Studies On The Railway Legislation In Late Qing

Railway has played an important role in the course of Chinese modernization . With the rapid progress of railway ,railway legislation is of urgent and necessary for railway which can standardize ,support and safeguard railway . Railway legislation is an important section of railway . Theoretically ,the history of railway legislation is a significant part of the studies on the history of Chinese railway . But in fact,the studies on it is poor,still a virgin land and wanting pioneers .Chinese railway legislation originated in Late Qing and the conditions then was complicated . It is necessary to adopt a synthetical study involving history ,law ,economics and politics .This study will discover what the railway legislation in Late Qing is and increase our knowledge in the field of the history of Chinese law and of Chinese railway .With the development of,railway in Late Qing ,it was urgent for the railway legislation to make day by day . As a backward developing country in railway ,China had done a lot of understanding and referring to foreign railway and foreign railway legislation in Late Qing .This was of premier and basic for the railway legislation in Late Qing :It provided a resource of legislative thoughts and even sometimes a direct content for the railway legislation in Late Qing . It was the background and environments of the railway legislation in Late Qing .Having understood the foreign railway and railway legislation and having considered the national conditions,there came a lot of railway legislative thoughts . They were about the character of railway ,railway construction ,railway transportation ,railway administration and management ,and so on .The thoughts influenced the railway legislation greatly and were the ideological basis of the railway legislation in Late Qing .The railway legislation in Late Qing was a two-level legislation system ,consisting of central and local legislation .But the extent of authority between them was not clear and the legislative procedure was poor or not clear . Although rough and not well-designed ,constitutional law ,civil law ,commercial law and criminal law had a great influence on the railway legislation in Late Qing .In Late Qing ,there appeared some general legislation which had directive function on railway ,such as Coal Mine and Railway Regulations ,Concise Railway Regulations ,civil railway rules and organic rules of central railway administrative organization . But they were not mature and well-considered . There appeared a lot of specific central railway legislation ,too ,involving railway construction ,railway transportation and railway administration and management . Of them ,railway construction legislation involved fund-raising ,land-requisitioning ,material-buying ,engineering andtechnology . Railway transportation legislation involved general transport rules ,passenger transport ,freight transport ,military transport and the supplement among railway ,post and telecommunication . Railway administration and management legislation involved administrative system ,management and interior service . Moreover ,there were a lot of local railway legislation in Late Qing ,which mainly involved railway administration and management.It was a main channel to carry out for the railway legislation in Late Qing to give full play to its influence . It was carried out to a certain extent and a lot of standardizing ,supporting and safeguarding were done to railway . But on the other hand,its influence was limited and could not be overestimated . Its achievement was deeply restricted by the national conditions of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society in Late Qing .The railway legislation in Late Qing deserves serious studies and assessment . On one hand ,the railway legislation in Late Qing was still on a difficult initial stage ,with a lot of mistakes and leekage of the content ,monopolization of legislation ,referring to foreign railway legislation ,stylistic rules and layout not being systematic ,legislative skill being rough ,local railway...