清末财政纾困筹策失败探析

An Analysis of the Failure of Fiscal Relief Policy in the Late Qing Dynasty

甲午战后,为偿还对日赔款,清政府与汇丰银行、德华银行签订《英德续借款合同》,规定由海关总税务司赫德代征七处厘金抵偿部分债款。朝野对此态度各异,清廷、总税务司和督抚之间屡屡对抗又最终妥协。为弥补厘金抵债省份损失,清廷推出拨补方案,却造成拨补虚悬的窘境。抵债省份和承协省份再三呼吁改变拨款无着的困局,但因调整难度大,随后又新增庚子赔款等筹款压力,户部对拨补方案仅作了微调,相关省份只能自行应对困局。清廷固执于“内重外轻”观念,财政调度能力渐趋低下,央地矛盾不断升级,演变成内外失信态势,这是清末财政纾困筹策失败的关键因素。

After the War of Jiawu(First Sino-Japanese War), in order to repay the reparations to Japan, the Qing government signed the “Anglo-German Loan of 1898” with the HSBC and the Deutsch-Asiatische Bank, which provided that Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, would take charge of the general and salt likin of certain ports and districts in the Yang-tsze Valley and the adjoining province of Zhejiang to repay some debts. The government and the public had different attitudes towards this. The Qing court, the Inspector-General of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service and the provincial authorities had repeated confrontations and fi nally compromised. The Qing court launched a subsidy program to make up for the losses of the provinces where likin was mortgaged, however, it caused the situation that the designated allocation was diffi cult to implement. The likin debt-paying provinces and the provinces which were ordered to assist in these issues repeatedly appealed to change the predicament. Unfortunately, due to the diffi culty of adjustment and the subsequent pressure to raise funds such as the Boxer Indemnity, the Ministry of Revenue only made minor adjustments to the allocation plan, and the provinces were left to resolve the dilemma on their own. The Qing court’s obsession of “central interests are more important than local ones”, its weakening fi scal allocation capability, the declining trust between central and local governments as confl icts escalated, which were the key factors for the failure of fi scal relief policy in the late Qing Dynasty.