Between. Official China: Suzhou Private (1913-1954), The Cause Of The Fire Research

Due to the prosperity of business and the local autonomy in late Qing Dynasty,many private fire-fighting organizations came into being in Suzhou. The organizationsbelonged to the scope of the public good, their funding mainly came from shops andpublic donations. The number of organizations increased gradually from late Qing, thenumber even reached up to as many as seventy or eighty, if under normalcircumstances, the number could be fifty. Because of the lack of unified leadershipand command between the large number of private fire-fighting organizations,contradictions always appeared, which affected the fire-fighting effect. In order toimprove the efficiency, after several attempts, Suzhou fire-fighting Federation cameinto being, which was the leading organs of the all fire-fighting organizations inwhole city. Thereafter, the fire-fighting Federation integrated the fire-fighting forcesgradually, so the fire affairs was greatly promoted. The single fire-fightingorganization distributed punctately, but all fire-fighting organizations distributedreticularly, they basically covered every corner of the city, and made up a strict fireprevention system maintainning the tranquility of Suzhou.Two months before the fire-fighting Federation was builded up, Suzhou PoliceAgency Fire Brigade has been established, it was the only government-runfire-fighting organization. Although its name changed many times, but Suzhougovernment-run fire forces has been always exist. Compared with the private fireorganizations, the strength of the government-run fire-fighting organization was onlyequivalent to a private fire-fighting organization when it was newly established.Although it developed greatly, but it was also inferior to Suzhou fire-fightingFederation. It can be said that, from late Qing to1954, the private fire-fightingorganizations almost assumed the vast majority of fire prevention and rescue missionin Suzhou, the government-run fire organization only played a role in guiding, eventhe symbolic presence of the official forces. Although there were many conflictsbetween private fire-fighting organizations and government-run fire organization, inthe long run, integration and cooperation was the mainstream. Only throughcooperation of the two kinds of fire-fighting forces, the peace and prosperity of theSuzhou city can be sufeguarded.Experienced the huge loss in the War of Resistance, the private fire organizationsrecovered their organizations gradually, they also powerful than the government fire organizations. The third year after the recovery, the civial fire-fighting organizationswere in danger of being undone.After the struggle of the leadership and local Gentry,Suzhou fire-fighting Federation was adminished to be exist temporarily. After thefounding of the PRC, fire-fighting Federation was gradually incorporated, eventuallybe taken over, but it didn't mean that, all civial fire-fighting organizations was banned,but appeared in another form.From the course of the development of civial fire-fighting organizations, we cansee that, almost every change of Suzhou would be reflected on the cause of thefire-fighting organizations. The civial fire-fighting organizations of Suzhou wereslightly inferior to Shanghai, but advanced than that in inland areas. From the processof the fire-fighting organizations established by the society, we can know that,tradition and modernity were both important, they were complementary, none couldbe neglected. State were not perfect and all-powerful, only combine the two, thesociety could develop orderly.