acrimonious newspaper comment, disturbing in no small degree to the public mind under existing political conditions.
When the Into Provisional Court] Agreement came into effect on January 1, 1927, gloomy forebodings were current, Dut the passage of time has shown that the calamitous results which were predicted have by no means been so serious as be recalled that at the Annual Meeting April, cil commented unfavourably the working of the Provisional Court a8 a whole up to that time.
It is only fair, however, to state! that during the "past year there! has' been marked improvement in the work of the Court and that at the present time-conditions affecting the Court are by no means so bad as the public may have been let to There appears to be a widespread impression that the prevalence of serious crime in the Settle-
inadequacy of sentences imposed went is due primarily" to the the Court, and in a lesser degree to general inefficiency and] maladministration. To those ef} you who care to ascertain the Taets, T would commend a perusal of that section of the Annual Report of the Municipal Council for. the year 1929 relating to the Police Department, which may be thing in the nature of a revelation, During the year 1929 the total number of cases prosecuted in the Provisional Court by the Municipal Police was 116,643.
Of this large number of cases 22,099 were major and minor criminal eases, In the prosecution of these cases 20,441 persons were convicted and 2,958 acquitted. This} shows that in 90 per cent. of the cases prosecuted in the Provisional Court by the Municipal Police the! accused were convicted.
These results compare favourably with those of the Courts of other great cities of the world having similar comprehensive jurisdiction, On the whole, the judges of the Provisional and District Courts appear to be conscientious and devoted to their work when free from interference on the part of the executive officials of the Pro-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.