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C. MARTIN WILBUR
The plans of the Nationalist Government call for the organization of local self-government in rural districts along republican lines which will fit into the scheme of a thoroughly democratized state. The years between 1930 and 1935 have been designated as a period of political tutelage during which the new organization is to be effected.
The smallest unit of organization is to be the Lin (鄰), composed of five families. This unit will be controlled by a president and vice president elected by the citizens. Five Lin constitute a Lü (閭), which will have similar officers. Villages, Hsiang (鄉), and market towns, Chên (鎮) are composed of at least 100 families or four Lü. From twenty to fifty of these villages, in turn, form a county, Ch'u (區), while an undetermined number of counties form a Hsien (縣) or district under a district magistrate or Hsien-chang (縣長). This whole system of organization, it will be seen, is based upon very ancient Chinese forms. What is different is the democratic and republican form which the government is supposed to assume.
The machinery of rural self-government is supposed to operate from the smallest unit, the Lin, upwards to the district or Hsien. The rights of election, recall, initiative and referendum are conferred first upon the smallest units. Because of an untrained citizenry, however, the attack has been made first upon the largest unit. And District magistrates, during the period of tutelage, are not to be elected by the people but are first to be examined and then recommended by the provincial Government and appointed by the National government. In the meantime, the plan of the Central Government calls for training schools for county chairmen, and provinces and districts are supposed to form training schools for preparing the personnel of the smaller units of local government.
The only available report as to how this process of organization works in practice is that given in the survey of Ching Ho, and unfortunately this village is not typical of rural districts. Ching Ho is a town composed of a number of villages, and has a population
For the statement of the plan for rural government as given here, see: China Year Book 1932; p. 687, and Tyau, Min-ch'ien; Two Years of Nationalist China, p. 76-78.
2 Ching Ho: a Sociological Analysis. This study was made during 1928 and 1929, and therefore is by several years too early to give a picture of the situation at present under the slowly strengthening National Government. But it is valuable because it indicates the reaction of a town on which the new, external forces of change are operating.