SHANGHAI SETTLEMENTS 91 



So far as foreigners are concerned, it is quite possible 

 that the first suggestion of the "Model" title came from an 

 old Canton resident. One can well conceive of his landing, 

 after coming from the twelve acre spot on which the Canton 

 Factories stood, and being mightily impressed with the 

 almost illimitable space allotted to Shanghai. Here was a 

 settlement bounded on the north by the Soochow Creek, 

 on the south by the Yangkingpang, on the east by the river, 

 and on the west by the setting sun. Admirable ! What a 

 model site ! Nor was that all. There was the freedom of 

 the place. No more solitary confinement, or next door to it, 

 under the thumb of jealous officials. And there was the 

 climate, too. Canton never dreamt of such an autumn and 

 winter as Shanghai provided. Nor had it ever experienced 

 the charm of so diversified a society. Residents were 

 counted here by the hundred, women among them. They 

 lived in roomy residences wide apart. Their ships were not 

 at Woosung. They swung at their moorings just outside 

 the consignee's front door. Besides, the character Q-f the 

 local native was very different from that known down south. 

 And best of all, Shanghai was buoyantly confident of an 

 expansion that was to> dwarf all other trading centres in 

 China. A Model Settlement indeed! 



Such may have been the early impressions of our visitor 

 from Canton. We can now look deeper, for there are other 

 reasons than those mentioned why Shanghai has won her 

 title as a Model Settlement. Take the testimony of Sir 

 Edmund Hornby, our first Supreme Court Judge. He in 

 the middle sixties declared that there was no better governed 

 a place in the world than Shanghai. And now, speaking 

 generally, I myself after more than 40 years experience stand 

 before you to bear the same testimony. A perusal of all the 

 Council's Minutes from 1854 to> the early years of the 

 twentieth century, an examination of their immense corres- 

 pondence during the same period, a careful scrutiny of the 

 records kept by the Senior Consul during the years through 

 which that varying official has presided over the meetings 

 of his colleagues, such reading with careful note-taking could 

 not fail to have uncovered festering spots in our body politic 

 if such existed. If, for example, there had ever been in 

 Shanghai the "graft" and corruption we hear of elsewhere, 

 it could not be hidden. If it is not found, and it has not been 

 found, it is because it is not there. Petty peculation has on 

 rare occasions been brought to' light. As human nature is at 

 present constituted, that is inevitable. But from the broad 

 point of view our records prove to demonstration that the 



