淸代銅・鉛鑛業の構造

Abstract

The productive relations in the copper and lead industries in the Ch'ing dynasty were much complicated; there were mine- and refinery-owners, each of them being differentiated into the small producers' and large enterprisers' classes. In Hu-nan (湖南) province there were powerful chartered merchants, who were privileged to exact license fees from the producers of copper and lead, and the producers were put under the control of these chartered merchants. In Yun-nan (雲南) province, where this system was undeveloped, the unofficial t'ou-jen (頭人) played the role of chartered merchants, creating conditions unfavourable for the development of modern mining industry. Howeve, neither the chartered merchant nor the t'ou-jen was a mere agent of the government or a parasite on mining industry; he had already grown an enterpriser himself. The present paper is intended to give a concrete view of the historical role of each of the factors of production and productive relations thereof, while an attempt is made to elucidate the structure of mining industry and its inherent contradictions in this period. In view of the fact that the transition of mining industry from government to private enterprise and the origin of modern capitalism in China have recently been taken up anew, the author intends to present certain premises indispensable to the understanding of the problem.