to expand continuously by the beginning of the nineteenth century. A zenith of prosperity was reached around 1800. At that time the share of official salt on the market could be at most 86%. By the end of the Ch’ing period, however, the official salt market had declined and the shares of official and illegal salts almost equaled. As for the operation of official salt market, the movement of price of yin (a proxy of the wholesale price of salt) showed that its trend was in accordance with that of prices but with a more moderate momentum. As for the salt price on the market, it was determined officially in most regions and its trend of movement was quite agreed with that of the prices prior to 1800, however, it was not afterwards indicating that the official salt with increasing price had difficulty in competing with the illegal salt at that time. In the late nineteenth century, the officially increased salt price was mainly under fiscal consideration and it moved beyond the general price level showing clearly the feature of imperfect competition. As for the scale of official salt markets among regions, it was largest in Liang-huai and smallest in Shan-hsi. But in late Ch’ing, there was a significant change which manifested mainly the decline of Liang-huai official salt market.
III. Opinions on Releasing Control
As discussed above, the government control over the salt market was mainly in aspects of assigning distribution areas, restricting the use of yin and p’iao, and fixing the salt price. To distribute salt not following official regulations was regarded as illegal and the illegal salt became a great harm to the official salt market. There were a lot of debates on the salt system in Ming-Ch’ing times, either to point out abuses or to suggest measures for preventing abuses, here only those related to release of control will be discussed below.
Opinions of this type mostly pointed to abolishing boundary of salt distribution regions and were grouped as a “school of collecting tax at salt fields” by Liu Chun.198 This school of opinion traced its origin of idea to Liu Yen 劉偃 (715-780) in the T’ang dynasty. The most eminent character of this school was Ku Yen-wu 顧炎武 (1613-1682). In his Jih-chih-lu, Ku introduced an idea of Li Wen 李 雯 , his contemporary from Sung-chiang, stated: “What should be done is to set rates at salt fields and after once taxed, not to ask where the salt goes.” He praised and recommended this idea as appropriate for putting into practice. He then pointed out that the idea of Li Wen was just what had been put into practice by Liu Yen in the following way: “To set up officials only at places where salt was produced to collect salt and to sell it to merchants for transporting to any place, while at other districts no
198 Liu Chun, 1933a, pp. 150-152.
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official should be set up to manage salt affairs.” Moreover, Ku argued with his own experiences at his home town in Kiangsu and in Shensi that the illegal salt was popularly traded because it had an advantage of being very convenience and could not be prohibited by the law of the state; the government knowing that it was not possible to prohibit and yet still established prohibitive regulations was just playing the
“politics of stealing a bell by covering the ears.”199
In addition to Ku Yen-wu, from the beginning to the end of the Ch’ing period, there were some liberal spirits proposing opinions of releasing control. For example, Ch’ü Ta-chün 屈大均 (1630-1696) not only mentioned Liu Yen for his reference but also quoted Ou-yang Hsiu 歐陽修 (1007-1072) and said that the distribution of salt must be as free as the flowing of water, and “why should the officials try to limit it?”
He proposed that the monopolistic salt merchants should be dismissed and in so doing there would have no need to prohibit illegal salt.200 Moreover, a statement by Kung Ching-han 龔景瀚 (1747-1803) was: “It is appropriate to imitate the method of Liu Yen, to set up rates at salt fields and after being taxed, the salt should be let go to anywhere, thus both the state and the people will be benefited.”201 A similar saying of Cheng Tzu-sheng 鄭祖琛 (1784-?) was: “To imitate the method of Liu Yen, to collect tax at salt fields and let merchants to transport freely, then all abuses could be removed.”202 Furthermore, around the year 1850 Li Tzu-t’ao 李祖陶 (1776-1858) sighed that the ideas of Ku yen-wu and others had not been practiced at all and criticized that regulations of p’iao-fa were still operated by officials from place to place and therefore, he proposed that no officials should be set up to interfere salt trade.203
A method of collecting tax at salt fields was proposed by Sun Ting-ch’en孫鼎臣 (1819-1859) in some details that could be summarized in five points: (1) The annual regular salt tax collected previously and the amount of salt production should be examined carefully for establishing appropriate tax rates, the standard should be unified in order to prevent from being unequal which would induce advancing or withdrawing of merchants. (2) The salt producers should be allowed to produce freely and report to the official for opening market after the salt was produced. The trade at fields should be inspected by the field officials and the tax should be paid according to the rates, a ticket (p’iao) should be given after paying tax in order to facilitate transportation and to inspect illegal selling. (3) The merchants who transported salt
199 Jih-chih-lu, pp. 246-247.
200 Kuang-tung hsin-yü 廣東新語, pp. 400-401.
201 “Yen-kuei-ti-ting pu-ju shou-shui i 鹽歸地丁不如收稅議 (On it is better to collect tax than to merge salt tax into land tax),” in Huang-ch’ao ching-shih wen-pien, 49/25b.
202 “Keng-yen-fa 更鹽法 (On reform of salt system),” in Huang-ch’ao ching-shih wen-pien, 49/8a.
203 “Yen-pu-she-kuan-i 鹽不設官議,” in Huang-ch’ao ching-shih wen-pien, 42/11a-b.
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out of fields should be inspected at inland customs only for the ticket and not be limited for the distribution localities; the merchants must obtain a permission from the local official of district where they had registered their households before going to salt fields in order to prevent concealing from tax payment. (4) The salt price should not be fixed by the official because the production might vary, the price might fluctuate and the way of exchange could not be unified by the law. (5) Honest and capable district officials should be selected as the field officials to be under command of the Yun-ssu運司 (lit., the transport official) while other salt officials should all be abolished and in this way salt administration could be rectified and channels of seeking profit would be closed.204 In fact, Sun’s opinions though based on the idea of collecting tax at fields were dotted with inspection of ticket at inland customs and thus still had a smell of control. What was most notable of his proposal was not to determine salt price officially.
The main idea of collecting tax at salt fields was to abolish boundary limitation of distribution. This idea was not adopted by the late Ch’ing government. Instead, what was taken was the p’iao-fa or even official transport (kuan-yun). Moreover, there were opinions arguing against this idea. For example, after quoting Ku Yen-wu’s idea, Feng Kuei-fen 馮桂芬 (1809-1874) had the following comments:
His meaning is to remove all boundaries so that to realize his method of not interfering whereabouts of the salt. This seems to be an argument of investigating into fundamental and searching into original. I liked it very much after reading it when I was young. However, after I participated in compiling a gazetteer of salt system in Yang-chou and visited salt fields personally I realized that his idea was just a pedantic view.205
Feng Kuei-fen had revealed with these words that a fundamental institutional change was not easy, just as it had been pointed out by Douglass North that to change primary institutions required a great cost.206
The p’iao-fa in late Ch’ing had, indeed, had fewer limitations than the kang-fa and its main purpose was to reduce the price of official salt in order to compete with the illegal salt.207 However, just as pointed out by Yu Te-yuan 俞德淵 (?-1836):
“The argument of reducing the price for competing against the illegal salt seems to be rather eloquent and yet it is not effective at all. Since the cost of official salt is not just double of that of the illegal salt, how can it compete with? If it is wanted to fight
204 “Lun yen san 論鹽三 (The third discourse on salt),” in Huang-ch’ao ching-shih wen-pien, 43/8b.
205 “Li Huai-ts’o i 利淮鹺議 (On how to benefit the Huai salt system), in Huang-ch’ao ching-shih wen-pien, 43/9a.
206 Douglass North, 1971, pp. 118-125.
207 Liu Chun, 1933a, pp. 181-188; Hsu Hung, 1972a, pp. 191-199; Saeki Tomi, 1956, pp. 385-394.
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against the illegal salt the only way is that the state does not collect tax.”208 That the state is not to collect tax is to give up control completely. Such a thorough proposal, however, was for sure not to be adopted by the late Ch’ing government which was facing fiscal crisis.209
In summation, there was no lack of opinions on releasing or even abolishing control of salt market in Ming-Ch’ing times, how ideal were statements such as “The illegal salt should not be prohibited”,210 and “When salts under heaven are all illegal they will be all official”.211 As a matter of fact, the illegal salt had occupied a large share of the salt market and the monopoly system had lost its strength. These proposals of releasing or abolishing control, however, had not been really put into practice mainly because a reform of “investigating into fundamental and searching into original” would require a great cost. While the financial distressed late Ming and late Ch’ing governments were not prepared to pay the cost of not collecting salt tax, the society was not prepared to pay the cost of no control.
Concluding Remarks
The above discussions could be summarized into six points as follows:
(1) The salt monopoly system in Ming-Ch’ing times had gone through substantial changes and could be differentiated into two major phases of official monopoly and merchant monopoly with a turning point in 1617. Some features demonstrating imperfect competition of the salt market could be found in both phases.
The most distinguished feature was that there were restrictions in respect to the amount and price of salt to be distributed in certain regions defined by the government.
Moreover, with the privilege of monopoly, the salt merchant was able to gain extra profit through selling the monopoly certificate.
(2) The timing of institutional changes in the salt monopoly was notable. During the fifteenth century, under the k’ai-chung system, yin became a transferable instrument, the practices of merchant purchasing of surplus salt and the commutation of payment into silver were formally regulated in 1489 and 1492 respectively. These changes reflected the phenomena of commercialization and usage of silver as money and the readiness of some conditions for market economy in the agrarian society of traditional China. In this sense, the late fifteenth century could be considered as a
208 “Shang Ho Ou-keng chih-fu shu 上賀耦庚知府書 (A letter of Ho Ch’ang-ling),” in Huang-ch’ao ching-shih wen-pien, 42/13a.
209 Lo Yu-tung 羅玉東,1933, pp. 189-270; Ho Lieh 何烈, 1972, pp. 10-20.
210 Hu shih-ning 胡世寧, “Ping-pu shih-shih shu 兵部十事疏 (Memorial on ten matters of the Board of Military),” in Huang-Ming shu-ch’ao, p. 3814.
211 This was the words of Li Wen, see Jih-chih-lu, p. 246.
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period of transformation in Chinese economic history and a beginning period of modern Chinese economy.
(3) Before chaos set in and the decline of the Ming dynasty, the government adopted measures of price discrimination and price reduction to control surplus salt so that by the end of the sixteenth century the tax revenue from surplus salt was more than that from regular salt, and there even had increases. Thus, the official salt market was somewhat maintained without falling apart.
(4) Under the merchant monopoly system, the Ch’ing official salt market reached a zenith of prosperity around the year 1800. There were about 2,000 salt merchants who had a large enough scale of distribution and among them 50 or so might have very large capital. The official salt had a market share as much as 86% at times of prosperity. From the nineteenth century onwards, the official salt market gradually declined and by the end of the century, its share of the market was only about 52%.
(5) From the mid-fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century, the movement of the yin price was generally in agree with that of the rice price in the lower Yangtze area, but its magnitude of momentum was not as great as that of rice price. From 1682 onwards, the price of yin also moved along with the trend of prices in general and its momentum was not as great, either. Moreover, the officially increased salt price in Ch’ang-lu and Shan-tung regions demonstrated that by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the movement was quite in accordance with that of silver-cash ratio and general prices, however, in the first half of the nineteenth century the increasing salt price ran against the falling trend of prices and to the end, the increase of salt price was almost all for the fiscal purpose and moved beyond the level of general prices. The official salt with its high prices was naturally not able to compete with the illegal salt.
(6) The salt monopoly was the most concrete manifestation of economic control during the Ming and Ch’ing periods. Although there were opinions on releasing or abolishing control proposed every now and then by some liberal spirits, these ideas had not been put into practice at all; this revealed the difficulty of fundamental institutional reform. Indeed, even in the twentieth century, “the existence of a perfect market is likely to be extremely rare in the real world.”212 In today’s China, however, as requirements of “liberalization” and “modernization” of the economy are becoming more and more urgent, the experience of official salt market in Ming-Ch’ing times may provide us with a mirror for reflection.
212 Joan Robinson, 1933, p. 89.
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References
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Chi-fu t’ung-chih 畿輔通志 (Gazetteer of Chi-fu), 1884 edition.
Chiu-shneg yen-wu-i-lüeh 九省鹽務議略 (Brief discourse on salt affairs in nine provinces), by Wang Shou-chi 王守基, Taipei: Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, 1986.
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Ch’in-ting ta-ch’ing hui-tien shih-li 欽定大清會典事例 (Precedents of collected statues of the Ch’ing dynasty), comp. by T’o Chin 托津 et al., 1818 edition.
Ch’in-ting ta-Ch’ing hui-tien shih-li 欽定大清會典事例 (Precedents of collected statues of the Ch’ing dynasty), comp. by K’un Kang 崑岡 et al., 1899 edition, Taipei: Cheng-wen ch’u-pan-she, reprint, 1963.
Ch’ing-ch’ao wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 清朝文獻通考 (Encyclopedia of the historical records of the Ch’ing dynasty), compiled by imperial order of Ch’ing Kao-tsung 清高宗, Taipei: Commercial Press, 1987.
Ch’ing-ch’ao hsü wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 清朝續文獻通考 (Encyclopedia of the historical records of the Ch’ing dynasty), comp. by Liu Chin-tsao 劉錦藻, Taipei:
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Ch’ing yen-fa-chih 清鹽法志 (Gazetteer of the salt administration in Ch’ing times), comp. by Chang Mao-chiung 張茂炯 et al., Peking: Yen-wu-shu, 1920.
Ch’iu-sheng yen-wu-i-lüeh 九省鹽務議略 (Brief discourse on salt affairs in nine provinces), Wang shou-chi 王守基, Taipei: Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, 1986.
Ch’u-hsiu Ho-tung yen-fa-chih 初修河東鹽法志 (The first gazetteer of salt system in Ho-tung), comp. by Chüeh-lo Shih-lin 覺羅石麟, Yung-cheng edition, Taipei:
Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, reprint, 1966.
Fu-chien yen-fa-chih 福建鹽法志 (Gazetteer of the salt system in Fu-chien), author unknown, 1830 edition.
Hsin-hsiu Ch’ang-lu yen-fa-chih 新修長蘆鹽法志 (New compilation of gazetteer of salt system in Ch’ang-lu), comp. by Tuan Ju-hui 段如蕙, Yung-cheng edition, Taipei: Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, reprint, 1966.
Hsü wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao 續文獻通考 (Encyclopedia of the historical records, continued), compiled by imperial order of Ch’ing Kao-tsung 清高宗, Taipei:
Commercial Press, 1987.
Huang-ch’ao ching-shih wen-pien 皇朝經世文編 (Collected essays on statecrafts in the Ch’ing dynasty), comp. by Ho Ch’ang-ling 賀長齡, Taipei: Ku-feng ch’u- pan-she, reprint, 1963.
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Huang-ch’ao ching-shih-wen hsü-pien 皇朝經世文續編 (Collected essays on statecrafts in the Ch’ing dynasty, continued), comp. by Ke Shih-chun 葛士濬, 1901 edition, Taipei: Wen-hai ch’u-pan-she, reprint, 1973.
Huang-Ming shu-ch’ao 皇明疏鈔 (Collected memorials in Ming times), ed. by Sun Hsun 孫旬, 1584 edition, Taipei: Hsüeh-sheng shu-chü, reprint, 1986.
Jih-chih-lu 日知錄 (Daily notes with comments), Ku Yen-wu 顧炎武, Taipei: Shih- chieh shu-chü, 1962.
Kuang-tung hsin-yü 廣東新語 (New words for Kwangtung), Ch’ü Ta-chün 屈大均, in Pi-chi-shiao-shuo ta-kuan 筆記小說大觀, 24:10, Taipei: Hsin-hsing shu-chü, 1978.
Kung-chung-tan K’ang-hsi-ch’ao tsou-tse 宮中檔康煕朝奏摺 (Secret palace
memorials of the K’ang-hsi period), ed. by Kuo-li Ku-kung po-wu-yuan 國立故 宮博物院 (National palace Museum), 7 volumes, Taipei: National Palace Museum, 1976.
Liang-che yen-fa-chih 兩浙鹽法志 (Gazetteer of the salt system in Liang-che), comp.
Liang-che yen-fa-chih 兩浙鹽法志 (Gazetteer of the salt system in Liang-che), comp.