The remarkable and durable institution of the International Settlement allowed the British to report in detail on political and economic matters in Shanghai and China. This collection of primary documents establishes a comprehensive series of despatches, in the main from the British consul in Shanghai to the British ambassador to China based usually in Peking, but in the 1930s based in Shanghai itself. The form and extent of communications vary during the period, and include annual reports and trade returns, judicial reviews, despatches on topics of interest and telegrams on urgent matters. After 1920 series of quarterly political reports and six-monthly intelligence summaries are initiated, and some other irregular periodic reports emerge. The collection of documents ends with the winding up of the Settlement under wartime Japanese occupation, and numerous papers in 1942 carry discussion of this conclusion.