A Study On The Social Relief Legal System Of The Republic Of China

The dissertation is organized into four parts: the first part, the mid-part, the last part and the general conclusions. The first part being an organizing section, consists of the first three chapters. The institutional guarantee of the social relief legal system in the Republic of China has been analyzed from the perspectives of the theoretical basis and the organizing system underlying the function of social relief. The first chapter presents the theoretical basis of the social relief system. Social relief system, especially its legal form, has not come into being until recently, but the idea of social relief and its practical measures have enjoyed a long history. The idea underlying the social relief system has been the focus of this chapter. The idea of social relief varies with different social classes. The present author argues that, for the ruling class, the idea of"citizens being superior to the ruler"is the thought of granting citizens the priority on the one hand, and is the implementation of"benevolent government"on the other hand. The life of the citizens is fraught with obstacles, and the idea of loving and helping each other is a simple desire motivation, which, however, has lent a benevolence form to the implementation of social relief system."Karma"advocated by the religion circle persuades people to behave virtuously for the purpose of helping others as well as oneself, which is compatible with the values of the social relief system. The idea of the social relief in China is contended to have originated from the Prior-Qin period. The idea of giving priority to grain reserves and the measures and thought of social relief recorded in Zhouli and Guanzi have been at the source of the social relief system in ancient China.The second chapter deals mainly with the institutional guarantee of the social relief system in the Republic of China. Starting from the establishment of the official in charge of social relief dating back to the West Zhou dynasty, the chapter has discussed the multi-function of the official in ancient times and the causes for the low efficiency of social relief system. In the Republic of China, the appearance of special department in charge of social relief has enabled the government to directly manage the social relief affair. The social relief system sharing the responsibility of the government has been established under the immediate direction of the government.The third chapter mainly discusses the administration of the officials its significance towards the treatment of famines. Ancient ruling class was fully aware that: it was more important to get a proper official for relief than to relieve famines. In a sense, relief would run in the opposite direction if only with"good rules"but without"good officials". Therefore, it became the"bottleneck"problem for social relief to have a responsible official. That is why during the period of the Republic of China, there were detailed regulations towards social relief and officials who were responsible for social relief. Another important point in management was for the supervisory commissions to practice their rights. But the supervisory policy seemed to have little significance because only common or petty officials were under the supervision. The National Government at that time and other powers at home or abroad denounced the corruption problems of officials. In order to check corruption, the government issued Regulations on Punishing Corruption, to severely punish those corruption officials including corruption in social relief.The second part is related to prevention, which involves chapter 4 and chapter 5. To prevent disaster was better than to relieve. During the period of the Republic of China, the risk-prevention consciousness had been greatly enhanced. In chapter 4, we mainly discuss the policy of"developing agriculture"practiced by the National Government from the aspects of water resources and reclamation policy. Chapter 5 mainly discusses the significance of"storage policy"towards social relief. From time immemorial, governments at all levels paid much attention to storage of grains. Balanced storage and voluntary storage were carried on by the National government. They successively issued Regulations on the Management of Voluntary Storage, Regulations on the Management of Local Storages, Agricultural Storage Law and The Practice of Agricultural Storage Law. At the same time, they began to store grains to relive famine on a nationwide scale. But due to wars and bandits, the storage policy could not be developed fully.The third part, talking about relief, includes the sixth and the seventh chapter. The former introduces the design of the social relief institutions, which are the most conspicuous measure applied by the government into its relief practice. With the House for Six Sufferings in the period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties China started to set up the state's relief institutions, which have been developed and improved henceforth. It has become an important responsibility for the central and local government to relieve those who have no kin and cannot support themselves in every dynasty. Succeeding to the methods used by the former dynasty the relief institutions of the Republic issued the Rule for Each Local Poorhouse, reorganized the relief institutions all over the country, and rebuilt some poorhouses. In the period of the Resistance Against Japan wave upon wave of refugees appeared with the flames of war gradually forcing their way from the coast to the inland. The Department of Society in charge of the resettlement of the refugees issued many rules to develop and standardize the rescue work with the aim at relieving the refugees. What should be mentioned was the boom of the non-government charity organizations in the period of the Republic. When the government was busy with the war and was hard pressed for money a large body of civilians flung themselves into the job of disaster and refugees relief. They established some famous non-government relief institutions, like China-foreign Relief Committee and Shanghai Relief Committee. The National Government issued series of regulations and laws like The Supervision Charity Law to enhance and regulate the development of non-governmental charity organization. In this way, social relief had an orderly progress under the guideline of laws. These organizations shouldered some work of social relief, which should be done by the government at different times. The seventh chapter deals with two questions: one is how to provide disaster relief and the other is how to help people out of distress. The former is related to natural disasters and the latter man-made calamities. The fruit of the Republic government's lawmaking is best reflected in this chapter. In the institutions of collecting relief funds the Republic government first established the disaster relief reserves by making the Law of the Disaster Relief Reserves; henceforth, it continued to provide disaster relief to the refugees by some financial means, such as the issue of government bond and the collection of additional taxes, in order to collect more relief funds. It was a common means to obtain the social subscriptions in the period of the Republic and many regulations were made to call for the folk donations. The procedure of disaster relief was regulated by the rules of law, such as the Regulations of the Investigating and Reporting Disasters and Poor Harvest, the Decree of the Provision of Relief Goods and the Rules of the Provision of Relief Money in order to relieve the sufferers. The Republic government took some effective means to implement disaster relief. The appearance of the Law of Social Relief rewrote the history of Chinese relief institutions which had been relying on some elastic orders. Especially, the series of relief regulations promulgated by the Republic government changed the way by which the government provided the victims with some relief goods into the way to encourage them realize self-dependence. These changes were showed clearly in the practice of labor relief, financial relief and training the refugees.Chapter 8 is the conclusion of the whole dissertation as well as a review of the social relief institutions of the Republic. Firstly, it was a big progress of relief concept that the Republic advocated for not only support but also cultivation. The principle was carried out thoroughly in the social relief laws of the Republic. Secondly, social aid also serves for the purpose of social control. Finally, the relative criteria of the social relief legal system were the institutional guarantee of the fulfillment of the government's relief responsibility.