摘要
中國歷代政府以賭博傷風敗俗，視之為罪惡淵藪，厲行禁絕。長期以來滿清政權沿襲前代的賭禁政策，儘管收效有限。十九世紀六十年代以降，隨著歷史現實的改變，清政府逐步重估其賭禁政策。本文所擬討論者，厥為十九世紀後半以降廣東賭博的盛衰消長、政策演變和賭博稅在省財政中的地位，目的在透過對於賭博之或弛或禁以及賭稅之開徵，一面說明清末廣東賭風彌漫和地方財政困窘，一面揭示當日中央與地方之間和官紳之間的互動關係。全文以人民日常生活的賭博為中心，冀能藉此具體而微的反映時代的政治社會特色。
本文選取廣東作為研究對象，實基於如下考慮。就財政重要性而言，賭博稅為廣東省財政結構中一項不可或缺之財源。無論從絕對數目和相對比重來說，賭博稅在廣東所佔的地位，實非他省同類稅入所能望其項背。賭博一方面給廣東帶來可觀的收入，另一方面，也引發出很多社會問題。隨著清季立憲運動的興起，廣東諮議局對省內賭博風行的現象展開正面攻擊。廣東當局發現一旦道德原則戰勝財政考慮時，省庫從此失去一項重要財源，行政機器的運作因而大受妨礙。清末廣東賭博或弛或禁的過程，也許有助於我們更深入地體會賭博與地方行政的利害關係，以及官員施政時，取捨之間所能掌握的程度。
Throughout Chinese history, governments, considering gambling injurious to mores and a hotbed of crime, have rigorously prohibited it. For a long time the Manchu-Ch'ing regime followed the precedents of earlier periods in their policy of banning gambling, despite the ban's limited efficacy. From the 1860s the Ch'ing government, in accord with changes in the historical situation, gradually reevaluated its policy of banning gambling. This paper discusses the waxing and waning of gambling, policy changes, and the place of the gambling tax in provincial fiscal administration in Kwangtung from the latter half of the nineteenth century. By penetrating the reasons behind the relaxation and tightening of controls on gambling and the commencement of its taxation, this paper aims, on the one hand, to explain the prevalence of gambling and the difficulties of local fiscal administration in Kwangtung in the late Ch'ing and, on the other hand, to expose the reciprocal relationships between the center and regions, and among officials and gentry. The entire paper focuses on gambling in people's daily lives, looking at it in the context of the particular characteristics of the responses of the government and society delimited by this period.
This paper takes Kwangtung as the object of research for the following reasons. Given the importance of fiscal administration, the gambling tax, as an element in the structure of Kwangtung fiscal administration, was a source of funds not to be ignored. Whether or not you look at it in terms of its absolute figures and relative proportion of revenues, the gambling tax held a position in the structure of Kwangtung provincial fiscal administration with which similar categories of tax in other provinces could not compare. Gambling, on the one hand, gave Kwangtung a considerable income. On the other hand, it created numerous social problems. With the establishment of the constitutional movement at the end of the Ch'ing, the Kwangtung Provincial Assembly launched a frontal assault on the popularity of gambling in the province. The Kwangtung Provincial Assembly discovered, once they considered the fiscal consequences of their moral victory, the loss of an important source of revenue to the provincial treasury, and the hindrance of the operation of government administration. Learning more about the relaxing and tightening of controls on gambling in Kwangtung at the end of the Ch'ing may help us to understand more deeply the benefits and harms of gambling to local governance and, whether gambling is accepted or rejected, the extent to which it can be controlled under bureaucratic administration.