The Effect Of Trade Development Of Hankou In Later Years Of Qing Dynasty

In terms of the development of the international trade during the early years of the 19^th and 20^th century,many economists did deep researches in the area.In the early 1930s,one of the famous western economists,Roberson put forward that foreign trade is the engine of economic growth..In his point of view,the rapid growth of foreign trade indicates the improvement of its country's ability to export,which is of benefit to the transmission of importing advanced technology and device as well as advanced management experience,and to the development of the industries in the country.However, Marx noted in his classical masterpiece that western bourgeoisie brought all the nationalities,even the most barbarous nationality into civilization and built itself a world according to its outlook,resulting in the fact that those countries and nationalities in the states of primitive or natural economy were involved in the exchange area of international goods and became the source of raw material and market for developed countries.In my opinion,these two conclusions both fit for Hankou in the early years of the 19^th and 20^th century.The article will approach elaborately the development of internal and external trade of Hankou during this period.People will get to know Hankou,together with China then,was forced to engage in the international economic system and became the source of raw material and market for western powers.Meanwhile,with the development of foreign trade and closer links with international markets,some industries in Hankou were more or less advanced.The society was facilitated to make progress and the modernization of Wuhan was started and driven.The essay will catch a brief look of Hankou's early history in the first chapter.Before 1861 without officially opening the commercial port,Hankou,located at the intersection of nine provinces, had long formed a large commercial net.With eight commercial lines connected with all the places in China,Hankou become a major link in the national commercial system and the center of collection and distribution of goods nationwide.Hankou had a prosperous commodity market then,owning several major booming commodity trade markets of many types,such as salt industry,grain,bamboo and wood.Others included textile product,mineral,medicine,mortgage,etc.However,as the center of the collection and distribution of goods,this town's commercial development drove the one of handcraft industry around it.A number of guilds and unions organized by businessmen sprung up.In the meanwhile,thanks to the larger number of businessmen from other cities,compared with the local businessmen,the local life and tradition were influenced to some degree.The development of culture, education,public interest and service industry was forwarded.Nevertheless,Hankou was still a feudal commercial town at that time.Its process of modernization hadn't been initiated.In the 1850s,the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement broke the peace and hustle in Hankou, leading to severe destruction to the economic development of Hankou and its surrounding areas. During the Second Opium War,Tianjin Treaty,sighed by China with England and France,made Hankou a commercial port.Until the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement,the middle and lower reaches of Changjiang River returned to its normal peace.In 1861,Hankou was officially opened as a commercial port,which opened Hankou's association with the world market.With the gradual recovery of its economy,the internal and external trade in Hankou underwent a great development.The second chapter elaborates on the trade in Hankou after it was opened as a commercial port. The main contents include the quantity and structure of goods,market structure of the trade and the change in national and foreign commercial channel.The quantity of trade increased by 40,000,000 liang yearly,totaling 150,000,000 liang around 1910 during the period between 1860s and early 1890s. As for the structure of goods,in the early stage of its opening as a commercial port,trademen only imported a few kinds of goods like cotton and flannel.By 1900,the import extended to cotton and flannel.,articles of daily use,mental products,production goods,luxuries,etc.The various kinds of goods reflected the change in the life and fashion of Hankou people and the development of many industries,such as production and transportation.In regarding ti export,the local product was replaced by products from light industry,or even by iron and steel products.Concerning market structure,nationally,it was expanded from ports along Changjiang River to major ports around the country.Internationally,the import and export shifted from centering on England,Russia to scattering dozens of countries and districts of the main continents.The whole market situation became more complex and tended to be multiple.The recovery of commercial channel in Hamkou's domestic trade strengthened Hankou's central position in domestic trade market.The coming of western powers and the appearance of Hankou's overseas trade channel transformed greatly the position and quality of Hankou's trade,that is,Hankou was becoming a trade metroplitan catering for the world rather than the original center of collection and distribution of domestic goods.The development of Hankou trade had its own features.Hankou was a entrepot trade port, through which a great many foreign goods were transferred to interior for sale and the interior agricultural and local products were transferred overseas.Among Hankou's foreign trade,indirect trade had always occupied a leading position.Through the related data analysed,we discover most of the time from 1865 to 1920,the volume of Hankou's indirect trade ranked second compared with Shanghai,Guangzhou,Tianjin and other ports and made up 25%to 30%in the whole country's volume of import,and export trade.While the volume of direct import and export trade was in the forth place in China most of the time,making up only a little percentage in the whole country's total volume of direct import and export.The volume of direct trade of foreign goods didn't pass a million until 1901 and the volume of direct trade of local goods didn't pass ten million until 1907.All the above facts and statistics fully represent the quality of Hankou trade.At the same time,in Hankou trade market,the main bodies and intermediaries of trade were diversified,such as foreign firms,foreign dealers,domestic trade caravans,yahangs(small brokerage firms),majiangs(small business agents )and so on.They acted on the market,linked with each other,depended on each other and competed with each other.Chapter 3 of the thesis has a detailed analysis for this.Chapter 4 emphatically probed into the reasons for the development of Hankou trade.The first was the incursion of outside force and the transformation of the Qing Imperial Court.Since the Opium War of 1840,the Qing Court was forced to sign a series of unequal treaties with western powers.The setting up of trading ports,the obtainment of western power's privileges such as the agreement on tariff,interior sailing rights for trading,setting up of concessions,unilateral most-favored-nation treatment and the consular jurisdiction made China door open.Interior markets were open to foreigners.China had been the best place for the western powers to dump goods,export capital and plunder raw materials,while every trading port's economy and trade developed to some extent stimulated by the external force.Because of the outflow of economic rights,reduction of tax revenue, finance income falling short of expenditure,in addition,a great deal of indenmity compelled the Qing Court to reform and carry out the so-called "New Policy" to encourage,protect and develop the industry and commerce,thus providing a fairly objective environment for the development of trading ports.Secondly,successive supervisors of Hubei and Hunan carried out policies to sympathize and facilitate the business.Especially in 1889,when Zhangzhidong supervised Hubei,Zhang carried a series of westernization Movement and new policies,prospering commercial affairs,encouraging technology,liaisonening market,imparting commercial knowledge,increasing the stratagem,opening the general mood,sympathizing commercial power and developing industry.They policies laid the fundamental guarantee politically for Hankou trade in the last years of Qing Dynasty and made Hankou an important commercial port in China quickly.Without doubt,we couldn't underestimate modern commercial organizations' effects on the development of Hankou trade.Some folk business organizations such as public institutes,guide halls and latter chambers of commerce had positive effects on standardizing the system of weights and measures,advocating credit commerce,mediating in disputes within profession and boycotting foreign dealers.,chambers of commerce also made contributions to the cultivation of commercial talent.The setting up of Hubei Commercial Affairs Bureau was one of Zhang's policies.Being a new management organization,the Bureau played an important role in keeping freight transport and market order,regulating delayed and unpaid payments, running commercial newspapers,opening wisdom and promoting the development of industry and commerce.In addition,the establishment and revolvement of Jiang han Juncture,good administration of customhouse statistics and cooperating with local government to unhold the trade order along Changjiang River all greatly promoted the prosperity of Hankou commerce.Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 mainly discuss the economic and social effects brought by the development of Hankou trade in the last years of Qing Dynasty.In regards of the economic effects, it first comes to the rise of modern industry in Hubei.Being attracted by large commercial profits, Russia,Britain and other countries in Wuhan,which was the germination of Hubei modern industry. Up to Zhangzhidong supervising Hubei,to prevent interest from flowing and gain more rights,he strongly initiated modern enterprises in Wuhan,which made Wuhan's modern industry develop faster. Meanwhile,being thrilled and attracted by foreign trade profits,modern national capitalists in Wuhan started to invest in civil industry,which made Wuhan's modern industry growed rapidly in the last years of 19^th century and early years of 20^th.Next was the development of national shipping industry. Due to the expension of external and internal trade,the amount of import and export goods increased greatly,which made goods transfer profitable.The foreign transport services intervened and made a big profit,which greatly striking Chinese ancient ship transportation.But old ship transportation survived by its own features and objective transportation requirements around Hankou,even ship transport and foreign transport supplied and completed each other.While Wuhan modern wheel transport didn't start until 1890.The third was the reform of Hankou modern finance industry. Old-style Chinese private banks and exchange shops were Chinese traditional finance industry,but being spurred by commerce growth,finance industry,oriented for serving trade.also transformed itself.The expension of business scope and the change in types of business affairs were the evidence for the modern reform of Chinese traditional finance industry.The arrival of foreign banks and their quick extension in the late 1890s greatly swept the old-style private banks and deepened the conflicts between them.At the same time,foreign funded banks gradually dominated Hankou market. Through national banks developed to some extent in the early years of 29^th century,it still can't compete with foreign banks in competence abd business affairs.In terms of social effects,growth of trade gave impetus to the rise of Hubei modern industry.Early industrial workers and national bourgeoisie came into being.Simultaneously,to cultivate business talent,the officals started schools and dispatched students to study and travel abroad,which produced a big batch of new style intellectual.All these made Wuhan's social structure qualitatively changed and foreshadowed the breaking out of the Revolution of 1911.At the same time,to meet the needs of trade development, constant expansion of Hankou city proper,construction of new-style wharves and warehouses, development of modern post and telephone industries,the consummation of transportation,water and electricity project,the establishment of urban public drill system and the change of city's appearance all made Wuhan gradually move to modernization.Meanwhile,general mood increasing open, national ideology awakened and new social ideological trend came out such as merchantilism.In a word,trade is the engine of economy and the motive force of modernization.It brings development of related industries,starts the process of Wuhan's modernization,awakens people's national ideology,promotes the reform of general mood and finally accumulates knetic energy for society reform.