SHANGHAI RIOTS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18462, 17 August 1925, Page 6

SHANGHAI RIOTS.

tangled history of CHINA. RIGHTS OF FOREIGNERS. Tho grave news recently telegraphed from Shanghai is likely to compel ■ more than usual attention to the question of foreign rights under the successive treaties, the more so inasmuch as, frince the Groat "War, Soviet Russia, Germany, and Austria have a.l three waived the renewal cf their cxcr.i-t<r-ritorial rights under pre-war .ijreoments. Our first treaty >vu'i Chit a in IS-13 left tl;e punishment of c-ft'endcis 01 both sides to the. unrestrai:i.-»-2 management of the respective signatories' judicial -officers; but, after the war of 18-33 and the new treaty, British rights of property, as well as of person, were marie subject to British jurisdiction (writes a. correspondent to the "Manchester Guardian'')- Canton, however, was held by t-ln British and French until 18G0. Sir Harry Parkes,. on becoming Shanghai Consul, established there in 1804 the Mixed Court for the decision o? cases in which foreigners were either directly or indirectly interested, and in which due attention to foreigners' interests might be secured by the presence of their representatives, while the jurisdiction of the native authorities was left untouched. Natives offending within the Settlement were (lcaltb, with by the agent of the Chinese Shanghai city magistrate- sitting singly, and at the instance of the Settlement police, but it was understood (but not distinctly provided) that the cit-v magistrate was not to revive or interfere with his subordinate's arrangements made in conjunction, with the foreign, assessor. In graver criminal eaaos. not falling under the heading of Police Court matters, brought by foreigners against Chinese the native magistrate still saC alons, but a foreign -assessor was present with the right to object. Tho French Settlement was from tho beginning managed exclusively by tho French, who had their own Mixed Court arrangements, but th-e British, German, and American consuls on the general Settlement sent an officer once or twice a week apiec-o, and later on, a-uer the Austrian treaty of 1869, an Austro-Hungarian used to sit- also. Tlie Days of "Old Chen." This was the slate of affairs when the writer arrived in Shanghai fifty-five years ago, and, on passing through from Peking two years later, ho himself sat alongside of the British assessor at Shanghai to watch proceedings: at that time tho Chinese deputy wais a popular individual known as "Old Chen." who did practically whatever he was told or invited by the assessor to do so long as it was decent, and reasonable ; in plain clothes wo all smoked our cigars on-tho "bench," and did justice in a friendly and summary way,;. "Old Chen" remained at tho post until 1883. No change seems to have-been made in the Chefoo Convention of 1876 (ratified in 1886) so far as the.'Shanghai Mixed Court was concerned, but an article in that Convention provided for ''joint investigation'' all over China, when it v.as stipulated that an officer of defendant's nationality should try the case.- and an officer of complainant's nationality bo dispatched to watch tho case (if'so desired). • 1n'1874 the notorious Xingpo Guild case at Shanghai caused a dapgerous riot, -in tho sup- | pression of which two hundred of the foreign Volunteer Corps, assisted by about a hundred American .and French bluejackets -and a hundred and fifty of the native city troops, succeeded m restoring order. Things after this went on quietly until the end of 1883, when there were riotous Chinese attacks upon the municipal tax collectors in the general concession; a few' months later the retinue of a victorious Nanking Viceroy passed through the concession and behaved in an insulting way, and again, towards the end of 1886, armed gang,s of Chinese robbed one of tho British banks. ! The French war of 1884, the Japan- ! ese war of- -3.894, tho German tion of Iviao-chow in 1897, tho talk of j "melon-slicing" China into spheres of I interest—all these tended to _ weaken Peking and Nanking influence in Shanghai, and in tho summer of 1890 the local native authorities were even constrained to approve of the extension _of the General Settlement limits. The Boxer "War of 3909, the Russian occupation of Manchuria, the Anglo-Japanese Agreement of February, 1902, tho Maekay Commercial Treaty of September in that year supported by America, the withdrawal later on in ibe same year of French, German. Japanese, and British troops from Shanghai, the SinoJapanese Commercial Treaty of October, 1903, and finally the Russo-Japan-ese war of 1904, gave China no excuse for.or opportunity of asserting claims over her nationals at Shanghai. A Period of Beform. But now the Manchu dynasty, conscious of its miserable weakness, began to make genuine reforms and Wu Tingfang, an English-trained lawyer, who hatl been Chinese Minister at Washington, was commissioned to draw up a new codo of law, but these and other excellent reforms were put an end to by the deaths of the Emperor and his mother the Empress Dowager in 1908. followed by t'ho revolution of 1911 and t-b'e extinction of the Mancluis as a ruling power. Tho Great "War gave tho Republic its new opportunity, of which, however, ifc did not avail itself until after the collapse cf Yuan Shi Ki's "Empire'' in June, 1916. When tho Great War was over China r>ut in considerable compensatory claim's at Versailles in 1919", and again at the "Washington Conference of 1921; but ever since her disappointments at not repaining her full administrative independence at those two meetings her newlyeducatcd student bodies have proved themselves jealous and recalcitrant all over China —for instance, at the great educational centres. The self-denying moves of Germany, Austria, and Soviet Russia were made without great risk, for those Powers are well aware that their nationals need never fear any jurisdiction that the disorganised Chinese might venture to assert over them. Moreover, the Soviet consul at Shanghai has his office safe en the foreign settlement, so that he can have his diplomatic stake put on "both ways." The only real solid interest Great Britain (in other words, the body'of British merchants} has in China is trade, coupled, with tho management of the maritime Customs, and at all costs she must therefore secure the safety of her great trade centres Hong Kong and Shanghai. Tho former place is hers, and she thus has a free hand, but at Shanghai she is surroundvetl by potential enemies in the shape of rioters, be they students, factory labourers, Commiinist mischief-makers or competing military filibusters. A firm band would seem to be constantly necessary; also a British chief representative who thoroughly understands the past sixty years of local history and adequate naval and military forces not too far off to aid the gallant volunteer force of Shanghai itself in eaSe 0 f imminent -peril. &