英文摘要 |
The way the Japanese colonial government dealt with important and afflent local temples like Xinzhu’s Yimin Temple provides a means through which to understand the impact of colonial rule on the local societies’ long-existing social relations and autonomous operation of local affairs. Through the analysis of several newspaper reports, the author investigates the transformation of the history of Yimin Temple’s property management, which contributed to its large-scale sacrifiial village alliance and huge fortune from the 1860s to the 1910s. The author fids that the appeal to call for public management among the allied villages towards Yimin Temple’s properties and rents, regulations on local temples, and the fical need to start public constructions led to the institutionalisation of Yimin Temple’s management in the 1910s. A Consultative Assembly was thereby established in 1914 to be responsible for the deliberation of the temple’s policy and management. Besides being responsible for the personnel selection of the assemblymen, the Consultative Assembly also ensured that the appropriation of propertiesand rents be decided by all assemblymen, fical supervision and budget system be inducted, and the surplus of each year’s accounts for Yimin Temple be transferred to the revenue of next year, all of which were put under the supervision of the local government. In comparison with the power structure of Yimin Temple’s management in the Qing period, the transformation to institutionalisation in the 1910s shows continuity with the Qing. However, through regulations, presence at the assembly meetings, and collaboration between local leaders and the government, the role of the colonial government did gain weight in interfering with the state-and-society relations of the Qing. Most significantly, through the process, constructions for “public good” became an important budgetary item for Yimin Temple. In other words, the government utilised the trend to facilitate the use of local resources in building local public facilities, especially primary schools.. |