Ir seems extraordinary that, with the increase of banking facilities in Shanghai, some arrangement has not been made for a public assay. Year by year the capital necessary to carry on trade is being concentrated ina few hands, and the checks which formerly existed are being relaxed. In the old days, when each house had its own treasury and laid down its own sycee, the subdivision. of interest secured a fair standard. Now, however, that the foreign banks have attracted to their own strong rooms nearly all the sycee required for carrying on the foreign trade, the old checks are becoming of less value, and the opportunities offered for debasement on a large scale, greatly increased. It seems strange, but is nevertheless the case, that no test of his fitness for the post is required of the European whose business it is to tally the stock of sycee. So many "shoes" are counted out in the morning, and in the afternoon, but of their marks or quality the cashier has no knowledge. Tt is true that this system has gone on for many years, and that few instances have occurred of downright swindling by the native subordinates. One or-two to which it may be scarcely necessary to draw more particularly the attention of our readers have, however, happened; and it is well, seeing the possibility of loss, that those interested should look to it. But there is a danger of another sort to which the system, or want of system, now adopted readily lends itself, and that is the gradual deterioration of the general stock of sycee. That this is no imadinary evil we may learn from the experience of Hankow, where some seven years ago it was suddenly discovered that all the sycee in the place had become so debased, that the Chinese elsewhere refused to take it in payment. Much inconvenience and a good deal of loss was the result, and though the difficulty was partially got over by the establishment of an official Kungkoo, it was long before Hankow sycee was regarded otherwise than with suspicion. There is a native Kungkoo in Shanghai, which does its work probably as well as any purely Chinese establishment can be expected to do; but it has always struck us that the time has fully arrived for some alteration to be effected. In the dayr of high exchange, when silver was being imported in large quantities, there was little inconvenience so long as the merchant could get rid of his sycee to the ordinary native trader. But the course of trade has now assumed a different aspect, and it may generally be predicted that, at some time or other during the year, exchange will have fallen to such a low mark that sycee, if at all approaching the nominal standard, may be exported to advantage, thereby considerably easing the course of trade. Now it will scarcely be credited that Shanghai, with a foreign trade amounting to some twenty millions sterling a year, possesses no better means for rectifying its currency than the native Kungkoo. As to what this Kungkoo is, we will quote an article originally published in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.