The Study On Salaries Of Civilian Politicians In Late Qing Dynasty

As an important part of the political system, the officials’ salary system inancient China stipulated both socio-economic benefits the officials can enjoy andrelevant social and economic penalties.During the70-year rule of the Late QingDynasty, the officials’salary system had experienced complicated changes. On thewhole, the traditional salary system,though still dominant,were approaching theend constantly.From the year1840to the year1900, the government had beenfailing to pay the officials’ salary as stipulated.On the one hand, due to the heavycost of war and reperations, the traditional salary payment was greatlyaffected--specifically, was cut down,which condemned the life and work of theoffials to financial constraint. On the other hand, the payment of new officials’salary had disregarded the traditional payment system which consisted of annualsalary, pension and meltage fees. Thereinto, the salary and social benefits ofcustoms officials and diplomats had begun to be paid according to the westernsalary system.However, it is unfortunate that the government was so dumb aboutthe corruption of the traditional salary system that they failed to perform asystematic reform on the civil service salary system.After the Gengzi Incident in1901,the Qing government were determined to revivify the country and improvetheir governance and thus the reform of the officials’ salary system had become animportant task. The spirit of the reform was to become modernized, whichreflected a trace of the traditional salary system turning into the salary payment ofmodern civil officials. Judging from the preeminence and the progress achieved inthe reform, it seemed to be a top-down reform led by the Qing government,however in fact, the government had lost control of local governments and the reform was implemented respectively by local governors and various centraldepartments. Therefore, owing to the more and more serious legitimacy crisis ofthe regime became as well as the worsening governence, the New Deal in the LateQing Dynasty ended up in failure along with the salary reform.