The decision of the Chinese authorities to oppose the suggestion of the Consular Body that the regul ions of the factory inspection system Shanghai be modified to conform with extraterritoriallly postpones settlement of this question, which has been under negotiation between the Settlement and the Chinese Government for a number of years. The position taken by the Consular Body perfectly sound: there are certain extraterritorial rights possessed by.
hose nations which still retain them which would be seriously infringed the regulations approved by' the Shanghai Municipal Council and the Chinese were to be enacted. possible that a precedent would be created which would affect Sino-foreign relations in a number of other spheres. In the circumstances, therefore, the Consular Body did well to withhold their consent to the regulations until time had been had view from an unbiassed standpoint he actual effect of the Chinese reulations upon the Chinese themselves, It would have been manitestly unfair that foreigners, with their etticient legal organizations to enforce the Jaw, should have been made onl regulations which the Chinese Government might not have been able to enforce upon their own citizens, "This is especially' so. Shanghai, where it has been found by independent investigators that most fof the abuses of labour conditions have been condoned by" Chinese manufacturers, whereas in the foreign factories conditions have existed which, though by no means compar able with equivalent conditions in the home countries, have nevertheless wheen much better than those existing in the majority of the Chinese work: shops, Those officials of the Shanghai Municipal Council and the Chinese Government who will, after. this set-back, have to commence negotintions all over again, deserve every sympathy. The Council sel seems to have been a little precipitate in approving the agreement without Kooning the Consular Body properly Informed of the progress of the neotiations. and therefore the blame for the delay in the settlement of this important question Ties partially fon' their shoulders. Measures for factory. inspection which respect the egal rights of all parties are Urgently needed in Shanghai, and those who} have to discuss a how compromise should bear in mind that.uestions of national prestige may often have 10 bbe subordinated (0. the problems of how best to safeguard the life and interests of workers who are exploited und daily jeopardized by' unscrupulous employers. The story of the fire in the celluloid factory in Bast Seward Road, which was housed in quite unsuitable "buildings and which was managed, according to the report of the Municipal Council, by aman who was unfamiliar with the require. ments of the work he had undertaken, is a pitiful example of what may
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.