淸末民初における江蘇省の認捐制度

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the details of the li jin 釐金 tax farming system and its relations with the provincial government and trade associations in Jiangsu 江蘇 province in the late-Qing and the early- Republican periods. The li jin tax-farming system was highly developed in regions such as Jiangsu, especially in Jiangnan 江南, as well as the provinces of Guangdong 廣東 and Zhejiang 浙江. Jiangnan can serve as a particularly appropriate object of study in determining the interests of the trade associations and provincial governments in regards to the tax-farming system. The main points of this paper are as follows. 1. Li jin tax-farming in Jiangnan had begun to increase at the turn of the twentieth century, but the provincial government during the late Qing was not keen to expand merchant tax-farming. However, as soon as the Republic was founded, the provincial government turned to a positive policy to expand li jin tax-farming so as to insure increased tax revenues. Provisions concerning merchant tax-farming were included in the li jin regulation of 1912, and the provincial governor also ordered that all the li jin in Jiangnan should be collected by merchant tax-farming. The provincial government policy was intended to appease the merchants in Jiangnan who opposed the li jin. 2. Merchant tax-farming was most highly developed in Shanghai. There were some cases in the city in which merchant tax-farming was used as a means for merchants to pursue their own private interests. But, in most cases, collections were carried out on the basis of the agreement of members of trade associations as a whole. After the Republic was founded, merchants came to enjoy greater privileges from tax-farming, such as the reduction of the li jin tax and exemption from freight inspections, than those accorded them in the late Qing. On the other hand, bureaucrats responsible for overseeing li jin tax collection could not obtain an accurate grasp of the amount of tax collected by the trade associations. This was due to the fact that the provincial government relaxed its control over merchant tax-farming to ensure li jin tax revenues. 3. Trade associations tried to control their members by using tax-farming. They excluded non-members from the privileges of tax-farming and shifted the responsibility for paying tax on to non-members. Moreover, the privileges attained through tax-farming in Jiangnan in the early Republic were generally equal to or greater than the privileges that could be attained by paying the one-half-duty 子口半税, which had been threatening the solidarity of the trade associations since the end of the nineteenth century. In many cases paying the li jin was more advantageous than paying the one-half-duty. In this sense the li jin tax-farming system can be understood as a means for the trade associations to counter the one-half duty system.