清代礦廠工人

＂Mining labor＂ in the present paper refers primarily to miners, with other types of mine-site workers occasionally included. Lack of sufficient data has made it difficult to state precisely the figures for the mining labor at any time of the Ch'ing period. However, since there were numerous productive mines of various sizes in all the provinces of China, the total number of mine workers may be assumed to be significant. At each mine their number varied from a dozen or fewer persons at the smallest establishments to thousands or over ten thousand at the largest mines. The legal status of the mine workers, however, was not well defined. In the overall economic and social scene, mining and the labor associated with it were expected by the traditional bureaucracy to be supplementary to the agrarian economy, and to help to maintain, not to jeopardize, the social order. There were two main types of mining labor. (1) Those who were basically farmers but engaged in mining during the slack season to earn additional income. Government officials approved of this sort of mining activity and often encouraged it. (2) The professional miners who had severed their ties with agricultural production, and traveled to different provinces seeking employment. They may be further divided into two groups: one was the plain wage earner and the other consisted of persons who participated in the original prospecting and operating of the mines on a share basis, working in groups under leaders who were also the chief investors. Wages differed according to time and place. They were scheduled in terms of cash coins and were expected to be paid regularly, either by the month or by the day. The rates were generally low. Instances of short payments and other irregularities such as the ＂company store＂, as well as of maltreatment of mine workers are known to have occurred. One of the most notorious cases of mining labor abuse was that of the ＂water frogs＂ of Hunan investigated by the Ch'ing government in 1881-83, where the poor people of Lei-yang District were tricked and forced into entering the coal mines to serve as water pumpers. Working conditions, as in pre-modern mines all over the world, were poor and often dangerous, the most common dangers being flooding, fire, and bad ventilation, and collapsing of the mine tunnel or chamber. All types of mine workers were controlled through a system of worker's organizations based on the foreman concept, which then dovetailed with the local government's administrative machinery for population control. Such control was deemed essential by the authorities, who greatly feared the large numbers of professional mine workers as a possible source of popular unrest. As a segment of the total population, the mine workers - for nearly the entire Ch'ing period - were continuously placed at an economic and legal disadvantage under the government's policy of according priority to the maintenance of the traditional agrarian-based social and political order.

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清代礦廠工人

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