May 13, 1907.1
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
299
currency be placed on a firm and fixed | would have the Bank pay for the extra basis. A big currency spells big prices; bullion with its securities, and compensate a diminished currency lower prices. After it out of the national exchequer for the the Bank Act of 1844, the total amount loss of interest. "As the whole nation of the currency varied with the amount of would benefit by having mora bullion lying the gold held. In 1849, notes in circulation at the Bank, the nation ought to be pre- stood at twenty-four millions sterling, and pared to pay for it," any three per cent. par bullion at seventeen millions. Prices were
annum. In a little time, by this method, low (under index number 80) until we would find the amount of notes in cir- California and Australia contributed so culation equalled by the gold coin and much gold in 1852, when they rose rapidly. hullion in stock, and then it would be Gold reserves swelled conspicuously every permissible once more to issue notes against where but at the Bank of England
bullion. The currency would now expand Cheques, of course, the real circulating according to normal requirements, there medium of commerce, neither increase por would be no panics, and no sudden raising of the Bank Rate. The idea certainly seems a reasonable one. By paying £540,000 a year to the Bink for a few years (while the £18,000,000 worth of gold is being collected) the public would enjoy a low and constant Bank Rite, the price of credit would be lowered, and the price of com- molities steadied.
41
worship of Adonis was practised by the old Semitic peoples of Syria and Babylonia, the true name of the deity was Tamm iz, but ia use it came to be reduced to Adonai, simply Lord. He is first heard of in Babylon as the youthful lover of Ishtar, | the great Mother Goddess and the embody. ment of the great reproductive energies of nature. Every year Tammuz was sup- posed to die, passing away from the cheer- ful earth to the gloomy subterranean world, and every year his divine mistress journeyed in quest of him "to the land from which there is no returning, to the house of darkness, where dust lies on door and bolt." During her absence the passion of love ceased to operate: men and beasts alike forgot to
repro- duce their kind: all life was
threat ened with extinction. The dirges, he adds were seemingly chanted over an effigy of the dead god, which was washed with pure water, anointed with oil, and clad in a red robe, while the fumes of incense ascended
"In order that the stock of gold should be into the air, as if to stir his dormant senses kept, at one level, it is obrious that the amount by their pungent fragrance, and wake him paid out should not exceed the amount received. If the supply of gold falls short, or the from the sleep of death. Such, according to demand for it becomes great, the Bank has to Dr. FRAZER, forins the groundwork of the protect itself by raising its rate and so discourag chief Semitic religions, and one of the chiefing those who wish to borrow. This happened fentures of all these is that to procure remission of the otherwise inevitable fite there must be shedding of blood-at first the most precious blood attainable and the long story of the rites was one from cruel and bloody human sacrifices through intermediary offerings of animals to milder sacrifices, often merely typical. "If," he
gay8,
the custom of putting a king or his son to death in the character of a god have left small traces of itself in Cyprus, an island where the fierce zeal of Semitic religion was early, tempered by Greek humanity, the vestiges of that gloomy rite are clearer in Phoenicia itself and in the Phænician colonies which lay more remote from the highways of Greek commerce."
Still these traces are to b everywhere found at the bottom of these celebrations. and we have a most interesting account of the various substitutes, and the increasing mildness of the rites as they permeated from Semitic sources into the milder dis.
decrease the currency. The Bink of England issues forty-five millions in promises to pay," having to pay with, if demanded, eleven millions of Government bonds, seven millions other securities, and only twenty-seven millions bullion. This is where the Bank Rate comes in as factor. Mr. Dorman says ;
per
A
in October, owing to recent withdrawals of gold for Egypt. The Bauk reserve fell, and
When this the rate was raised to 6 per cent. happens less money is available for investment purposes, and the market price of securities as a rule falls. During the last ten years the rate has been altered very many times, and has varied from 21 per cent, to 6 per cent. It has however, on the whole steadily risen as the level of gold in the bank has fallen from £14,000,000 in 1896 to £27,000,000 in October. In 199it averaged 2 per cent, in 1896 23 per cent.,
ia in 1900 4 per cent., aud November 1906, it was 6
ceut. The result has been a steady fall in the market price of securities. This movement has ben fairly uniform throughout all gilt-edged securities. The prices of Consols, Corporation Stock, Railway, Bank and Insurance Shares, Brewery and old established Commercial Shares, all rose more or less between 1893 and 1897, and have ben falling steadily sinc In a scientific analysis of the canses influencing market prices, it is necessary to neglect altogether those shares which are constantly used ng speculative ounters. For example. the great boom in. South African mines in 159 was due to hop-fu! emotions acting upon a public which did not stop to inquire into reasonable probabilities, and the rapid fall was due to as s useless an alarm, But here we are only concerned with the eff-ot of currency conditions on those investments which do not attract habitual speculators. “ : He next shows the correspon lence of the Bink Rate and the amount of gold reserve, and then summarises thus, that with unlimited paper till 1821 there were violent fluctuations and high prices, with unlimited paper releemable at demand till 1844 there wore falling prices and smaller fluctuations, and with limited (Daily Press, 7th May.)
paper since (by amount of securities and There are
80. many writers on financial gold) there has been a further fill in prices topics willing and anxious to show "exactly and still smaller fluctuations. Ample gol why and how the serious fluctuations ou
reserves, therefore, stealy prices, and the the money market occur, and their explana-problem is to steady the price of credit also, tions are so varinus, although curiously without doing anything to disturb the money enough based on the same data, that the market. There is no inexpert is apt to acquire cynicism in his equality between gold supply and demand pursuit of knowledge. Nevertheless the for it, but the percentage discrepancy is matters touched upon have such an intimate largely reduced by augmenting the Reserves. interest for most of us, that we listen to
With big reserves, there would be less nest has been every bit of evidence with a certain curiosity,
vary the Bank Rate, as if not with the faith they one and all maintain the high Bank Bate for the pre- witnessed in France. Mr. DORMAN would
positioned races, principally of Aryan and cognate stocks. The interrupted burn ing of Croesus is one of the most interesting of these stories, which, however, are traced into Egypt and Oriental lands as well as amongst the Greeks and Romaus. The story is too long to follow in its entirety, but the volume itself is well worth perusal from the unexpected light it throws on many of our modern customs in religion as well as in our ordinary social life.
THE BANK RATE.
to
WHY
of ensuring.
Having
demand. The latest Beems to be Mr. seit, to prevent further withdrawals, he MARCUS R. P. DORMAN, with a plea for would apply pressure to foreign debtors; a greater proportion of gold to paper," and discourage speculation in American .published in the Monthly Review. His first
rates. rails by high coatango point is that ceteris paribus, “the amount of the currency determines price." Violent attracted all the gold possible, be would not fluctuations are
inevitable unless the permit the corresponding issue of notes, as that would at once inflate prices. He
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CHINESE POSTAL SERVICE.
(Daily Press, May 8th.) There may be useful lessons learnt from the perusal of even so unpromising a record as the Annual Report of the Imperial Chinese Post Office as to the latent capabi lities of China; and the lessons are not confined to mere statistics of the number of
were
postal stations established, nor even the number of the various descriptions of postal matters dealt with. Most foreign residents in China, when the scheme of a regular Post Office in China was first mooted by Sir ROBERT HART, willingly enough prepare 1 to look on with a species of bene- valent complacence, not funmixed with incredulity, for no one supposed either that the Chinese Government took the most languid interest in the affair, or that Sir ROBERT, HART had any contemplation of extending his operations in connection with the new department beyond the limits of treaty ports where branches of the Maritime Customs were already established. There was a sort of feeling abroad that China had not been altogether well treat in the tatter of the Post Office, and that the establishment of Post Offices in the interior of Chian by one or more of the Foreign Powers, and more mark dly by Germany was not quite fair to China, and was more.
ver the beginning of a bad precedent, which in the case of Turkey had led to much misunderstanding, and had in the long run proved anything but advintageous to the whose foreign residents themselves, in interests the various Governments professed that they were acting. Even in Shanghai, which may be describ'd as a Postal Valhalla, where the six great Postmasters General represent the Aesirs in Asgard, there has been a lingering suspicion that the com- unity has had to pay in delays and general insufficiency for their over-much service, blessing it some and that it would be a system of centralisation could be devised whereby the plain citizen would not have to ke più continual mind the hours and regulations of six suparato nationalities, each with its own peculiar views ns to postal It of course stands amenities in general. to reason that a single concentrated service could do many things within the limits of the present settlements in the way of accommodating itself to the public needs, which would be practically impossible whace half a dozen separate stuff, och eng ged in going the same rounds and doing exactly the same things, are at present engaged. Bat then the possible danger arises, that to change from our present unsatis- to another untried factory condition
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