厘金是恶税吗?来自晚清棉布市场的证据(1871-1890)

Was Likin an Evil Tax?Evidence from Cotton Cloth in the Late Qing Empire,1871-1890

厘金制度一直被视作晚清地方政府剥削商户、阻碍国内商品经济发展和市场融合的恶税。以晚清棉布作为研究对象,厘金对内陆和沿海棉布市场起了截然不同的作用。对本土棉布而言,内陆地区的厘金扩大了其市场,并非对外贸易中的恶税;相反,沿海地区的厘金却成为洋布竞销的帮凶,属于对外贸易中的恶税。此外,本文进一步揭示了长江中上游地区与下游地区的地方势力与中央政权在税源方面的争夺结果,并分析了厘金在这两个区域所起的不同作用的原因。这有助于理解厘金对商贸和经济发展的复杂作用及其原因,也丰富了相关“外国资本侵入”问题的研究。

Likin has long been regarded as an evil tax that local governments used to exploit merchants and that hindered the development of domestic commodity economy and market integration in the late Qing Dynasty.This paper selects cotton cloth to investigate different effects of Likin on the inland and coastal cotton cloth market.We find that for native cotton cloth,Likin helped expand its market in inland areas,so it is not an “evil” tax in international trade;on the contrary,Likin became an accomplice in helping the competitive sale of foreign cotton cloth in the coastal areas.This article further reveals the results of the political competition between local forces and the central government in terms of tax sources in the upper-middle and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River from 1871 to 1890 under the historical background of fiscal decentralization.In addition,we briefly expand the implications for different roles of Likin among the two regions due to the origin of local forces and the accessibility of power from the central government.The findings of this article not only help to understand the complex roles of Likin in international trade and economic development with the reasons for it,but also enrich a series of studies on the debates of “foreign capital invasion” in Chinese history.