清代以工代赈捐纳筹资与社会力量的动员

透过清代以工代赈捐纳筹资的演变过程可以看出,兼具救荒与兴修工程双重功效的以工代赈的资金来源,除了赈捐、河工捐这些暂行事例外,还有常例。在清代公开的国家制度保障下,运行数百年的捐纳制度,为遇到临时的或长期的财政困境的朝廷动员社会力量筹集以工代赈资金提供了保障。有清一代,捐纳资金为朝廷顺利实施以工代赈提供了程度不等的持久的正向支撑力,帮助朝廷履行灾荒赈救职责,修复灾毁急要险重工程,吸纳最具潜在不稳定因子的青壮年灾贫民到工劳动,化解社会危机。即使在光绪初年以民捐民办为突出特征的义赈兴起之后,清廷仍旧通过诸种措施增加捐纳资金,用于兴办工赈,强撑起了官赈的“面子”。评价捐纳制度的利弊得失,应以其社会效果为基本标准,而不是简单地斥其为滋弊的温床。

Fund-Raising Through Donation as Means of Work Relief and Social Mobilization in the Qing Dynasty

It can be seen from the evolutionary process of the Qing’s fund-raising through donation as means of work relief that the funds raised were for the dual purposes of both work relief and construction of projects;the fund sources included both temporary cases such as the donations for disasters and river engineering and regular practices.Under the guarantee of the open national systems of the Qing Dynasty,the donation system,which had been in operation for hundreds of years,provided a guarantee in turn for the government faced with temporary or long-term financial difficulties to mobilize social sources to raise work relief funds.In the Qing Dynasty,donated funds played an important role in providing various lasting and positive supports for the government’s smooth implementation of work relief,helping the government to perform its duties of famine relief,repairing urgent and dangerous projects destructed by disasters,and taking in young and middle-aged disaster sufferers in poverty,the most potential causes for social instability,to work,thus resolving social crises.In the early years of Emperor Guangxu,there appeared charity relief characterized by private donations and work relief.Even so,the court still struggled to maintain the practice of official disaster relief through various measures,such as increasing donation funds.To evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the donation system of the Qing Dynasty,it is suggested not to simply denounce the system as a hotbed of problems and disadvantages,but take social effects as the basic standard of evaluation.