Study On The Parliament Of Guangxi In The Late Qing Dynasty

At the beginning of the twentieth Century,in order to coping with the whole governing crisis,the Qing government began to reform itself for survival.From the initiative of Cen Chunxuan as the enlightened bureaucrat representative,the Qing government decided to set up the provincial assembly,as the preparation for a local parliament.In Guangxi located at the southwest border,governor Zhang Mingqi made great efforts and the new policy was becoming prosperous.Although Guangxi laged behind,Zhang Mingqi allowed local autonomy and the preparation work of the provincial assembly went smoothly.In Sept.1 of Xuantong 1st year,after the primaries and check,the Guangxi provincial assembly composing of 57 members was established in Guilin palace.It created a new era of Guangxi democratic constitutionalism.Most members of the Guangxi provincial assembly have the traditional fame,who had studied in Japan and had a good constitution administration quality.Wu Ciling,who later was elected as the Senate Senator,was an outstanding representative of them.Wu Ciling was a important constitutionalist in the late Qing.Depending on the honor of a deputy candidate,he set up local armed forces in his hometown,which made Rong County peace.On behalf of the people,he took the lead to accuse the military minister in parliament.He struggled for the constitutional salvation to plead for the people.He infused fresh atmosphere into the declining political field,which reflected the vigor and courage of the people in Guangxi.From the establishment to the independence of Guangxi,the parliament held two annual meetings and a temporary meeting.In the past two years,they actively formulated industrial planning,make efforts to revitalize the economy of Guangxi.They claimed for the development of agriculture and forestry industry,baned burning mountain to protect the ecological environment,make the integration of the silk industry to stimulate the scale economies,lightened the burden of taxes to encourage reclamation of barren hills.These were ambitious and exhaustive.At the end of the Qing Dynasty,it haven't achieved much success,but it pointed out the direction of industrial construction for the old GUI system.At that time,the evil of banditry in Guangxi is serious.The soldiers were ineffective and disturbing the people.The parliament was down to them,and advocated the integration of local militia in order to maintain the social order.At heavy and messy exorbitant tax levies,the parliament make effort to alleviate the burden on the people through impeaching corrupted officials,rectifying the tax,opening government affairs an so on.In 1910,in order to raise bets,Guangdong government rectifyed the salt taxes,which made serious harm on the local interest of Guangxi.The parliament mobilized all the forces to stop it.With great enthusiasm,the members racked their brains to revitalize Guangxi economy and maintain the local interests.Due to the lack of financial resources,official corruption and too ideal motion,their efforts did not achieve the desired effect.All the countries in the world were under the background of anti-smoking efforts at that time.In conjunction with the governor,Guangxi's parliament made anti-smoking division planning according to the district and time.When opium baning of a region was unfinished,Zhang Mingqi approved the continuation day,which caused strong dissatisfaction from parliament.But Zhang Mingqi has visited to Beijing and the old governor Wei Jingtong acted the power.In order to maintaining its authority and its motion,the parliament argued with the government.Though Wei Jingtong ignorant of the constitution directly ask anti-smoking minister for approving the continuation day,he changed the continuation day into the fact and delayed time,which made the parliament members angry.Wei Jingtong fought with the parliament and he refused the reimbursement of telex charges,which aroused the whole emotional boom.Under the support of the country's constitutionalists,Guangxi's parliament announced the whole resignation,so that in the following year,the second annual meeting could not be held as it's scheduled.In the support of the parliament,the central government gave order to the Guangxi governer to execute in accordance with the original scheme,and let Shen Bingkun to replace Wei Jingtong to become governor.The first wave of parliament resignation greatly improved the Guangxi provincial assembly's position,make it become the leader and the emulating object of the country's parliaments.Guangxi is located in the remote area and the provincial capital is northeastern,which provided the officials with the conditions of exploiting the common people.The parliament did all it can to impeach the illegal officials,and it was committed to the system construction of anti-corruption,but with little success in the past two years.Zhang Mingqi used twenty thousand yuan to build the parliament houses.However,until the eve of the revolution of 1911,the project was hastily completed.In face of many problems in the project,the parliament reflected it to the governor many times,but the governor and the parliament could do nothing on the contractor.This shows the political ecology in the late Qing Dynasty was in the whole erosion,habits such as lazy governance,officer-trader collusion were too serious officer-trader collusionanand the parliament could did nothing.At the same time,it shows,in the environment of "the parliament and the government are not the same",anti-erosion couldn't succeed.Due to Guangxi's special geographical and historical factors,Guangxi's parliament has strong xenophobic tendencies.They ousted Cai E,restricted foreign students,the local departmentalism idea such as "Guangxi people manage themselves"was deeply rooted.The parliament members are eager to eliminate the poverty and backwardness of Guangxi,so that many construction plans are divorced from reality,and the achievements are restricted.Today,Guangxi should learn a lesson from it.Guangxi parliament reflects the social ecology of Guangxi and the whole country in the late Qing Dynasty.Through the precious archives the people left,we can find many local factors of the aborted new policy in the late Qing Dynasty.Under the political context of idealism and panmorality,all kinds of new policies such as industry,education and military were carried out at the same time,and the increasingly serious financial burden brought uncontrolled taxes.“It takes ten years to grow trees,but a hundred years to rear people".The social progress of industrial and educational reform was hard to appear.The new policy in the eyes of the people pursuing a stable life was the increasingly heavy burden and the declining quality of life.To purify social atmosphere,even if needing funds to carry out the new policy,the Qing dynasty implemented the anti-smoking and anti-gambling policy,then made up for the financial deficit through increasing the salt tax,and transfered the luxury consumption tax to the necessity consumptions,which let the life of the poor people more difficult.It caused the ordinary people were abhorrent of the Qing dynasty.Through the parliament,the Qing dynasty wanted to establish a communication platform between the government and the people,but the expanding of the political participation made all kinds of appeals depressed burst out suddenly,and made implicit social contradictions depressed became visible,which let the local government feel difficult.The parliament and the government objected the opposite side,which to a certain extent made the government "useless",and made many valuable resources be consumed in the emotional struggle.The parliament which was used to eliminate the estrangements between the government and the people deepened the contradictions between them.Serious historical lessons give us the profound enlightenment:the reforms must carry out step by step,let the implementation follow the plan,let the politics follow the economy,let the democracy follow the nomocracy,let the political tutelage follow the Constitutionalism.Only if we repel the unrealistic political romanticism and work hard,can the country become more and more prosperous.