989
THE CURRENCY OF CHINA.
The Kwangtung Mint is very far from being a blessing to this Colony. The sub- sidiary coin with which it floods Hongkong is not a boon. The tokens are not good silver and their intrinsic value is so low that it pays the Chinese money dealers to put them into general circulation because they purchase them at a discount and get them into circulation at par. We have allowed these inferior coins to come freely into the Colony and in a measure supersede the Bri- tish token money, which is much better value. The latter only is accepted at the Government Offices and the Banks, but everywhere else the Cantonese tokens are in current use, and vast quantities of them are made up into rolls of five and ten dollars' worth, in which form they are used to pay bills, and in this way they are an un- mitigated nuisance. Yet the Government, though these coins are a source of consider able annoyance and incidentally of much loss, do not, for some reason, see their way to legislate against their circulation in the Colony. They do not like to do so pre- sumably because the Hongkong token money is still largely used on the opposite main- land, and if restrictive measures were adopted in this Colony against the Can- *tonese coins it might lead to retaliatory steps being adopted by the Viceroy. How ever that may be, the fact remains that the Cantonese subsidiary coins have become one of the small ills of life to the people of Hongkong. At the same time they are no doubt a great convenience to the people of the Two Kwang, where previously the cumbrous copper cash was the only medium of exchange in small transactions.
August 5, 1896.
the
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
made a considerable revenue out of suggestion. The figures giver the subsidiary coins supplied to them from Harbour Master must England. He knew also that the coins incomplete in the condition would be welcomed, for Hongkong had they have to be collected again demonstrated that fact; but he had as they go they seem to ber the ingrained mistrust of all official under- and valuable. They afford takings felt by the populace to reckon with, instituting a comparison the chance that they would hesitate to of the port in one year and that in an accept the production of a native Mint. and although they may not be CHANG took the risk, however, and his incompleteness will probably reward was substantial. The Mint has same in different years and will flourished ever since, and seems likely to not vitiate the comparison. It seems to us continue to do so, unless it falls into native most desirable that we should have some management some day and the silver approximately reliable barometer of the becomes so debased as to be valueless. As trade of the port, such as that afforded by The figures it is the interest of the Government to the Harbour Master's returns. * maintain it at its present standard-by no of the tonnage entering and leaving used means unduly high-the chances are that to be accepted for that purpose, but a few the coinage will go on increasing.
years ago we were assured that, though ship- ping is the lifeblood of the colony, an increase: in the tonnage frequenting the port was con- patible with declining trade. It is hardly necessary to dwell on the importance of knowing whether trade is really, declining or expanding at any particular period. Any individual looking at the returns given in the Harbour Master's report might per- haps say that he did not see what use such figures could be to him in his own particular business, but to the community as a whole they appear to us to be very useful indeed. There can be little doubt now that the continued for the next three or four years, depression which commenced in 1889 and
with its attendant financial stringency, was intensified by the exaggerated statements made concerning it and that the colony suffered materially thereby. Had we had. returns of the trade of the port at that time the information they would have given, showing that there was really no diminution in the volume of business, would have had a tendency to restore public confidence and make things better all round. To the Government such information must be invaluable; indeed, it is difficult to see how the administration of the public finances can be intelligently carried on without some means of gauging the state of trade, or how the requirements of the colony in the matter of public works of certain descriptions” and the appropriate times for entering upon expensive improvements can be properly determined. In his report on the Blue Book H.E. the Governor says the ex- pectations he formed and gave expres sion to some four and a half years ago, “and which were then adversely cr
criticized "and even treated in some quarters with "derision, have been or are in course of
This fact is being realised in other pro- vinces than Kwangtung. The Fukien Government have had a large quantity of silver coins minted for them at Canton, and His Excellency CHANG CHIH-TUNG has established a mint at Wuchang for the bene fit of the Hu-kwang provinces. Another mint is to be established very shortly at Nanking, from which several more of the Central provinces will be supplied with a silver coinage. On the 17th April last a memorial from the Viceroy of Chili ap- peared in the Peking Gazette, on the subject of coining silver dollars at Tientsin, and this has since been acceded to and the plant ordered from England. So favourably im- pressed are the Central Government with the idea of establishing mints for the issue of silver coins and thus relieving the strin- gent state of the copper cash market that they have given instructions to the Viceroy and Governments of the different provinces urging them to adopt this means of increas- ing the revenue. It is not the convenience of the people that is chiefly sought, but the profit on the minting of the subsidiary coins. This source of income was first recognised by CHANG CHIH-TUNG, and he deserves the credit of the discovery, for he did not fear to make the first experi- ment, by establishing the pioneer Mint in China at Canton. Of course he was not without pretty safe ground to calculate upon. He knew that there was a good profit on the manufacture, for he WAS well aware that the Hongkong Government
It is curious to note that up to the present date there are still, as a Shanghai contemporary points out, a number of important provinces wherein the silver dollar and the subsidiary coins are quite unknown. Neither Hunan nor Shensi use the dollar or know the familiar ten and twenty cent pieces; nor are they in circula- tion in Yunnan, Kweichow, Szechuen, and Kansuh. A supply is shortly to be sent from the Hupeh Mint at Wuchang to Chungking, where they will no doubt at first be received rather doubtfully, but the shoes of sycee, the copper cash, and when their convenience, as contrasted with other devices of exchange, is recognised they will not fail to prove as popular as they have in other portions of the Central Kingdom. It is rather singular, however, missed the opportunity afforded to further consolidate its influence and power by founding an Imperial Mint, the coins struck at which would serve for the whole of the great empire, and thus have estab- lished a national currency.
The estab- lishment of all these provincial Mints seems to tend in the direction of in- creasing the autonomy of the provinces errath than to tighten thehold over them of the Peking Government. The reason for this mistake-if mistake it be-in policy is not far to seek. The Peking Govern- ment have always been sluggish to a degree; they had not the energy to originate; and now that two or three provincial Mints have been started they do not care to disturb the arrangement, as it might provoke dis- content. An opportunity has therefore been lost to the Chinese Imperial Govern- ment to put the coinage of the Empire on a sound basis like that of Japan, and the pro- vinces will now make the profit and pro- bably not make the dollars. The minting of dollars does not pay, hence the supply of silver tokens will be the congenial task to which the new Mints will chiefly devote their energies.
that the Central Government should have
THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND TRADE STATISTICS. From the minutes of the last meeting of the Committee of the Chamber of Commerce it will be seen that it was decided to address the Government and suggest the omission of returns of the trade of the port from the Harbour Master's report in future, on the ground that the figures given of certain imports, being only partial, are necessarily misleading. In the letter to be addressed to the Government the reasons on which this opinion is founded will no doubt be set out at length. We are at present in igne rance of what those reasons may be, but they will have to be strong ones to induce the Government to adopt the
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"being fulfilled." Instead of vague ex- pectations put forward on the one side and derided on the other there ought to be some standard to which all parties might refer when the commercial condition and pr spects of the colony are in question. This the Harbour Master has attempted to supply, and although the figures collected by him may not be complete that does not seem a good reason for discontinuing the work Even a defective barometer, though not so useful the as a good one, may be of some service - and defects being known they are not likely to lead. The mercantile commu does not want detailed statistica collected, or, it would perhaps be correct to say, it does not v such statistics, but we doubt strong objection to furnishing gross figures such as those collected by the Harbour Master and which are supplied voluntarily. dressed by the Chamber The letter to be of Commerce to the Government the matter in a different light, view the Commit
not strike us as discreet.
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