After an interval of just cne year the modus vivendi concerning the policing of the Western Area, which was reached last February, has been supplemented by a full agreement between the Shanghai Municipal Government and the Shanghai "Municipal Council, which it is hoped will settle once and for all the many questions which have been outstanding all too long, and establish means for restoring order in the "Badlands." The agreement goes into considerable detail regarding the formation of the new police force and a system has been evolved which should prove completely workable. Attached to the agreement are three append dices and one special annex, which are of the utmost importance. In the first there is provision for "close pursuit" which reads Any person committing a crime in the Western Area, who runs, or escapes into the Settlement, or vice versa, and is closely pursued and arrested, will be taken to the nearest police station of the area in which the arrest is made for record only, and will be handed over direct and at once, while the Police concerned will be held in no way to blame for crossing the boundary.
"This important provision should serve to remove difficulties which. have arisen in the past out of conflict of police jurisdiction, and should serve to rob criminals of that asylum which could easily be secured merely by dodging across the boundaries.
The same appendix provides for close cooperation in dealing with possession of stolen property and the following up of serious cases-of crime, and tends to give the Settlement and Western Area Police a degree of mobility which has. hitherto not existed, and while they will each maintain their separate identity, they will in fact become practically one single unit when dealing with criminals. This should ultimo ately have the effect of putting a stranglehold on those criminals who, using the Western Area as their base, operate in the International Settlement taking refuge outside the limits and making it difficult for the Municipal Police to go after them.
That will indeed be a welcome change, but the provisions of the special annex are even more so As soon as the Western Shanghai Area Special Police Force has been organized and established and commences to function in accordance with the Chinese law, all illegitimate businesses (such as the running of gambling dens, trafficking in opium and narcotics and providing addicts with such mareotics) shall be forbidden to exist within the área-under its jurisdiction.
All illegitimate and unlawful business shall be ordered to cease with the inauguration of the Western Special Police Force and the commencement of the discharge of its functions, Any attempt to resume such activities shall at once be strictly suppressed.
1f the intention expressed in this annex is carried into effect, and itis to be believed that it will be, then the end of all that makes conditions in the Western Area so deplorable may be said to be in sight. It may be that those interests deriving profit from the illicit gambling dens will offer resistance to the stopping of their very remunerative enterprise, but the Shanghai Municipal Government should be able with the assistance of the new police force to put a stop to activities which are clearly illegal, and doing an enormous amount of harm.
It is to be hoped that there will be no further delays in putting the scheme into operation, and that every effort will be made to bring the special police force into being as quickly as possible. That subversive elements may seek to prevent that being done may be taken for granted, but the worth of this most important document can only be measured by the manner in which its terms are carried out. If that is done to the bitter end, then a substantial reform will have been effected and the Alsatia of rogues and criminals will become 'a thing of the past. For the rest congratulations are to be extended to Major K. M. Bourne, M.C., Commissioner of the Shanghai Municipal Police, and General Loo Ying, Commissioner of the Police Bureau of the Shanghai Municipal Government, for the successful result which has attended their negotiations over the past year, and also to the Authorities—and particularly Mayor Chen Kung-po whose assistance has been most üseful—whose signatures are now appended to the agreement. The removal of a frequent cause of misunderstandings in the past is a step in the right direction, providing a chance for further ce-operation between the two jurisdictions,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.