A Study Of Police Donation In Modern Wuhan

Police construction was an important element of the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty,marking the transformation of China’s traditional security system.However,the political turmoil of the late Qing Dynasty made it difficult for the central government to support the construction of the police in various regions,thus opening the precedent of self-financing the police by various regions,one of the sources of which was police donation.In modern times,various commercial taxes have gradually replaced the traditional field tax as the main financial source of the state,and have become a hot topic of academic research.Compared with other taxes,the sources of police donation are many and complex.Although some scholars have studied the relevant taxes and donations,and they have been mentioned in the study of police administration,the study of police donation has not been systematic.Police administration is closely related to modern urban governance,and the construction of police administration is inseparable from financial support.We should pay attention to the study of police donation at the same time as we pay attention to the study of police donation.As one of the first cities to create a police system in modern times,Wuhan’s police construction cannot be discussed without the issue of funding.Zhang Zhidong used house donations as police funds at the beginning of his police administration in Wuhan,and since then police donation has become an important source of police funding.From 1902 to 1938,the state made several adjustments to the police construction,hoping to unify the management of the police through the regulation of funding.However,things did not go as planned,and the financial constraints of the country led to local donations being raised in the form of local draws,and Wuhan also levied many taxes and donations in accordance with the needs of police construction.Since local governments have great autonomy in the collection of police donation,the rates of police donation vary from time to time in the process of collecting police donation,and the agencies that collect and manage police donation also change from time to time due to changes in national policies,but on the whole there is some continuity.Due to the special nature of police donation and the problems of the national taxation system,police donation was not officially included in local taxes until the time of the Nanjing National Government,and the Wuhan government was constantly regulating its collection and management.The sources of police donation in modern Wuhan are complex and thus involve many groups in society.Initially,many police officers did not come from the academy,but were landlubbers and former members of the Green Battalion,which led to their uneven quality and many misconducts in the process of law enforcement,such as violent levy collection and extortion of the people.This has led to constant conflicts between the police and the public on the one hand,and has affected the collection of police donation on the other.Businessmen were the main target of police donation,and the Chamber of Commerce in Wuhan played an important role in the process of collecting police donation.As the concept of democracy spread,the Chamber of Commerce,as taxpayers,awakened to power and formed the Public Security Board together with the police,gradually gaining the power to participate in the construction of police administration.The police,as the administrator of the city’s security,should have outlawed prostitution,and the gentry and officials of Wuhan had proposed to stop levying flower donations,but because these industries paid more donations,the police had to treat them with a contradictory attitude of "levying but not banning ".Although the police donation comes from various sources,they are not collected arbitrarily and are closely related to all aspects of city life.The police collect donations in order to have sufficient funds to perform their duties,and the citizens pay donations and thus enjoy the convenience of the police in performing their duties.It can be said that the development of the police system is indispensable to the governance of modern cities,and the collection of police donation is of great significance to the development of modern police administration.