1931-04-01 — Page 7

HONG KONG DAILY PRESS. WEDNESDAY,

There has been no time within This particular abac, as it happene

“THIS SILVER BUSINESS" memory of man when the saels weigh, exactly fifty" Chauping

MR. C,-CHAMPKIN DISSECTS THE CHINESE TAEL.

HILARITY AT THE ROTARY CLUB MEETING.

One of the wittest addressos delivered at the local Rotary Club was given yesterday by. Mr. O. Champkisi, who chose for his subject This Silver Businesa."

Mr. Champkin threw his audience into roars of laughter with his observations on the Chinese taol. The address, however, was not without its serious side and the speaker gave his bearers a good insight into the problem eonfrosting those who have to deal with the currency problem in Olina.

CURRENCY COMMISSION WELCOMED.

Mr. Champkin's address was as follows:-

Ox-

tela, saves us sore mental arith mic as we are able to double the premium and say it is 5,38 per cent. premium over what may be termed standard sycee. --

has been other than an honest token ur as honest as could reasonably be expected. Thero has been no time when a man that possessed

tael of decount could not

I have already referred to the change it for a tuel, of silver. I um not here as a protagonist inconvention that 09 Chauping tools the gold voraus silver controversy, of sycee 933 fine are equal to 100 but I have grave doubts as to who-monetary tools of account and it ther a system that in loss enlighten.is this fineness of 933 that the ed countries provides credit in oxhongku takes as his standard. If, change for paper would he readily therefore, we add to the standaril acceptable in China, whose people, 5.39 per cont. we shall find that this numbering one-fifth of the populnaker is 133.3 fine.

Now, if we want to ascertain its tion of the World, have an age- long preference for the simple and value in monotary'taels we take its more or less honost usages of the weight 50," add its premiun 200, cash shops that call a tas) a tael,multiply by 100 and divide by 09. and do not write it down by fifty This gives us 53.75 and if 50 per cent, and call it a franc.

Bouquet to the Tasi. Now, having handed this bou quet to the Taol, let us see how at establishes itself on aatorling

Whatever effect this association ef ideas inay have upon his inind, About sixteen years ago when I he is not likely to derive any con was, manager of the Mercantile solation from the fact that Ah Sin Bank here, a gentleman from has an use at all for the gold hebrsis, having regard to the sterling Canada asked me if I would co-huys and has no intention what price of bar silver that, as we have pre-supposed, is the truth about operate with him in founding in this Colony a Rotary Club. I told

silver. Here let me add that some. him that if it had anything to do

body is sure to point out that my roundabouts or horses he could

calculations are wrong. I will an- ticipate this objection by frankly count on mo, but that

admitting that they are wrong but they were right the day yesterday, or whenever it was that

had no

before

APRIL 1, 1931.

ROYAL VISITORS.

KING AND QUEEN OF SIAM

IN HONG KONG."

EN ROUTE TO AMERICA,

Their Majesties, the King and Queen of Siam arrived in Hong Kong yesterday morning on board the motor-ship Selandia. The King of Siam is en rute to America where he intends to utidergo pan

for operation

the removal of cataract from one of his eyes.

Their Majestins ara travelling ins cognito.

On arrival in Hong Kong yeater. day, they were met by the Consul For Siam, Mr. J. T. Bagrant, and later in the morning, His Excel. feney Sir William Peel went 타히 board the Selandia.

His Majesty spent yesterday morning shopping in Hong Kong and Inter had tiffin at Government Thoy leave to lay by the House. Emircea of Japan

Chauping taels of Syeen 985.3 fine are worth 59,765 monetary tacts then a simple calculation leads us

A stato nuquet will be held in to the conclusion that a thousand Chauping tele 993 no are worth Tokyo in their honeur by the E- Arriving in Vancouver on April 1074-03 monetary thels as against peror and Empress of Japan. the convention that they are equal 17, the Royal party will immediate to 1073-25. A very trifling differly start across country by train to ence indeed but we find these tria. Washington, where the King and sident Hoover. Then they ATO several stages of the evolution of scheduled to go to Baltimore, where ing differences at every one of the Queen will be introduced to Pre- ir silver into monetary taels. specialists will examine the King's So far we haya dealt only with, and finally travel to the Long Island estate of Mrs. Whitelaw the conversion of aytec, but we have Reid, where the operation will pro-

King will recuperator to bear in mind that syees itself bably be performed and where the

I made them. They will invariably is an evolutionary product of harder the Prent schedule the

to wrong when they are checked, but thor would invariably be right if they were chocked at some other time. This peculiarity is one of the minor eccentricities of the taal that I am not taking into account. Theoretically, a monetary tael of

soever of paying for it, Nar will he be deeply moved to learn that by a very fortuitous circumstance the seller has no gold to disposo of and would be vastly amused if Thone he was called upon to deliver it. interest in folk dancing. were the days when the Rotary transaction, however, that pre- Cinbs were in their infaney, I was dicated any other state of affairs transferred to Shanghai and so far would be regarded in Kiukiang as I know the whole thing Inpsed. Read as a slightly improper joke, These considerations, of course, The gentleman from Canada has probably not returned to Canada are rather apt to perplex the and I do not doubt for one moment worthy citizen who thinks convon. that he is still a gentleman. But tionally and who very properly, when I look upon this assembly I though unprofitably, draws a dis. feel kind of unctuous satisfaction; tinction between the actual buying the conventional fineness of 985 15) in the reflection that I stand, as of gold and the theoretical selling said to equal in value a Chauping of silver. Perhaps we may better weight tael of silver 916-2/3 Line- put it in this way-that the compr, to put it in another way, a

silver 995 fine are worth 1075 parative higher ethics of bullion thousand Chaiping weight tnels of demand this distinction whereas monetary tacls. The Chauping tat! the superlative Shanghai-higher is based on the Canton tret that is taken to weigh 670.81 grains, though in fact its weight is slightly It is a rather puzzling, but mure. One hundred Canton "thels there is no need for us to bother are taken to equal 102, Chaping taris. so that a Chauping tael very much about gold at present. A weighs approximately 465.7 grains considerate Colonial Office may least it does when the mint give us calise to corrugate our brows over the subject rather soon-

it were, in loco parentix to all of you. If it were not so, I would never have dared to talk to you, at literally a few hours' notice, at the urgent request of my friend, Mr. Shielde.

It is no less a bold venture on

ethics do not.

your part than & compliment to ma that you should have naked me to address you on this silver busi- ness. I shall try, with some pre- tence at originality, to deal lightly with what is, at best, no very lighter than we expect, so we may as affair, and owing to the limitations well conserve our mental energy imposed upon ine by the very brief and let our views mature. notice you have given me, I shali. necessarily have to deal with it in a very sketchy manner indeed.

stops buy silver. When they aril silver they reckon that a hundred Cunton baela equal 102,4 Chauping The discrepancy is very taels. slight, but it is not made any slighter by the practice that ob tains of using one set of scales and Burer Ground.

weights for Teceiving and another set for paying. How the buyer and Whon.o get to silver we are

the seller adjust three discrepancies on suror ground. We know what between themselves is one of the we are talking about! We are unsolved mysteries of internal dealing with something that wellion operations in China that no understand, because, for so long

foreigner can hope to understand.

Taela Coin. as we can remember, we have been on a silver haáis except for the

silver. The mint shops take a fixed rate for the conversion of bar silver into monetary taels payable in aycee. They pay in syere or did for 100 Canton tacla weight of bar until recently, 110.00 monetary taela

silver 098,fuc.

In considering this convention we have to remember what I have al- ready stated, that when they buy the

taels are equal to 100 Canton taels. silver they rockon 102.5 Chauping When they pay for it by delivering the sycee they reckon only 1024 as the equivalent. Also in the formula hy use to arrive at the conversion rate of 110.00 they allow only 1 per cont. for the superior fineness of ar silver over sycee.As the latter is reduced by copper alloy to about 93 Ane, this allowance assumics that har silver is about 955.fine instead of .998, fine. So, here we have another slight difference.

Further Loss88.

If we experi eyceo for remelting into bar silver, and bass our out, turn upon the certified markings of the Kongku, we shall find that in an average shipment of 20,000 shoes, there will be a still further loss of 2 per cent, on fineness and 2 per cent on weight. These little losses moreover occur when we have an- ncunced that are buying sycee

Shortcomings of Silver, Economiste have had a good deal to say about the shortcomings of silver, but they have been tactfully silent as to its peculiar disability as a grhcaful topic of interest after

time that we have been on a tank-tuel is a coin because I possess specially for export, in which case ab excellent tif. We are not, however, altogether wasting our note basis. We know that the several of them that I keep by mrs the mint slips charge us 1/32 per

truth about silver is bár silver,

I have said that the monetary

govern

|

King and Queen are to spend about five months in the United States, September 12, probably aboard the starting back for Siam on or about liner Empress of Canada.

"Accompanying the King and Queen will be Their Royal High- ness Prince and Princess Svasti, father and mother of the Queen. Prince Svasti is also uncle of tha. King.

The Royal suite includes the King's physician.

Нів Serene one Yayant and his wife Mom Lang Ying Kling Jayant; His Highness Prince Thavaramongkol-

Majesty's private secretary His Surene Highness Prince Vipulya Svastiwonga Svastikula General Chao Phyn Bijayendra Yedhin, chief A.D... General to the King: Phra Nooraraj Chamuong, Mon (Mrs.) Rajawonge Smak Sman Lang Sakdi Nai-wen, Nang (Miss) Sakd Nai-wen and Luang Siri Sombatti. In America the Royal party will be joined by His Serene Highness Captain Prince Praso- beri: Chirapravatti, His Majesty's aide-de-camp.

The history of silver in respect to the currency of India is related in the voluminous Reports of the many commissions that have at various times dealt with the sub- ject. The appointment of Com missions to deal with subjects in fact is su marked a feature of the Government of India that one sometimes wonders when it govorni, Here also, in Hong Kong, we have had our Currency Committee,

ment and as we shall be affected

воля

Mr.

Кальця;

it, because we are now anding out just as we know that the real truth in denying that the tnel has any syero-that is, the really real sycee. Its report you have never beon ul- that we have a great deal to learn about it is syceo and the really comporate entity. Still, we kaow and not the ordinary sycee that slowed to sea and perhaps the Goy acted wisely in about silver-almost as much, in real truth about it is the Tael, that that although it exists as a coin only real sycee, So here we have ornment has

Currency and as a banknote, it is for all another slight difference.

witholding it from you. Certain- fact, as we have latterly found it every textbook on

practical purposes a conventional

The conversion rate of 110.00 ly there are moro entertaining convenient, ur expedient, to forget sures us is not a coin, but a Chin

c88 ounce of silver. Except for unit of account that serves merely monetary taels for 100 Canton taels books that you might read, though about gold.

none perhaps of greater 10- Let me say that the last time I the fact that it is not Chinese as a medium for the adjustment of of bar silver 006 ane is not a per- manent rate. It is true that being

terest At any rate that report had the honour of addressing a ounce, that it is a coin and that xxk balances through its theore

has been responsible for the land- Rotary Club, I spoke on the Boy nobody quite knows how much of tical relation by valus to sycee. merely a rate for the conversion of one kind of silver into another it

ing here to-day of a Commission Scout Movement, a subject I was it is silver, the description is se Actual settirments in silver are ill-qualified to expound, so what 1 curate enough, but it calls for am-made by transfer of shoes of sycee should be permanent, but it changes appointed by the Home Govern-

called shoes because they are with the price of charcoal that is knew of it entirely concerned plification.

You will understand that when about the size of small bricks and extensively used in the remelting by its findings we may say in all other people's scouting. Similarly,

process. It hos also been known to I had better make it clear at once refur to the tael I mean thenre shaped like sampans..

We have now got to the stage change for other reasons. I. view sincerity that we welcome its mem-

·bers and look forward with confld. that what I know about ourrency monetary tael that dominates the entirely concerns other people's trade of China and that in turn where we can claim sumo intimate with grave concern the anniversary once to the successful accomplish. in overwhelmingly depondent upon, nequaintance with the monetary of the Battle of Salamanca coin-

ment of the difficult task they have hoards.

before them. Still, the fact that one has no or overwhelmingly influences, the tael because we have established its ciding this year with the Feast of I mean the tool apparent parity with its parent Singing Insects and I shall watch

Touring Rotarians Welcomed. ⚫ persona! knowledge of a subject is price of silver.

Prior to calling upon no good reason for neglecting to that, as I shall presently explain, sycee, but bearing in mind the closely the effect this has on the con- bo informative. about it. Certain bas confounded Euclid by demon pitfalls that lie in wait for the version rate.

Gentlemen, I bave said enough Champkin to speak, Sir William Hornel welcomed the following it is that the average man lives strating that things that are equal unwary in China, we shall find it somewhat vicariously in the sense to the same thing are by no means

of sicre, to work out its value in you, I hope that it is a subject from the round-the-world liner that his interests are very inten- equal one to the other-thereby un instructive to take an actual shoe nhout sycee in China to convince

were fit for prayer and fasting Franconia-Lieut-Col. W. Mao- sively other people's intereste. It dermining the very foundations of monetary taals and to son whether is, in fact, becoming increasingly pure mathematics and consequent that valee conforms with certain than for half an hour's considers donald, I.P.G., Rangoon Rotary burg; Rotarians W. Martin, M. difficult to mind one's own businessly disproving the Einstein theory other theories and conventions that tion after tiffin. With all its pecu- Club; Dr. Willard Flint, Pitts- monntary tacis vis-a-visharities it is deserving of respect. Ruvabo and G. Fox, all from Par In so far as the Interests of that, by the way, originated in

Greatest Bank Manager. zyees. We shall, in fact, put old

Rotary. Club, the average man are affected by China.

Before we can consider silver Euclid to the test and find out metallic reserves, they are ontirely

ewa tao's we have necessarily to put whether things that are equal to the The late Mr. Stopben, of the Rotarian J. A, Heist, Oak Park, impersonal in origin. Ho seldom Been a gold piece, and what he sees on recard certain theories or con-

same things are necessarily equal Hong Kong Bank, told me, about Illinois, and Mr. G. S. Cattle, of seven years ago, that the honesty New York, who attended the lun of silver in China is a very imper-ventions that are by general agree- one to the other.

Let us take a shoe of sycee. We of sycue was the safeguard ofchoon as Mr. Hoist's guest...

Non-rotarians welcomed wore Mr. fect view of what silver actually ment accopted as facts, whethor

China's currency. My own experi is. He scarcely ever gives a they are so or not. Nobody knows do not know what its weight is, nor

do we know its fineness, because we obce during fifteen years as a bank thought to those mental processes who propounded these theories. in others that act directly upon the Who was it, for instance, who first have neither weighed it nor assayed manager accords entirely with the view of the ailest and greatest of bullion markets of the world and decreed that 95 Taels of ayere 933 it, but we have every confidence in react, very indirectly sometimes, fine should-oqual 100 taole ofit-because it has been passed us the managers of our time. If I none the less markedly, upon his count? Was it the man who in good, honest tender by a Kongku, have dwelt lightly on some of the own most intimate affairs.

vented interest! Nobody knows! Kongku is a kind of public minor centricities of silver in On what logical basis is the whole vitter in Shanghai to whom ali Chinu It is because they afford more

huggor-mugger

of shoes of sycne are sunt by the mint scope for a sketchy address at an inexplicable Chinese standards and values shops to be attested before being hour's notice, than would a more founded. Nobody knows!

at into circulation. He is ap serious consideration of the easen- Painted by the mint shops and is tial soundness of China's currency,

If I discussed silver soriously, thoroughly trustworthy, though,

Rotarian Ruvane said that tho But those who would lightly con-like the rest of us, he doubtless re- would take you back to the tran

in the East as in America because in demn a currency system, because cognises that business is business, sition stage of Japan from silver Rotary idon did not com ́ so keen

to gold, to the break-up of the nobody knows who founded it, and He testa gach shop in a perfunctory because only Einstein and myself way with a touchstone, but judges Latin Union, to the memorable cou- Hong Kong it was the first time troversy on himetallism that, from they had been able to meet a Tlotary understand it, may well refloot that it principally by look pea," a * Chins stands alone as the greatest method that fe probably more the seventies had a profound effect Club since leaving Bombay. He nation of the Allied and Enemy reliable than the touchstone. He or the tangled, tale of American urged. Rotarians to get the right States that did not tamper with marks in ink on each shoe his currency for a quarter of a century spirit by attending meetings ro,

the views of the unreasoning id- | Club, If he is contemplating retirement its tokens nor paltor with its prin opinion of its weight and fineness. Thora is a fascination in studying galarly and supporting their own 44 Shos ""Markings.........

Totarinn Macdonald said that after long years of honest toil or ciples during the great trinis of

vocates of cheap and abundant exchange broking, he may, not the War and the greater trials of

We find that this shoe has mark-monoy," ns there is something in there was soma scepticism in Ran unreasonably be perturbed by the the Peace. They may wall reflect thought that he will have to gut that China neyor sold the tael toings that the unsophisticated:triguing about that protest of goon-when the Rotary Club was down his wine bill in his old age serve the hour and that it was to eight mistake for a Chinese onth William Jennings Bryan against-formed-thore-nearly two years ago CIOBS of gold, Perhaps he lived too stronger position as at the pre- if Ah Sin of Shanghai decidos, for silver neing China that India turh that indicate its weight as fifty the crucifying of humanity upon a but the Clubs had never been in ant time, and was doing a good some incomprehensible reason, to ed to save her gold standard from Chauping trels and ita fineliess as

deal of work.. hay gold bars on the Kiukiang collapse daring the dark days of 2.49 premium. This in the premium on! Who knows!

per shoe, not the premium per cent! Hoad Exchange.

1036.

If he is so far removed from the average man as to own house on the Peak he will be mildly interest ed to know that the discovery of a new goldfield in South Africa announced in this morning's paper will almost certainly enhance the value of all those. Bay Views,'

Buona Vittas" and other cuphon- iously named residences that excite our admiration and envy ju the corsa of our upland walks.".

Ah Bin Decides,

Einstead May Underst

Understand.

"1

•Continued on sitat Column.)

J. Walker, of the Chartered Bank, and Mr. W. F. Simmons, of the Hong Kong Tramways,

In addressing the gathering, Mr Heist announced that he had brought a letter from Rotary In- ternational, Chicago, extending the best greetings to the Hong Kong, Rotary Club. After thank ing them for, their hospitality he assured all of them of a warm welcome in America.

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