All civil disputes were formerly led on the basis of common sense, morality and equity with fall regard to local custom without reference to law and legal pro cedents. No judge was then a There were no reports from which could quote. The Imperial Government did' not consider it necessary that they should be published. "A judge was to exercise the best of his judgment and_his own personal discretion in deciding cusses before him. He gave more loration to equity than to law. Very frequently he acted more like wbitrator, compelling litigants ty virtue of his office, to a settle.
In old judgments, suck a rase is not uncommon, "It is not ght, or not equitable," to do this and that. We seldom' come across cne that says it ig not lawful. Tt proves that law was not the first consideration upon which the judge ment was based, This would obviously -eveate a very precarious state of affairs, as. in the first place' no person could be sure of his own legal status, and secondly, personal conviction that elastic term equity was apt to vary considerably. Two judges might easily come to some diametneally opposite conclusions, yet both might be equally honest and sincere, Thirdly, there could be no unie The First Real Attempt the evolution of civil oS con mars Less progress was registered tery of China than what hi pice within the last, 25 years. only during this Umited length of time that China has begun to reorganize her judicial system along modern lines by making it independ lent of the administrative functionaries. Towards the end of Emperor Kuang Hsu's rule, a commission was appointed by an imperial decree to which was entrusted the task of com, ploting the national civil code. This was the first endeavour of the kind ever made by the Empire. The Commission after comparative study of Invs of different countries in the West including Japan, sue ceeded eventually in completing code. Known as the New Civil Code, which was duly published at the time in book form by various publishers." For some. reason. of another, that code was not formally accepted, approved and promul ed. Nor did the Republican Government deem fit to promulgate the same, with the result that China did not possess a complete civil code, until the year 1929, when after another careful revision, the National Government of China made it ths law of the country. Tt may there: fore be justly said that China bee fore 1929, except in the cruelest form, had no civil law.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.