淸末 直隸의 自治財源問題와 鹽利

Abstract

During the first decade of the 20th century, the Zhili 直隸 provincial government championed a variety of reform programs for modernization, which were called Beiyang Xinzheng 北洋新政, and achieved very impressive accomplishments. The modernization programs gave rise to a great deal of new financial demands. Among the resources available at the time, salt profit was perceived as one of the most convenient source of revenue to mobilize. In the second half of the post-Boxer decade, the constitutional reform programs, including local self-government reform, were advocated. With the introduction of local self-government reform, the local elite, especially those who participated in local self-government projects, jumped into the arena of competition for the salt-related funds and began to claim salt profits from their own locality. The need for financing the local self-government programs gave rise to new forms of salt-related conflict. In 1907, Tianjin county council 天津縣議事會 attempted at controlling the additional revenue from the pingjia 平價 in Tianjin county. The local elite in Wuqing 武淸 county, who were preparing for the establishment of county council, also claimed the salt profit from their own county, which belonged to Jinwu kou'an 津武口岸, and insisted on spending it for the local welfare. In some counties, there broke out another form of salt-related conflict, what I call here budi 補底 dispute. The local elite took for granted their access to a part of the salt profit, which they thought were produced from the salt consumption of the local people, in order to secure the funds for local self-government projects. The Provincial Assembly, or ziyiju 諮議局 of Zhili province, as soon as it was established in 1909, began to intervene in this dispute and strongly supported the local elite.