¹ For a more complete analysis, see Robert Marsh, M., “Formal Organization and Promotion in a Pre-Industrial Society”, American Sociological Review, V, 26 (August, 1961) and The Mandarins: The Circulation of Elites in China, 1600–1900 (New York, 1961). It should be noted that none of these factors, including purchase, was strongly correlated with advancement. Even a multiple correlation of eight factors with advancement leaves about half of the total variation ín advancement unexplained.Google Scholar

² Hsü Ta-ling, Ch'ing-tai chüan-na chih-tu (The System of Purchasing Offices by Contributions During the Ch'ing Period) (= Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, No. 22) (Peking, 1950), p. 146, hereafter cited as Hsü, CTCNCT.

³ Ibid., p. 144.

⁴ Ibid., p. 142.

⁵ Ibid., pp. 132–134; Hummel, A. W., ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, 1644–1912, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1943), I, 547.Google Scholar

⁶ My discussion of the concept of corruption is heavily indebted to Jacob van Klaveren, “Die historische Erscheinung der Korruption, in ihrem Zusammenhang mit der Staats- und Gesellschaftsstruktur betrachtet”, Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Bd. 44 (Dec. 1957), pp. 289–324. This monographic-length article was continued in Bds. 45, 46 and 47 of the same journal.

⁷ See Feng Kuei-fen, Chiao-pin-lu K'ang-i (Protests from Chiao-pin-lu), “Pien-chüanli i”, 1885 ed., ch. 1/17b-19b; T'ang Hsiang-lung, “A Statistical Study of the Chüanchien System in the Tao-kuang Period”, in She-hui k'o-hsüeh tsa-chih, II, December, 1931; Hsü, CTCNCT.

⁸ Especially the chien-sheng degree (li chien-sheng), but also kung-sheng, and at times, even sheng-yuan and chü-jen, were sold. Hsü, CTCNCT, 84–88.

⁹ For example, in late Ch'ien-lung times (late eighteenth century), it cost a first-rank official 900 taels to cancel out a punishment, a second-rank official 820 taels, a thirdrank official 740 taels, etc. During Hsien-feng, 1851–1861, it became cheaper to do this. Hsü, CTCNCT, 88–89.

¹⁰ The purchase of the chien-sheng made one a Collegian in the Imperial Academy (Kuo Tzu Chien) and enabled one to compete for the higher degrees without having passed the lower ones, and also made one eligible for official appointment. The majority of chien-sheng did not actually remove to Peking to study in the Imperial Academy. Hsü, CTCNCT, 84–86 and Martin, W. A. P., A Cycle of Cathay, 2nd ed. (London, 1897), p. 329.Google Scholar

¹¹ The reform proposals of Ting Jih-ch'ang, Chang Chih-tung, Chang Chien and Feng Kuei-fen were all concerned with the harmful effects of the purchase of substantive posts. I shall return to this matter at the end of this paper.

¹² Hsü, CTCNCT, 80–82.

¹³ Legally, sheng-yuan could become officials only through purchase (with minor exceptions). But I decided to omit the six per cent who were recruited as sheng-yuan, rather than assume that they had suppressed the fact of their purchase. The analysis is limited to those for whom there is positive evidence of purchase.

¹⁴ I-hsüp on the basis of military merit (chün-kung)q or “bandit” suppression (chiao-fei ch'u-li)^r; “Filial, Scrupulous, Square and Upright” (Hsiao-lien-fang-cheng)^s.

¹⁵ Purchasers were called kuan-sheng ^t, chüan-sheng ^u or chüan-yuan ^v. To go to Peking to submit the required amount of silver for purchase was called Shang-tui ^W. The receipt of purchase was called chih-chao ^x.

¹⁶ Kuang-hsü erh-shih-pa nien Chili-situ Hou-pu tao fu t'ung t'ung thou hsien ko kuan chien-ming lü-li ts'e.

¹⁷ Hsü, CTCNCT, tables following p. 111.

¹⁸ The purchase score (computed as above) varied from a high of 87 for men with a “very strong” official tradition in their families to a low of 44 for those with only a “minor' official tradition in their families. “Very strong' here means that a man's father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been officials, or that the father and one of the other two ancestors had been officials. “Minor” here means that only the grandfather or the great-grandfather had been an official, not the father. See Kracke, E. A., “Family vs. Merit in the Civil Service Examinations under the Empire”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 10 (1947), pp. 103–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ This follows from the fact that only a small percentage of officials were from commoner families and that their number constituted only an infinitesimal fraction of all commoners in China.

²⁰ Manchus could enter the bureaucracy through the School for Bannermen (as kuan hsüeh-sheng), could receive military commissions as sub-lieutenant (Hsüao-ch'i hsiao)^y, and did not have to compete with Chinese in the examination system. It was said that clerks (pi-t'ieh shih)ⁿ, of whom most were Manchus, could become rich within ten years. Hsü, CTCNCT, 169.

²¹ We noted earlier that only 17 per dent of the examination-path recruits purchased substantive posts. This percentage may have increased at the end of the nineteenth-century (see Chang Chung-1i, The Chinese Gentry, Seattle, 1955, 140), but it is clear that most examination recruits felt considerable antipathy toward purchase officials.

²² See Wright, Mary C., The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism (Stanford, 1957), Chap. 5 et passim.Google Scholar

²³ For a discussion of the evils of the purchase system, see Hsü, CTCNCT, 106, 132–34, 142–46; Hsü Tao-ling Chung-kuo fa-chih shih lun-lüeh (Outline Essay on the History of Chinese Law) (Taipei, 1953), 131–132; Chang. op. cit., p. 140.

²⁴ See Hsü, CTCNCT, 153–166. The purchase of substantive posts was stopped in 1902, revived in 1904, and prohibited again in 1906. All other aspects of the purchase system continued until the end of the dynasty. Hsü, CTCNCT, 71.

²⁵ Weber, Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (Glencoe, Ill., 1947), 350;Google ScholarSwart, K. W., Sale of Offices in the Seventeenth Century (The Hague, 1940), 117Google Scholaret passim; Barker, Ernest, The Development of Public Services in Western Europe, 1660–1930 (N.Y., 1944);Google ScholarBarber, Elinor G., The Bourgeoisie in Eighteenth-Century France (Princeton, 1955), 106–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ Poole, Kenyon, Public Finance and Economic Welfare (New York, 1956).Google Scholar

²⁷ By 1887 the revenue from the Maritime Customs had become nearly 50 per cent of the total Ch'ing revenue. But despite its success it was insufficient to meet the heavy emergency needs of the dynasty. Ch'en Chih-jang, The State Economic Policies of the Ch'ing Dynasty, 1840–1905 (University of London, Ph. D. thesis, 1956), 178–179, Table 24.Google Scholar

²⁸ Some 40 per cent of the military expenses in the Taiping Rebellion were covered by the issue of paper money. These inflationary measures allowed temporary military financing, but in the long run further weakened the Ch'ing financial structure. Ch'en, op. cit., 88–89.

²⁹ Between 1738 and 1804 the Liang-huai salt merchants alone contributed 37.4 million taels, and the Canton Hong merchants almost four million taels between 1773 and 1832. In 1894, more than ten million taels were contributed from various sources. Ch'en, op. cit., 168–169, Table 25.

³⁰ Samuelson, Paul A., Economics (New York, 1958), 350.Google Scholar

³¹ vanPhilips, Paul A., Public Finance and Less Developed Economy (The Hague, 1957), 107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² Li Ching-pang wrote: “China traditionally has no precedent for government borrowing. There is no harm in gradually initiating government borrowing, first from commercial sources. Ask officials in the Dependencies and Tribute States and Tax Grain Administration, and Grain Intendants to subscribe a certain amount [of loans] and give them bonds in return, with a definite maturity. Clearly designate certain public revenue as guarantee. Also, chou and district officials should persuade salt merchants, the local elite, the rich, the exchange banks and the pawnship merchants to loan the government money. Annually recognize certain interest as a regular expendi-eure of local government, and punctually pay it in order to strengthen the government's credit; then government borrowing can be effected. Once this is done, although the purchase of substantive posts be forever stopped, how can one worry about a shortage of government revenues?” Ch'ou-k'uan t'ing-chüian san-i (Three Discourses on Financing without Purchase) in Huang-ch'ao ching-shih wen san-pken, 1898 ed., li-cheng erh 23/1a, quoted in Hsü, CTCNCT, 164. Sun Shiao-hsiung wrote: “Western nations all have government borrowing. Why should China not also try? Borrowing foreign money is most depleting, and less desirable than domestic borrowing.” (Ibid., 23/2b), quoted in Hsü, CTCNCT, 164.

³³ Stanley, C. J., “Chinese Finance from 1853 to 1908”, Papers on China, III (1949), 13.Google Scholar

³⁴ Swart, op. cit., 123.

³⁵ Ibid., p. 126.