“A Method of Evading Management”—Contract Labor in Chinese Coal Mines before 1937

Comparative Studies in Society and History

Volumn 23, Issue 4, 1981, Pages 656-678

  Wright, Tim ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84971916792     PISSN: 00104175     EISSN: 14752999     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0010417500013591     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. J. Chesneaux, “The Chinese Labour Force in the First Part of the Twentieth Century,” in The Economic Development of China and Japan, C. D. Cowan, ed. (London, 1964), 124–25.
2. In Britain, this was called the subcontract system (see A.J. Taylor, “The Sub-contract System in the British Coal Industry,” in Studies in the Industrial Revolution, L. S. Pressnell, ed. (London, 1960), 215–35), but the normal terminology in the literature on China is used here. The system is referred to as the gang-boss system in W. Brugger, Democracy and Organization in the Chinese Industrial Enterprise (1948–1953) (Cambridge, 1976), 42.
3. For some discussion of this, see Okabe Toshiyoshi, “Shina bōsekigyō ni okeru rōdō ukeoi seido,‟ Tōa keizai ronsō, 1:1 (February 1941), 220–21.
4. J. Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement, H. M. Wright, trans. (Stanford, 1968), 57.
5. B. P. Torgashev, “Mining Labor in China,” Chinese Economic Journal, 6:5 (May 1930), 533.
6. Leonard G. Ting, “The Coal Industry in China,” Nankai Social and Economic Quarterly, 10:2 (July 1937), 243.
7. Jiu Zhongguo de zibenzhuyi shengchan guanxi bianxiezu, Jiu Zhongguo de zibenzhuyi shengchan guanxi (Beijing, 1977), 180. This work also stresses the preexistence of a feudal Chinese institution which was readily available for use by foreign capital.
8. Lowe Chuan-hwa, Facing Labour Issues in China (London, 1934), 20; Tokyo shōkō kaigisho, Chōsabu, ed. Shina keizai nempō (Tokyo, 1936), 544; Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, 60.
9. M. Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past (Stanford, 1973), 281.
10. Furubayashi Horihiro, “Sōdai no kōshō to sono soshiki, “Tōhōgaku, 33 (January 1967), 35–36.
11. Jiu Zhongguo, 189.
12. See Yokoyama Suguru, “Shindai ni okeru hōtōsei no tenkai,” Shigaku zasshi; 71:1,2 (1962), and TeradaTakanobu, “Soshū tempugyō no keiei keitai,” Bungakubu kenkyū nempō, 18 (1968), 121–72. The system originated in the rapid expansion of the industry in the late Ming, necessitating a scale of operation by the wholesale merchants which was beyond their capacity for direct management. Even in the Qing, the contractor, who had at first been a mere intermediary, did not directly hire his artisans; rather, they in turn worked on contract. This was similar to the sweating system in the nineteenth-century British and American tailoring industries. A major difference between the operation of the system in premodern Suzhou and in twentieth-century Shanghai was that in the former case the contractor’s monopoly was enforced by law, but in Shanghai it was merely a matter of practice.
13. E-tu Zen Sun, “Mining Labor in the Ch’ing Period,” in Approaches to Modern Chinese History, A. Feuerwerker, ed. (Berkeley, 1967), 59ō61. Memorial by Lin Zexu in Xu Yunnan tongzhi gao, Wang Wenshao, ed. (Yuechixian, Sichuan, 1900) 43:7.
14. Imahori Seiji, “Hatōsei,” in Ajia rekishi jiten, Kaizuka Shigeki et al., eds., 10 vols. (Tokyo, 1962), VII, 393.
15. For the baojia system, see Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle, 1960), ch. 3.
16. The same situation was found in India (see D. H. Buchanan, The Development of Capitalist Enterprise in India (New York, 1934), 270) and in Staffordshire (see “Report on the Charter Master System,” British Parliamentary Papers, Reports, 1907, XIV, 404).
17. South Manchurian Railway Company (hereafter SMR), Shomubu chōsaka, Kairan tankō chōsa shiryō (Dairen, 1929), 107; Kuangye zhoubao (hereafter KYZB), 180 (28 February 1932), 177–78. This was the case not only at Kailuan; for Jingxing, see KYZB, 152 (28 July 1931), 891-94; for Liujiang, see KYZB, 143 (21 May 1931), 747–49.
18. SMR, Rōmuka, Minami Manshū kōzan rōdōō (Dairen, 1931), 33–34; Torgashev, “Mining Labor,” 539; “Labour Management at the Fushun Coal Mines,” Contemporary Manchuria, 2:5 (September 1938), 41–44.
19. Taylor, “Sub-contract System,” passim; S. Pollard, The Genesis of Modern Management (London, 1965), 38–43, from which book the phrase “a method of evading management” used in the title of this paper was taken. Imahori, “Hatōsei,” 393; Nihon keizaishi kenkyujo Ninon keizaishi jiten, 2 vols, and index (Tokyo, 1940),II, 1357; Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India (H.M.S.O., 1931) (hereafter Report), 119; V. Thompson, Labor Problems in Southeast Asia (New York, 1947), 201–202. For Russian mines, see J. P. McKay, Pioneers for Profit: Foreign Entrepreneurship and Russian Industrialization, 1885–1913 (Chicago, 1970), 254, 260.
20. W. L. Blackwell, The Beginnings of Russian Industrialization, 1800–1860 (Princeton, 1968), 299; R. M. A. van Zwanenberg, Colonial Capitalism and Labour in Kenya, 1919–1939 (Kampala, 1975), ch. 6.
21. Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, 57. Murakushi Nisaburō Ninon tankō chin rōdō shi-ron (Tokyo, 1976), 87–88, 222; In Report, 116, the Royal Commission noted: “Most collieries recruit through a contractor. Some make a special contract for the supply of labour, which is then employed and paid by the mine management; but the more usual method is to employ a raising contractor to whom are assigned other important functions.” For the sardars, see International Labour Office, Industrial Labour in India (Geneva, 1938), 156. For the Chinese cotton industry, see Okabe Toshiyoshi, “Shina bōseki rōdō ukeoi seido no hattatsu,” Tōa keizai ronsō 1:3 (September 1941), 227–28.
22. For Jingxing, see Gu Lang, Zhongguo shi da kuangchang diaochaji (Shanghai, 1916), sec. 6, p. 20.
23. Imahori, “Hatōsei,” 393; Shina keizai nempō, 543. A detailed study of the Longyan iron mine in the late 1930s and early 1940s also provides evidence of close personal links between the contractor and his workers, and cities recruitment as one of the central tasks of the contractor. See Nakamura Takatoshi, Haō seido no kenkyū (Tokyo, 1944), 22. See also Okabe, “Shina bōseki rōdo ukeoi seido no hattatsu,” 233–34.
24. Sakamori Bumpei, “Hoku-Shi tankōgyō ni okeru rōdō soshiki,” Mantetsu chōsa geppō 22:7 (July 1942), 60–61; SMR, Hoku-Shi keizai chōsajo, Chūkō tankō rōdō gaiyō chōsa hōkoku (Beijing, 1941), 31–32. Both these references are to 1941, but there seems no reason to expect this to invalidate the findings. The Japanese found that after 1937 the contractors were unable to secure sufficient labor for the needs of Zhongxing.
25. SMR, Minami Manshū tetsudō kabushiki kaisha dainiji jūmnshi (Dairen, 1928), 702. In 1917 1918, although output rose, the shortage of labor meant that production still fell short of demand and that therefore export sales dropped sharply.
26. Torgashev, “Mining Labor,” 539.
27. This point is strongly made in Pollard, Genesis of Modern Management, 39.
28. Murakushi, Nihon tankō, 236, 317–19. Ashton and Sykes suggest, however, that in eighteenth-century England longwall was more conducive to the use of the butty than was stall-and-pillar (see Taylor, “Sub-contract System,” 220, and T. S. Ashton and J. Sykes, The Coal Industry of the Eighteenth Century, 2d ed. (Manchester, 1964), 111–12), though Griffin disputes this (see A. R. Griffin, The British Coalmining Industry, Retrospect and Prospect (Buxton, England, 1977), 111). Even if Ashton and Sykes are correct, the two interpretations are not necessarily contradictory, for at that time the general scale of production was smaller, favoring an individual contract in the stall-and-pillar and the butty in longwall.
29. Tezuka Masao, “Shina tankō no dohō keitai,” Tōa kenkyū shohō 20 (February 1943), 165; idem, Shina jūkōgyō hattatsushi (Kyoto, 1944), 274–75.
30. KYZB, 142 (14 May 1931), 724.
31. Shina keizai nempō, 544.
32. Marakushi, Nihon tankō 27–31, 205–10.
33. Sakamori, “Hoku-Shi tankōgyō,” 40–41, 45–46.
34. Quan Hansheng, Hanyeping gongsi shilue (Hongkong, 1972), 239–41; A. Feuerwerker, Economic Trends in the Republic of China, 1912–1949 (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1977), 38; R. B. Sutcliffe, Industry and Underdevelopment (London, 1971), 129–30.
35. Hou Defeng, Disanci Zhongguo kuangye jiyao (Beijing, 1929), 260; Murakushi, Nihon tankō, 235–39. In Fushun, Japanese staff played this role, and when their number and quality declined after 1937, the strength of the contract system revived. See Nakamura, Hatō seido, 11–12.
36. Nathan to Young, 15 July 1929; Nathan to Turner, 18 April 1932, Nathan Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford University. In the second of these letters, Nathan expresses his dissatisfaction with his Chinese staff: “The conclusions I came to were that a desperate and progressively losing fight was being waged by our foreign senior staff to retain that technical efficiency which has in the past been such a conspicuous feature of our operations, and which the very fine equipment we possess makes possible. In this struggle the Chinese senior staff are playing an almost negligible part.” The management at Kailuan did, however, start a foreman training school, graduates of which played an important role in changing the contract system. See Nakamura, Hatō seido, 11.
37. For a general interpretation along these lines, citing evidence from China, Egypt, India, and Vietnam, see W. E. Moore, Industrialization and Labor (New York, 1951), 129–31.
38. In some cases the same man filled both posts (see Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, 60, 453).
39. Report, 120.
40. Zheng Wanyan, Minguo shijiunian Shandong kuangye baogao (Jinan, 1931), 151–52. The need for native intermediaries was stressed in the case of Fushun: “Since the Japanese find little in common with the racial habits, customs and language of the coolies, patou [batou] are placed over the labourers, who act as liaison agents between the management and working force by relaying orders and instructions and keep strict vigilance over morals and discipline.” “Labour Management at Fushun,” 40.
41. C. W. Kinder, “Railways and Collieries of North China,” Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 103 (1890–1), 285; Sun Yutang, Zhongguo jindai gongyeshi ziliao, diyiji, 1840–1895 nian (Beijing, 1957), 1245. Contract labor was also used in the Mohe Gold Mine before 1895 (see He Hanwei, “Qingji de Mohe jinkuang,” Xianggang Zhongwen daxue Zhongguo wenhua yanjiusuo xuebao, 8:1 (December 1976), 240–41). See also Okabe’s criticism of Lowe’s attribution of the origins of contract labor to the needs of foreign textile factories in “Shina bōseki rōdō ukeoi seido no hattatsu,” 224.
42. Chūkō tankō rōdō gaiyō 31; Sakamori, “Hoku-Shi tankōgyō,” 45–46.
43. Report, Evidence, vol. 4, pt. 2, p. 242; Nihon keizaishi kenkyūjo, Nihon keizaishi jiten, II, 1357. See also Sumiya Mikio, Nihon chin rōdō no shiteki kenkyū (Tokyo, 1976), 92–93.
44. Jiu Zhongguo, 200–202. Although receiving considerable publicity, this aspect does not seem to have been central to the operation of the system, especially in the larger, more modern mines. For some examples of extraeconomic means of control, see Liu Dunkui and Mei Zhen “Zhongguo zaoqi meikuang zibenjia dui gongren de canku boxue,” Xin jianshe, 1965:6 (June 1965), 66–69.
45. KYZB, 143(21 May 1931), 747. At Kailuan, the contractors were responsible for all timbering, haulage, and ventilation within the specified area (see Kairan tankō chōsa shiryō 106). The situation was similar at Zhengfeng (see Sakamori, “Hoku-Shi tankōgyō,” 48–49). The butties performed the same function in Britain (see Griffin, British Coalmining Industry, 57).
46. See T. Wright, “Shandong Mines in the Modern Chinese Coal Industry up to 1937” (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1976), 55, 85–87, 415–17.
47. Sakamori, “Hoku-Shi tankōgyō,” 53–55.
48. The manager of the Jingxing mine explicitly mentioned this factor as one of the chief reasons for the continued use of the contract system in his mine in the 1930s (see Gongshang banyuekan, 3:14 (15 July 1931), 145–46). The need to adjust to the changing demand for labor was also one of the factors behind the emergence of the contract system in the docks in the nineteenth century (see Jiu Zhongguo, 189).
49. Zheng, Minguo shijiunian Shandong kuangye baogao, 247; Zhang Huiruo, Diwuci Shandong kuangye baogao (Jinan, 1936), 118–20. Not all sources agree on the exact figures for ligong and waigong, but the general picture remains the same. Other similar examples can be quoted, for instance from Jingxing (KYZB, 311 (7 April 1936), 1141) and Jiawang (KYZB, 99 (21 June 1930), 43).
50. Jiu Zhongguo, 207; Taylor, “Sub-contract System,” 228-30; Pollard, Genesis of Modern Management, 38. The Royal Commission was told: “In most cases it [contracting] results in economy of working.” Report, Evidence, vol. 5, pt. 1, 179.
51. Kairan tankō chōsa shiryō, 99.
52. Quoted in Taylor, “Sub-contract System,” 218.
53. Hou, Disanci Zhongguo kuangye jiyao, 260; KYZB, 36 (28 February 1929), 586–87; KYZB, 84 (28 February 1930), 562.
54. For England, see Taylor, “Sub-contract System,” 231, and Pollard, Genesis of Modern Management, 42. For India, see Buchanan, Development of Capitalist Enterprise, 271. A manufactory is a site where many workers are gathered together in one unit, but where no mechanical power is used.
55. Murakushi, Nihon tankō, 108; Sumiya, Ninon chin rōdō 106.
56. “The Ryuho Coal Mine,” Contemporary Manchuria, 1:4 (November 1937), 64.
57. KYZB, 22 (14 November 1928), 357.
58. S. Panandikar, Industrial Labour in India (Bombay, 1933), 96. It is also interesting that Sumiya attributes the fact that contracting out the extraction of coal disappeared more rapidly in Japan than in England to the circumstance that, whereas in England the mine operators generally leased the mineral lands, in Japan they owned them and thus had a greater interest in their long-term conservation. See Nihon chin rōdō, 101.
59. “Report on Charter Master System,” 404. Another report said that the system was conducive to the “working of the pits in an unskilful way, and to the neglect of discipline and measures of safety.” See also Pollard, Genesis of Modern Management, 38.
60. For the Changçheng mine (in northeast Hebei), see KYZB, 22 ( 14 November 1928), 358; for Liujiang, see KYZB, 143 (21 May 1931), 748.
61. Lowe, Facing Labour Issues, 22. See also Gongshang banyuekan, 3:14 (15 July 1931), 145–46.
62. The exigencies of seasonality were such that if the contractors wished to keep up output they sometimes had to raise wages in order to attract labor from the alternative agricultural employment in the busy season; this happened in 1931 at Jiawang where, however, the contractors found it rather more difficult to enforce a cut once the temporary shortage had passed. See KYZB, 163 (21 October 1931), 1057.
63. Nathan to Turner, 8 May 1932, Nathan Papers.
64. Panandikar, Industrial Labour, 96; KYZB, 331 (21 April 1935), 291; Nathan to Turner, 6 March 1935, Nathan Papers.
65. Lynda Shaffer Womack, “Anyuan: The Cradle of the Chinese Workers’ Revolutionary Movement, 1921–1922,” in Columbia Essays in International Affairs (New York, 1970), V, 176, 178; Hoover to Detring, 4 August 1899, Nathan Papers. For the Secret Societies, see J. Chesneaux, Secret Societies in China in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, G. Nettle, trans. (Hong Kong, 1971).
66. Womack, “Anyuan,” 188–89, citing Hongqi piaopiao, 12 (May 1959), 158–59.
67. Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong yundong jianshi, 1919–1926 (Beijing, 1953), 78–84; Beijing shifan daxue, lishixi, sannianji, yanjiuban, Mentougou meikuang shigao (Beijing, 1958), 33–37.
68. KYZB, 137 (7 April 1931), 647; KYZB, 140 (28 April 1931), 693; KYZB, 143 (21 May 1931), 747; KYZB, 273 (7 February 1934), 514.
69. Ma Chaojun, chief ed., Zhongguo laogong yundong shi, 5 vols. (Taibei, 1959), I, 232; III, 1104, 1127. Ershiernian Zhongguo laodong nianjian, sec. 2, p. 134. Yishibao, 19 May 1931, reprinted in Gendai Shina no kiroku (Beijing, 1924–1932), Hatano Ken’ichi, ed. (May 1931), 279–84.
70. For a 1929 government report, see Nongkuang gongbao, 14 (July 1929), 6–9; also KYZB, 181 (7 March 1932), 196; KYZB, 273 (7 February 1934), 514; KYZB, 275 (21 February 1934), 545–47; KYZB, 309 (7 November 1934), 1090; KYZB, 315 (21 December 1934), 33–34. The 1934 and 1935 strikes took place at the company’s Majiagou colliery.
71. KYZB, 63 (21 September 1929), 227; KYZB, 84 (28 February 1930), 562; KYZB, 129 (7 February 1931), 526; Hou, Disanci Zhongguo kuangye jiyao, 17.
72. KYZB, 143 (21 May 1931), 746–47.
73. Minami Manshū kōzan rōdōjijCō, 33–34. “Labour Management at Fushun,” 40, attributes the change to abuses inherent in the old system.
74. Murakushi, Nihon tankō, 60–63.
75. KYZB, 171 (21 December 1931), 40; KYZB, 297 (7 August 1934), 906; KYZB, 358 (14 November 1935), 734; Zhang, Diwuci Shandong kuangye baogao, 194.
76. Minami Manshū kōzan rōdōjijō, 41; Torgashev, “Mining Labor,” 539–40; KYZB, 329 (7 April 1935), 257; Pryor to Turner, 4 April 1935, Nathan Papers.
77. Ting, “Coal Industry,” 249. Ting cites the Sino-British mine at Mentougou as an example, but Mentougou meikuang shigao does not mention the abolition of the system there.
78. Nathan to Turner, 4 February 1932, 14 January 1933, Nathan Papers. Chūkō tankō rōdō gaiyō, 41–42.
79. Brugger, Democracy and Organization, 90–95.
80. Apart from its use in the coal industries mentioned above, contracting was described as practically ubiquitous in British industries in the nineteenth century (D. J. Schloss, Methods of Industrial Remuneration, 3d ed. (London, 1907), 202). It was found in many American industries in the early part of that century (J. R. Commons el al., eds., History of Labour in the United States, 2 vols. (New York, 1926), I, 103, 309–10, 339ff.), and the Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway was built using it (Blackwell, Beginnings of Russian Industrialization, 297–302). In this century it was found in many underdeveloped areas in Africa as well as in East Asia (see Moore, Industrialization and Labor, 126–30, 142–44). For Japan, see J. Hirschmeier and Tsunehiko Yui, The Development of Japanese Business, 1600–1973 (London, 1975), 119–20, 192.