The End Of The Qing's Capital Water Company

In the 19th century, China fell quite far away from the West in municipal construction. But under the influence of Europe and America, Beijing, the capital city of the Qing dynasty, also took steps in modernization of the municipal works, the representative of which is the establishment of the imperial water company.Beijing's population was on the upsurge in modern times and Beijing was faced with insufficient water supply. Residents mainly depended upon wells to get water. Due to historical and geographical conditions and human activities, the ground water was very poor in quality, which, together with the limited number of wells and the backward technology in water production, resulted in the incapability of meeting the needs of daily life, commercial and firefighting water consumption of modern residents. The lack of water resources had been bothering people's life and city development. At the beginning of 20th century, the Qing government founded the commercial imperial water company under official supervision due to mass appeal. Under the careful preparation of Zhou Xuexi, this water company, overcoming various hardships, completed the establishment works in just 22 months and began water supply for Beijing in February, 1910.The influence of the Company Law promulgated in the last years of the Qing dynasty on the water company can be seen from this company's regulations in raising capital by floating shares. Being commercial and under official supervision protected it's development, the company followed the popular official benefit system to attract investment. In themeanwhile, it offered certain flexibilities which made the system more reasonable. During its management and development in the transitional period from the Qing dynasty to the Republic of China, it made use of many sale methods and promoted its products through advertisements written in the vernacular, all of which made people accept tap water, this newly emerging thing very quickly. But there also appeared some problems due to unsoundness, such as lack of emphasis on water quality test resulting in mass criticism, and clashes with end-users dissatisfied with forcing them to install water meter.The company, on a large part, owed it's smooth establishment and development to Yuan Shikai, Zhou Xuexi and Wang Xitong. Yuan's great encouragement, Zhou's painstaking running and Wang's wise management interacted with each other benignly. What's more, people accepted tap water with the concept progressing. These ensured the rapid development of the company under the unstable social conditions of the final stage of the Qing dynasty. Even so, it was very limited, let alone the development of other municipal works, such as trolleys > buses and recreational parks.