The Problem of Peking
(since China's declaration of war against Germany and Austria) will afford an opportunity in the near future for a wholesale review of the financial problem, this view of reform—namely, one policy under one roof—must be vindicated.
For depending directly on revenue-control and currency is the whole question of the credit of the Chinese people, which is to-day in as sorry a position as all the rest. China has virtually accepted as her money standard the silver dollar of the same weight and fineness as the Mexican dollar and the people are becoming accustomed to it. About 200 million of these units have been actually coined by the Chinese mints, not to speak of the hundreds of millions imported in the past from Mexico, and melted in part into sycee. But this currency is officially still only a shopping currency; the money of account is still the tael, which pass from one emporium to another and finally into the creditor-banks in standardized lumps of bullion which vary according to locality. And as the silver dollars are often melted down as fast as they are coined, and as the importation of the white metal has been restricted for several years, we have the crowning anomaly to-day of the chief state bank—the Bank of China—unable to-day to meet its note issue in the capital
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