Lottery The Late Qing Dynasty

Based on the cultural background of traditional principal of 'JustPrior to Profit', and the historical context of profound changes ofprohibition from gamble in modern history, this dissertation studies thelottery in late Qing dynasty in the course from importation toimplantation, to localized commercial lottery and governmentallottery, till the running wild of lottery, and eventually being banned.Modern Chinese lottery began with the importation of the Luzonlottery, a lottery issued by the Philippine government to raise money forgood, and imported to China about at the beginning of the 1870s.TheLuzon lottery was first forbidden by the Qing government as something'near to gambling', but after a period of having sold in China, itgained the approval of the society and public opinion,as its usage of 'ofgood purposes 'was deemed as in harmony with traditional Chineseculture of benevolence.The Luzon lottery enlightened the charitablepeople in the late Qing dynasty with the way of subsidizing public good,and gave them an example of issuing charitable lottery, a methodexceeding traditional money raising.The other lottery of every descriptions, rising along with the Luzonlottery, aiming at profit, were not approved by the moral and the law, andwere prohibited by the government home and abroad. In sharp contrastto banning the lottery bending on profit, the charitable lottery issued bythe charitable organizations by the example of the Luzon lottery was notintervened by the government, but enthusiastically bought by the people,and supported by the public opinion.With the ever emergence of different charitable lottery, the issuing strategy, the way of open the lottery, and therule of cashing bonus and other aspects were gradually become the sameas the Luzon lottery, and thus the lottery in the late Qing dynastycompleted the process of localization in the name of 'helping relievingthe people in stricken areas'. This process began in the end of the 1870s,ended in the beginning of the 1890s.In 1898, influenced by the US-Spanish war, the Luzon lottery exitedfrom Chinese market. In the name of relieving the people suffering aflood in Xuhuai areas, Liu Kunyi, the Liangjiang governor, memorializedan emperor please of issuing 'South Yangtze River charitable lottery',undertaken by businessmen, and thus set the first example of localcommercial lottery.Seeing that the lottery had been officially approved,many foreign lottery corporations demanded the Chinese governmentallow them to establish branches in the Shanghai concession.At the sametime, in order to enter the Shanghai lottery market, the North ChinaShunzhi charitable lottery initiated a competition between North andSouth. The lottery in this period has two features: first, as the reason forthe establishing of lottery was for charity, the foreign commerciallottery corporations, lacking of this pretense, were soon banned; second,under the influence of traditional notion of 'official rank considered to bethe sole criterion of worth', commercial lottery was at the mercy of thelocal government.After the Gengzi War, in order to pay the colossal cash indemnity,the emperor please by the Huguang governor Zhang Zhidong forestablishing Hubei Lottery was approved by the court, thus advocated thebeginning of modern Chinese official lottery. The issue mechanism ofadministrated by the government and promoted by the corporationbrought great success to the Hubei Lottery.With the establishment ofSichuan Lottery General Corporation, located in the inner mainland China,and its comparatively perfect regulations and institutions, the late Qingdynasty lottery had become mature in issue mechanism and institutions.The features of lottery in this period are, first, the pretensefor establishing lottery changed from charity to cash indemnity andinnovation, thus in the procession with the social development in the lateQing dynasty; second, the subject of lottery change from corporationswith special permission to civil government, indicating the change ofthe attitude of the government from forbidding and banning to acceptingand competing for profit, which revealing the deep rule of 'financewinning over morality'.Afterwards, from all over China, industry lottery, bankruptcy lottery,and lottery of every descriptions were established and this lead to manyabuses. Lottery was demanded to be banned by the public opinions. Theinnovation of custom under the name of New Policy brought the lotterybanning to agenda. And in the movement of forbidding gamble in Gantong,lottery was banned, and thus open the prelude of lottery banning in thelate Qing dynasty.In November, 1909, the Jiangxi provincial parliament offer a Bill ofBanning Lottery Once for All, which was supported by the LingjiangGovernor and was carried out within his power.Latter, the provincial parliament of Zhejiang, Hunan, Henan proposedto ban the lottery. To response the opinion, ministers in the court alsomemorialized emperor pleases to ban the lottery. In 1911, was promulgated, in which the chapter ofCrimes About Gamble And Lottery first regulated that lottery wasforbidden by law in the form of law. By this time, the lottery in the lateQing dynasty formerly ended its first developing period in China.