The Study On The Law Of Non-governmental Debit And Credit In Early Qing

In early Qing, non-governmental debit and credit had been more active, to be closely linked with social reproduction, circulation of commodities and living standards of urban and rural residents, and even influenced stability of social order. That's forced the state continual regulating non-governmental debit and credit in legislation in order to defend the stability of feudal order.The trading principal part of non-governmental debit and credit has contained lenders, borrowers and mediators. The restrictions in law for lenders were such as prohibiting officers lending in where he worked, prohibiting inlanders practising usury for minority people, and prohibiting dunning for debts with violence, prohibiting borrowers nonpayment of dept and mortgaging illegal articles, prohibiting mediators guarantying for practising usury, capital debt and army debt. Pawn was important mainstay of debit and credit, so the law made explicitly regulation on the business licenses, taxes, pawn deadline and so on.Interest played a vital role in debit and credit. The levels of interest rate not only related the capability of credit and repay the loan, but also closely related with the product, life and even the survival of people's life. Therefore, the control of interest rates on private loans and norms is the focus of legal concern in early Qing Dynasty. Generally private lending and pawn were two main streams in non-governmental debit and credit and took the interests of not more than three percent of the statutory criteria under the law. And the law also required the setting of interest rate, lending period, and cut interest to play a regulatory positively role. In addition, in the rural area, the form of debit and credit by corns also highlighted the advantages; the government often advocated this form actively as a policy.The operation of pawn made mistakes unavoidably, such as the pawnshop plundered, stolen and burned. So how to make compensation for pawn broking, and which often been to disputes and concerned by law. Then the compensation was different from the mistaking circumstances and causes, the types, amounts and pawn time of bracken articles by law. When the similar case happened, the law supervised the effective measure which the governor had made. Moreover, the government implemented actively protection policies on pawnshop currency application.Two types of credit immediately concerned the political and military of state—capital debt and army debt. Firstly, capital debt was usury for candidates and officers who would go to his post. Secondly, army debt was usury about soldiers, such as soldiers lend to common people, common people lend or pawn for soldiers, or military officer lend to common soldiers. Because of the vital important influence of capital debt and army debt, the law gave great attention on those.