조선 開港場 監理署의 성립 과정(1883~1886)

Abstract

The Gamriseo, or Superintendent Office(監理署), at the treaty ports was the office established to manage and supervise the Maritime Customs(海關) of Korea after 1883. Unlike the common view that the command lines of the Gamri , or Superintendent(監理), of the Superintendent Office and the Commissioner(稅務司) of the Customs were separated, the Superintendent seems to have supervised the Commissioner as a general manager of the Customs, with the institution of the Superintendent Office not existing in the first years of the Customs. But the influence that the Superintendent exercised on the Customs was limited, and he could not participate in the actual tax administration due to a lack of the knowledge about it. Therefore, there existed some ambiguous duplicity, in other words, the discrepancy between form and substance, in the relationship between the Superintendent and the Commissioner in the early period, which means that the Superintendent could not actually control the Commissioner as his senior officer. The Superintendent had several different statuses and performed many kinds of duties. First, he conducted restrictive tax administration,such as reporting the imposing of tariffs both on imports and exports or tariff exemption as the supervisor for the Customs. He also took charge of maintaining public order and security over the treaty port as a local government administrator, as the system in which the local government administrator also holds the position of Superintendent was established after the exceptional early period when those who had inspected the Japanese Customs system were promoted as Superintendent. Lastly, he was in charge of the liaison between the Foreign Ministry of Korea and foreign diplomatic envoys in Korea, the reception for the foreign envoys, and the duties on concessions as the Korean diplomatic representative to the foreigners at the treaty ports. In 1885, Henry F. Merrill was appointed as the Inspector General of Customs(總稅務司) of Korea, and the system of the Korean Customs began to change fundamentally. His accession to office was a part of the plan of merging the Korean Customs into that of China, as a means of securing Chinese suzerainty over Korea. But he agreed to hand over to the Superintendent the right to control the imposing of tariffs on imports and exports, which was one of the most important rights and had been fully exercised by the Commissioners. It seems to have been some type of benefit in return for meeting Merrill’s demand. The demand was to make all the Commissioners at the treaty ports of Korea firmly subordinate to the Inspector General of Customs and exclude the Superintendent’s interference. That meant the reform of the Korean Customs system structure into adual structure similar to that of China. As such reform progressed along with the enlargement of the organization containing the expansion of human resources and the construction of the office buildings, the Superintendent Office also became separated from the Customs to becoe an independent public office. This can be ascertained from the enactment of the “New Rules for the Superintendent Office”(監理署新章程, Gamriseo Shinjanjeong )and the salary regulations for the Superintendent Office, the exercise of the right to control the imposing of tariffs on imports and exports and the use of the name “Gamriseo” in public records from 1886. Consequently,the independence of the Superintendent Office had limits and also significance, the former being the same manner of Chinese suzerainty policy on Korea, the latter meaning the development of the administration at the treaty ports in Korea.