CURRENCY PROBLEMS
29
Memory calls to mind how that, in 1911, when I rode out of the Minshan range, which lies between the provinces of Kansu and Szechwan, I came out onto the great silk road of the Empire at Kwangyuan and travelled along it to Chengtu. On this road one found the most magnificent hotel accommodation then existent in the Empire. Yet in the best hotel I got the best room, together with all the rice I could eat at the evening meal, for forty cash a night—then the equivalent of about 3 cents U.S. currency!
This problem of the weight of the brass cash was well exemplified during the relief work I was called upon to direct in 1921 in North West China following the catastrophic earthquake that took place in December 1920. The quakes changed the whole face of nature in some fourteen counties and it became a matter of the utmost importance that we restored communications and set free the dammed up streams before break-throughs could cause flood devastation in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. To this end I had some fifteen thousand men at work in the 14 districts, engaged in this work of vital importance. They were paid on the basis of labour giving relief. On the largest undertaking at a place called Chin-Chiang-Yi I had four thousand eight hundred labourers. Of this number 10% were overseers or foremen gangers and received five hundred, or over, cash per day. The rank and file received a straight four hundred each. This means that the total weight of the cash required to meet a single day's pay on this one undertaking amounted to just over 12 tons deadweight. Something over 35 tons of cash was needed each day to pay the fifteen thousand men. Those were the days before motor transport in that part of the country and with the roads wiped out by the earthquake and pack-animals of all kinds exceedingly scarce the situation soon became impossible. After much thought I decided to put out my own note issue to meet the emergency. This though was easier conceived than executed. Neither paper supplies nor printing facilities were available. Therefore I had wooden blocks carved representing cash denominations of four hundred and five hundred cash. From these impressions were taken on strips of calico. The pull-offs were then oiled to prevent falsification. These notes were used in paying the workers who were able to use them for the purchase of food and necessities. The Chambers of Com-