Ch'ing Commercial Policy

Ch1 ing Commercial Policy In a conversation some years ago Dwight Perkins challenged the popular view that the Ch' ing bureaucracy's policy towards merchants was so oppressive as to impede ,greatly the development of commerce. This challenge can be supported by various arguments« It is true that studies of many of the contemporary (non-socialist) "new nations" strongly support the view that without some firmly institutionalized check, such as an independent judiciary enforcing laws promoting commerce, state bureaucracies do tend to exploit and hamper merchants. On the other hand, some sociologists suspect that this exploitative tendency may have been inhibited in some traditional, historical bureaucracies more than in most of the new nations today, since the ideology of some traditional bureaucrats more firmly promoted what Eisenstadt calls "service orientations to both the rulers and the major strata" (as opposed to "goals of selfaggrandizement ") . Such a "service orientation" was a powerful force in the Ch' ing period. There was constant official propaganda against greedy officials who regarded merchants as "fish and meat". Respect for private property or more especially bureaucratic dependence on well-to-do merchants for cooperation in implementing policies is a common theme in Ch' ing governmental documents. Conversely, merchants were often asked to see the identity of their interests with those of the state, for instance financially to support relief policies as a way of "an-p' in pao-fu (pacifying the poor and protecting the rich)". Both sides were thus often asked to see the ta-chu (the large situation, the public interests) rather than pursue immediate profits. Although there was a commercially unsophisticated law against selling something cheap for a high price, there was frequent official concern about -4- retaining a margin of profit for the merchants (indeed there was an old principle that a 10% profit was moral) . This concern must have been particularly alive in the lower Yangtze area, where, as the remarks of Hsu Kuangch 'i, Pao Shih-ch'en, and others show, it was widely recognized that commerce (more specifically the cotton and silk industries) was the basis of the extraordinary tax-paying capacities of prefectures such as Soochow and Sungkiang. If cotton and silk cloth could not be successfully marketed there, both the ti-ting and the grain tribute were endangered. In the salt monopoly also, although policy varied from zone to zone, there was widespread official recognition of the dependence on merchant capital, which on the whole could most definitely not be coercively enlisted. The pervasive worry was that "shangjen pu ch'ien (merchants would not come forward)." If salt officials brought about this unfortunate situation, they were to be fined a year's salary when the cause was their inefficiency and demoted by one chi (sub-grade) and transferred to another post when the cause was their oppressing and squeezing of the salt merchants. In 1832 the Nanking governor-general could argue that it would be wise for him to resign as head of Liang-huai partly because his policies had created so much resentment among salt merchants that the success of his branch of the salt monopoly was endangered. Most important the government often made an involved effort to control the salt price by calculating the merchants' costs and margin of profit. Besides solicitude over Yangtze commerce and salt investments, many officials realized that customs revenue depended partly on their not harassing merchants and laid particular stress on the smooth maintenance of the grain trade. How, it may be asked, was such an appreciation of merchants' interests compatible with the traditional contempt for the status of merchant and for the pursuit of commercial profits? The answer, I think, is that this contempt -5- was variously inhibited. A few points may be ventured here. First, it should be recalled that the pejorative connotation of "Ij." (profits) is hardly comparable to that, say, of "usury". Most Ch' ing references to "_li" are quite neutral, and 11Ii1" could simply refer to something desirable in the best sense, as in the official's duty to "hsing-li ch'u-pi (bring about beneficial conditions and do away with bad ones)". The stereotype of the vulgar merchant interested only in profits was...