| The new county system is the reformation at the basic level which was carried out by the National Government from 1939.Every government attempted to push on local self-government since the late Qing dynasty in order to strengthen the domination of the demos. The National Government carried out ten years local self-government of 1930s under cover of patriotism which claimed to be inherited the teachings left by the deceased premier. With the stronger of Chinese Communist and deeper of invasion of Japanese, The National Government began to practice the new county system based on the reform of 1930s for the sake of Controls of grass-roots. Hubei province lies in the central plains of China, and its geographical position is very important. At that time, the chairman of provincial government was Chencheng who was firm supporter of Chiang kai-shek, therefore, he tried his best to practice the new county system and proposed slogan of building new Hubei. I main study the situation of the new county system of Hubei province, at the same time I choose several works which can represent the spirit of the new county system , and I want to analyze the reason that the outcome of the new county system deviated from the design of the National Government and ended up with its useless take advantage of the theory of history,politics and economics. Furthermore, I wan to perspective the reason why the National Government failed and to provide experiences for local autonomy at the present. The time duration of the paper's research is from the year 1939 to the year 1949.The main body of the paper is sub-divided into seven parts, and the basic content of each chapter is briefly introduced as follows.Chapter 1 explains the environment of system which the new county system began to practice. Sun Yat-sen proposed his theory of local autonomy, but his theory were conflicting in some respects, and this conflicting philosophy was the text of reforming at the county level of the National Government. after this, Chiang kai-shek exerted and illuminated the local autonomy theory of Sun Yat-sen, and mixed into his feudalism ideas. Under his guidance, the National Government carried ten years local self-government but failed. The National Government was forced to practice the new county system in order to strengthen his domination at the county with the development of martial situation.Chapter 2 illustrates the social environment of Hubei province which the new county system began to practice. Hubei province lies in the central plains of China whose geographical position is very important, and this province is rich in natural resources. The provincial government proceeded ten years construction of the grass-roots organization of the village in 1930s, including politics,economy,education and so on. All these were based on the carrying out of the new county system. Hubei Government moved the west of province in 1938, and Chencheng proposed the plan how to build new Hubei province, including new economic policy, planned education. At the same time, they carried on the new county system so as to act in concert with the policy of central government. They drew up policy and legislation and first chose several counties to test.Chapter 3 discusses the organizational structure, because the new county system is a kind of institutional change which needs corresponding organization to run all kind of policy. Hubei Government designed the organization of grass-roots unit, including the grade of county, the establishment of prefectural government office, the power and status of podesta. District was the secondary organ of the governments of county, and it was temporary, special and not essential. Joint guaranty was replaced by villages and towns which was a kind of commune and was divided several grades. It was the most characteristic that the baojia system was blended into autonomy system and was the cell of villages and towns. Hubei Government prescribed the establishment of Baojia System and put into practice self-governing, and their domination strengthen increasingly.Chapter 4 is about the establishment of the grass-roots public-opinion-expressing organization of all levels, because it was an important point of local autonomy. The Republic of China carried on various designs and systematic arrangements concerning the grass-roots public opinion organization, including the citizen affirmation, the qualifications, examination of the public position candidate, and the congressional job, member of residents of people's conference as well as the establishing procedure etc . from the county parliament to the people's commissary meeting of country and town. The province of Hubei also practiced a series of policy, and established all levels of public sentiment organization one after another. But these so-called public sentiment organizations didn't agree with the fact, such as the representative's qualifications were unqualified, and the people didn't interest in it. The Mianyang county government and county disputes of the parliaments indicated that a part of personnel used the power in their hands and the clan, blood and born place relationship to make it serve for their own benefit, couldn't represent the public sentiment.Chapter 5:Under the new county system, the local finance had its independent tax source, and the Hubei province carried on the autonomy finance in order to match with the Central .The county and villages all had their independent finance, and the local finance system experienced two-class and three-class system period. The province of Hubei also carried on the sorting to the autonomy public finance since 1940 at three stages, but because of various reasons, until 1949 it hadn't been finished. The sorting of Hubei province toward the autonomy finance included five autonomy taxes , checking up the public property , practicing the public building property and the government operated business. But the public finance of Hubei province finally was not build up, on the contrary with the development of the military situation, it made various illegal assign duties systematical. Analyzing the reason and various situations of the phenomenon of assign duties as well as the effort and limit the province of Hubei had done, in end assign duties were the main source of the budget need for the run of the grass-roots society of Hubei province.Chapter 6: In order to cultivate the people's approbation feeling, the Republic of China put the public education and the primary school education together and practiced the education of integration in religion and politics. Under the new county system, the citizen education had its special meaning and reason. In order to carry out the citizen education, combining Chen Cheng's construction plan in new Hubei, the province promoted two five-year plans in citizen education, which had a certain effect on improving the people' s cultural level. But the enhance of the control function was also existed, such as the practice of three to one or four to one, contacting the religion and politic together and controlling the teachers and students' thoughts etc. On the other hand, the public education function was on the decline because of the shortage of budget and teachers, bad management and the edge trend of the adult education.Chapter 7 will do a synthesized analysis on why the new county system was not so effective in the course of practice but fell into a frozen condition. During the practice of the new county system, it produced new benefit colonies, which obstructed the movement of the new system, and the emergence of various accusations of the Bao-jia organization personnel was the best proof. This benefits community made use of various influence of Chinese tradition to protect their own benefit and obstruct the effective practice of the new county system. At the same time the lack of valid prize and punishment mechanism also made them free from the stipulation. The implement of the new county system couldn't get away from the Chinese despotic tradition, whether culture or politics, people or leaders, the grass-roots unit or the Central. The local autonomy since the late Qing dynasty was almost a complement to the despotic rule . The new county system couldn't come out from the path dependence of the history, and ended be low efficient states and forth in the course of practicing, because of the war environment and Jiang Jie-shi's personal principle,Since the modern age, the Central tried to descend the antenna of the administrational power to the basic level, and practiced the local autonomy. Until the implement of the new county system, its result couldn't get away from the accumulation and heavy burden of the Chinese tradition and history, especially the despotic tradition and culture, thus the so-called local autonomy deviated from people more. This thesis analyzed the reason why the reform to the grass-roots society didn't produce satisfied effect in the Republic of China as well as the whole modern China through the analysis of various policies under the county system of Hubei province. The conclusion is the reason lying in that it could not get away from the historical path dependence, which also provided the historical lessons for the villagers' autonomy of the village today.
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