| It was an important historical stage of China railway enterprise and tax system in the late Qing Dynasty.There was a close coupling relation between the tax system and China railway enterprise on raising,financing,construction,operation and management of the process in this period.The coupling correlation contained mainly Chinese cognitions for the relevance of railway and tax,railway financing and tax guarantee,railway land requisition and materials in the process of railway construction,railway tariffs and railway likin in the process of operation and management,the influence of the tax system for railway enterprise and so on.Before the railway was introduced into China,fiscal and tax of the Qing government laided the foundation of correlation between the tax system and China railway.In railway first stage,foreign powers had demanded the Qing government to construct the railway.It served as a necessary condition.The internal Qing government finally established the basic state policy for the railway construction after several controversies.Because of a little railway construction,correlations between the tax and China railway mainly displayed in the people’s cognitive level in this period.People who advocated railway construction thought the railway could promote the passenger flow and increase tax.Some opponents put forward to interfere with people’s livelihood,harmful to the existing tax system by the railway construction.Others had proposed construct railway by tax.The tax had played an important role in the Wusong railroad representation.The construction of the railway as a national policy of the Qing government had made correlations between the tax and China railway more and more colser.In the process of the raising funds of railway construction,the relevance between railway and the tax system mainly focused on tax financing and tax guarantee in the late Qing Dynasty.Before the Sino-japanese war,the Qing government mainly through the government’s money for the railway construction.Among them,the central special railway spending was the most representative.The capital source of railway construction total relianced on the government’s tax sources in this period.The central special railway spending had been transferred to the military because of the outbreak of the Sino-japanese war.After the war,the Qing government had reled on large numbers of railway debts,including tax embodied in the function of credit guarantee.Tax guarantee had advantages and disadvantages.The Qing government debts for railway caused loss of railway economic rights,and then established the commercial railway policy.Tradesmen managing railway construction in order to raise funds,mostly share-holding system structure,a number of different ways had been raised.Besides relative voluntary quotient stocks,others reled mainly on tax financing,including various new taxes.Tax financing for railway contruction had produced a series of external effects,not only tax revolt,but also a disturbance to the original tax system,even served as the booster for the transition of section railroad construction mechanism,which contained the complex interaction between the different political and social forces.The railway engineering construction,including land and materials for railway,had produced a lot of problems which were associated with the tax system.In terms of land,the basic principles of the Qing government was to ensure that the attached to the tax of land,the original amount for the transfer of land property rights without loss.Before and after the Sino-japanese war,the corrolation between land and tax had experienced from associated sporadic to system built in the early process.With the railway construction,the Qing government had gived a lot of thinkings and practices from the system level.In 1906,the Qing government had drawed up the articles of association of land to unify the national railway land regulation.Then the Qing government had formulated the principle of detailed rules of railway land tax in 1908.The railway land acquisition procedures had along with the tax.In terms of materials,due to the domestic railway materials production delaied and the expansion of foreign railway package materials,finally the foreign railway material purchase tax free system had been formed.This system had made the monopoly position for foreign railway materials,and the Qing government self-governance railway hadn’t gotten the original duty-free treatment.As the development of the economic rights movement,the demands for the material of railway tax free had last.In 1907,Jiangsu,Zhejiang,Anhui,Jiangxi and Fujian province railway company jointly had sponsored a duty-free and opened the commercial railway companies railway materials tax-free gap.Then,other railways had quoted.Due to the railway companies had affected the state into tax,thus the tax authorities had begun to control and fight with the railway company.Tariff system was an important part of the tax system.The correlation between railway and tariff system in late Qing Dynasty,mainly involved cross-border lines,especially the most typical Middle East Railway.Before the Middle East railway built,the land tariff system for the interests of Russian gradually had formed between China and Russian.Due to political,economical and strategical considerations for the Russian,the Middle East railway had planned.At the same time,the land tariff system between China and Russia also had affected the construction project of the railway.After the Russo-japanese war,Japan and Russia both sides respectively in the north and the south manchuria had divided the sphere of influence.China,Japan and Russia on the economic,politic,diplomatic and other aspects of the fighting,eventually had made the north manchuria tax clearance problems emerged.The Middle East railway tariff system had begun to practical generation phase.Bargaining between Russia and China as the open wire,game between Japan and Russia as the hidden clue,that had made the north manchuria tax clearance delay.The Middle East railway tariff system had finalized.The system for the Russian economical and political interests in north manchuria had expanded the old land tariff system between China and Russia,and served as the Japan-Korean railway tariff system model.The land tariff system of the Middle East railway and the Yunnan-Vietnam railway had the things in common,also had differences.Its constituted the important content in the tariff system changes in the late Qing Dynasty.Railway tariff was the most important tariff system in modern China.The likin system was an important content of tax changes in the late Qing period.Railway likin was the production of the interaction between railway and likin system.Zhang Zhidong had started Hankou Railway Likin Bureau and made railway likin appear,and gradually extended to other lines.After railway likin appeared,due to various powers fighting,the process ermerged differentiation significantly.In the process of various powers fighting,the collection mode,tax rate,steuerkarte of railway likin had changed.Railway likin maintained the local finance,revealed an image of the alienation between central and local.Railway likin helped local finance or deficiency,while made bad influence for regional social and economic.Shanghai-nanjing railway likin as the representative of the railway likin multifaceted and complicated problem,involved the likin system of the internal waterway steuerkarte and land steuerkarte,the central and local,China and Britain,the interior and foreign.Railway likin had persisted the original characteristics of likin system,and showed the new content,was a new dynamic in likin system change in the late Qing Dynasty.The influence of the tax system for railway was not comprehensive in the late Qing Dynasty.In terms of tax collection and administration,the continuous decline of Native Customs in response to the force of the railway operation,not blindly concession,its had own stress and actively respond.Unlikely,emerging railway likin bureau attached to railway enterprise itself reflected the force of the likin system.In terms of the structure of tax system,direct taxation and indirect taxation for railway’s reaction were different.Rental stocks as a type of land tax surcharge,because of directly attached to the traditional tax collection and administration system,the ordinary people were closely linked with the railway.Salt tax as indirect tax,affected the railway at the top of the company’s internal management mechanism design.In terms of tax burden,the Qing government had no business tax system design for railway company.The railway company’s Biaoxiao constituted the main internal tax.Ordinary people as external stakeholders,with railway state policy appearing,had stimulated against the tax,ultimately changed the history of the railway enterprise in late Qing Dynasty.In the late Qing Dynasty,the railway’s inner qualities and the tax system’s ubiquitous in the field of national and social situation,that decided to the complex inseparable interaction between them.The coupling correlation between the tax system and railway which was a dynamic rendering.Reaction force between railway and the tax system made the construction system and mechanism of railway inevitable changing,the changes in the field of tax system became the norm.The system gradually formed in the process of change,caused the functional effection and promoted the adjustment of system.In the process of between railway and tax system,changes because of system power,constant because of system limits and boundaries. |
