At the beginning of last month the "shanghai Mainichi" was in accord with this journal's view that the Land Regulations under which the Shanghai Municipal Council functions, required amendment in order to ai tune the Foreign Settlement's constitution to modern requirements, " Indeed it, was almost caustic In criticizing Chinese opposition to reform of those regulations adherence to. which it described as "super-anachronistic", Now it seems to regard any_movement for the revision of the Regula tions as calculated to "befog the issue", Tt frankly goes out for the loaves and fishes" and, alleging that there is some mysterious British per versity which discriminates against the Japanese, it demands a great: representation of the Japanese com= munity in the personnel of the Council's stof, Whether the process of counting heads is a suitable method of determining an issue of this kind open to doubt, It might for example be meet for the Council fo point Jout that the British community pays 84 of the General Municipal Rate ud the Japanese community only 6 er cent. Of the Land Tax the Japa hose pay 72 per cent. and the British 6211 per cent, although in regard to this last figure it should be stated that it covers a certain amount of non-British property registered in British names. As. for the employ~ ment of Japanese it may be pertinent fo note that in the Police Force on which so much Japanese attention directed, out of a total foreign strength of 148 (excluding Gaol Start and Sikhs) the percentages according to nationality are British Ruston Danish 'On the general question of the in= ability of the Japanese to make their voices heard in the Council's deliberations, it is not possible for this journal to' be precise. Nor certain that even the "Shanghai Mainichi" can form an accurate opinion, seeing that the Council's proceedings are not open to the Press. There does seem, however, to be ground for the belief that the Japanese community has been for~ tunate in the Members whom, by its own votes and by the votes of British and other foreign ratepayers, it has been able to send to the Council.
Less than justice is done to those esteemed Japanese members by the suggestion that they have been remiss attending to their community's Interests in the course of their duties.
Nor is it entirely irrelevant to point out that, although there is a general convention which assigns "national labels to the different Councillors, the traditions established by the Foreign Settlement have encouraged the notion that the good of the Settlement and, therefore, of alt residents in the mass ig usually taken to transcend national classifications, would be natural on a particular issue with which Japanese were specially concerned, to endeavour to. obtain from the Japanese representatives an authoritative view of Japanese wishes, but that would not \debar consulta tion of those members on matters of general policy, since their opinions, pooled in the common stock of municipal wisdom, might be expected to give it special weight and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.