韓國地方財政의 變遷과 그 時代的 特徵, 1910~1940

Trends in Financing Korean Local Governments and Their Features, 1910~1940

Korean local finance system was not born out of the natural growth of local governments, it is established with the various levels of local governments in Japanese colonial days, and consequently the system itself had undemocratic and bureaucratic elements from its origin. As the establishment of various levels of local government attributed to two considerations such as lessening the central burdens and intensifying the authoritative power of the colonial government, the formation of local finance system denoted nothing but providing local governments the necessary means to carry out the above mentioned purposes. Accordingly, local finance played a significant role in attaining such purposes, but contributed less to the growth of local governments. I. Establishment of Local Governments and Its Special Features It was about 1910's when the foundation of various units of local governments was set up. The provincial governments were established in 1909, though their status of incorporation were not allowed. In 1914 the first incorporated city governments appeared in our history. And in 1917 the rural governments (myun) were formed. Finally the school districts for Korean education were set up in 1920. In the earlier days it was common to each level of local governments that local autonomy was denied. Except city governments the other units of local governments were not incorporated. Furthermore, they did not have any machinery through which local opinion was represented. Namely, they lacked local assemblies. Such an undemocratic system was not improved until 1930, when the local assembly of each unit of local government was set up for the first time. But even the reform of 1930 could not assure· the right of local people to participate in the local administraion. The new system not only restricted the right of voting by economic status, but also appointed one half of the provincial assemblymen, and the others were elected indirectly. At the same time the governor-general held the right to disband each unit of local assembly. The provincial governor had the right to suspend the session of city assembly, and the county commissioner kept the same right over the rural assembly. In the field of local finance almost the same official intervention was made. The supervising authorities could change the contents of local budgets without any consent of local governments. Bedides, the imposition of local taxes, issue of local debt and other important financial matters such as property disposals must be approved by the higher authorities. In short, such bureaucratic feature of local governments was nothing but a manifestation of colonial officials' intention of making local governments subject to central control. II. The Growth and Changes in Local Expenditures Despite the denial of local autonomy, the expenditures of local governments increased faster than that of the central government between 1910 and 1940. For better comparison, if we take the period from 1914, when city governments were formed, to 1940, it is shown that the expenditures of local governments rose approximately 63 times, but that of the central government 30 times over the years. Particularly, a tremendous rise in the local expenditures was phenomenal after 1937, when the Chino-Japanese War broke out. The increase of local expenditures was attributed primarily to two considerations. First, expansion of local government activities naturally resulted in the increase of local expenditures. Althought it was phenomenal before 1937, each level of local government gradually took over the governmental activities such as construction of local roads and bridges, local sanitation and health services, local education services and so on, which basically belonged to local responsibility. Second, rise in defence burdens after 1937 not only affected the amount of the central government expenditures, but also gave rise to rapid increase of the local expenditures. S