晚清直省“公费”与吏治整顿

"Public Funding" in the Metropolitan Area and Provinces and the Reform of Local Administration in the Late Qing Dynasty

清代直省官员没有专项办公费用,导致陋规盛行,雍正朝已通过耗羡归公及定额发放养廉银试图补救。但咸同后官场应酬及公务需索无度,陋规津贴名目繁多,吏治腐败与财政混乱相伴而行。光宣之交,在官制改革与清理财政促动下,统一公费标准提上议事日程。但对"公费"概念认识的模糊,直接造成制度立意的偏差,为官吏化公为私提供了可乘之机。虽迄清亡直省公费标准仍决而滞行,但其所开启的行政经费用途公私不分的恶例,以及官制改革、财政与吏治相互制约影响的教训非常深刻。

Qing metropolitan and provincial officials did not have dedicated administrative funding,a fact that led to rampant malpractice.To rectify this situation,the court decided in the Yongzheng reign that all extra silver collected by officials in charge of taxes must be handed to the state treasury and that the government would pay officials a fixed amount of money as a grant in order to keep them honest.However,after the reigns of Xianfeng and Tongzhi,officials’' unrestrained spending on social activities and administration and a myriad of perquisites under various names resulted in corruption in official circles and financial chaos.At the turn of the Guangxu and Xuantong reigns,a uniform standard for public expenditure was put on the agenda with a view to reforming officialdom and putting the country’'s financial affairs in order.But the vague concept of "public expenditure" led directly to a distortion of this institutional approach,so that it became an opportunity for officials to appropriate public funds for private use.The uniform standard for public expenditure was not put into actual practice before the demise of the Qing dynasty.