This paper is based on the company records of the Kailuan Mining Administration. Only part of these records was collected by the author from the Kailuan archives while the paper was being written. The rest was accumulated over a long period by my teachers–the scholars of the Nankai Institute of Economics. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to them. I would like to thank Dr Tim Wright for his help with translating the paper and for his suggestions. Needless to say I alone am responsible for the ideas expressed here. Any errors remain my own.

¹ In this paper ‘Chinese Engineering and Mining Company’ refers to the Chinese company established in 1878. The British Company which took over the mines from 1900 is referred to as the ‘Kaiping Company’ or the ‘British Kaiping Company’, even though its formal English name was also Chinese Engineering and Mining Company.Google ScholarFor the early history of Kailuan see Carlson, Ellsworth C., The Kaiping Mines (1877–1912), second edition (Cambridge, Mass: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1970).Google Scholar

² Tingshu, Tang (1832–1892): comprador of Jardine Matheson & Co from 1863, Director General of the China Merchants Steamship Navigation Company from 1873, Director General of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company from 1878 to 1892.Google ScholarSee Jingyu, Wang, Tang Tingshu yanjiu (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chuban she, 1983)Google Scholar, and Feuerwerker, Albert, China's Early Industrialization: Sheng Hsuan-huai (1844–1916) and Mandarin Enterprise (New York: Atheneum, 1970), pp. 110–11 et passim.Google Scholar

³ Yi, Zhang (Zhang Yanmou): director from 1892 and Director General from 1898 of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company.Google Scholar

⁴ Carlson, , Kaiping Mines, pp. 107–17,Google Scholar and Wellington Chan, K. K., Merchants, Mandarins and Modem Enterprise in Late Ch'ing China (Cambridge, Mass: East Asian Research Center, Harvard University, 1977), pp. 110–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ See Carlson, , Kaiping Mines, p. 142; in the first edition of his book, Carlson took a more anti-imperialist stance.Google Scholar

⁶ Gengsheng, Xu, Zhong-wai heban meitie kuangye shihua [Histories of Sino-foreign coal and iron mines] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshu guan, 1947);Google ScholarLu, Yang, Kailuan kuang lishi ji shougui guoyou wenti [The history of the Kailuan mines and the question of their restoration to Chinese national ownership] (Shanghai, 1933).Google Scholar

⁷ Zichu, Wei, Diguozhuyi yu Kailuan meikuang [Imperialism and the Kailuan Coalmines] (Shanghai: Shenzhou guoguang she, 1954), p. 1.Google ScholarThe Nankai Institute of Economics hopes to publish a major collection of archival materials on the question of mining rights: Xingmei, Xiong and Guanghua, Yan, Kailuan kuangquan shi ziliao [Historical materials on the Kailuan mining rights] (forthcoming). For a sophisticated discussion of some of these issues, which both uses the Kailuan archives and employs economic as well as political analysisGoogle Scholar, See Xingmei, Xiong, ‘British Capital and the Management of the Kailuan Coal Mines’, pp. 177–92 in Wright, Tim (ed.), China's Economy in the Early Twentieth Century: Recent Chinese Studies (London: Macmillan, 1992).Google Scholar

⁸ Xi, Wang, Zhong—Ying Kaiping kuangquan jiaoshe [Sino-British negotiations over the Kaiping mining rights] (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiu yuan jinshi yanjiu suo, 1962), p. 163.Google Scholar

⁹ See for example Foding, Liu, ‘Kaiping kuangwu ju jingying deshi bianxi’ [An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the management of the CEMC], Nankai xuebao 1986.2 (March 1986): 30–6.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Shihao, Guo (ed.), Jiu Zhongguo Kailuan meikuang gongren zhuangkuang [The situation of the workers in the Kailuan coal mines in pre-Communist China] (Beijing: Renmin chuban she, 1985);Google ScholarNankai daxue jingji yanjiu suo, jingji shi yanjiu shi (ed.), Jiu Zhongguo Kailuan meikuang de gongzi zhidu he baogong zhidu [The wage and contract system for workers in the Kailuan coal mines in pre-Communist China] (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chuban she, 1983).Google Scholar

¹¹ See Nankai daxue, Jiu Zhongguo Kailuan meikuang de gongzi zhidu he baogong zhidu; and Changqing, Ding, ‘Cong Kailuan kan jiu Zhongguo meikuang ye zhong de jingzheng he longduan’ [Competition and monopoly in the pre-Communist Chinese coal industry: the case of the Kailuan Mining Administration], Jindai shi yanjiu [Studies on modern history] 1987.2 (March 1987): 1–26.Google Scholar

¹² Kailuan archives, Kailuan Mining Administration Archives, Tangshan, M-0767/74.

¹³ Gustav Detring: German. The Commissioner of Customs at Tianjin. Adviser to the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company from 1895.

¹⁴ Hoover, Herbert Clark (1874–1964). American. The mining engineer of Bewick Moreing & Co. In 1899 he went to China to be general engineer of the Zhili Rehe Mining Company. In 1901, he became General Engineer of the Chinese Mining and Engineering Company. Later he became President of the United States (1929–1933).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Because the CEMC had issued 15,838 and a third shares, the new stocks used in exchange should have amounted to £395,958 sterling, but in fact, as a few of the old shares were not exchanged, the actually used stocks only amounted to £391,783.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Bewick Moreing & Co: A British business company engaged in the mining industry. In 1900 it established the Kaiping Mining Company Ltd, and took over control of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company in 1901.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Kailuan archives, M-0767/15.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., M-4295.

¹⁹ Ibid., M-0767/15.

²⁰ Ibid., vol. 739/2.

²¹ Statement of assets and liabilities compiled 28 February 1902.

²² Kailuan archives, G-1188.Google Scholar

²³ Chengming, Wu, Diguozhuyi zai jiu Zhongguo de touzi [Foreign Investment in Modern China] (Beijing, 1955), p. 84.Google Scholar

²⁴ Qiaonan, Wei and Bo, Wang, ‘Zai lun Riben diguozhuyi dui Fushun meikuang de kaijue yu lueduo’ [On the Japanese Plunder of the Fushun Mines], Dongbei jingji shi lunwen ji [Collected essays on the economic history of North-east China] (1984), vol. 2, p. 188.Google Scholar

²⁵ See for example Wright, Tim, Coal Mining in China's Economy and Society, 1895–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 131–5.Google Scholar

²⁶ Mitchell, B.R., Economic Development of the British Coal Industry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), ch. 8.Google Scholar

²⁷ In this paper ‘constant’ cost refers to all costs except direct labour costs, and thus includes, for example, depreciation, materials and management expenses. Its meaning is therefore not the same as ‘fixed’ or ‘constant’ costs as normally used in Western economics.

²⁸ See for example Wright, Tim, ‘Growth of the Modern Chinese Coal Industry: An Analysis of Supply and Demand, 1896–1936’, Modem China 7.3 (07 1981): 332–9.Google Scholar