Wim the opening of the Tea season Shanghai returns to its busy time, and, for some months to come, the prospects of the year will form the staple of conversation. It is scarcely for a journalist to criticise the mercantile operations being carried on on all sides. They are inscrutable even to the initiated. When once the cacoethes emendi has seized a China communi. ty, buy it must; whether the article be tea, silk, shares or mud, it is all one. Each man has to buy when the leader points out the way, as, in crossing the bridge, each individual sheep of a flock felt impelled to jump out of a window overlooking a precipice simply because the leader by mistake had taken this course. It is unfortunate that the ways of investing money in China should be so limited, that periodical fits of—over-speculation should so frequently occur. In fact, it is difficult to find atime when one or another is not paramount. In the old days the ran was on tea or silk alone, but the number in the market not being so excessive as in these modern times, and money being more difficult to lay down, the result on the whole was decently satisfactory. Cotton was perhaps the first outside commodity to attract a large measure of speculation, in which a few found a fortune, but the majority rain, or next door to it. Land followed, with the result that, even with the growth of the settlements which has taken place within the last ten years, we are scarcely as yet abreast of the ideas of 1863. Land failed with a gigantic crash, to be followed again by the old staples of tea and silk; and these again gave place to imports to be finally followed, after the profit. able developement of local enterprise, by an equally eager run on shares, It is needless, in the present. state of affairs, to add that in turn every one of these had the same ending. Prices were run up to limits which even operators, sanguine as they were, knew could' not be upheld, and each man went on the principle of the " Devil take the hindmost," hoping that his neighbour rather than himself would occupy that unpleasant position. In nearly every case of inflation there was a consequent depression, most fortunate for the far-seeing individual who knew how, or had the means, to take advantage of it; and undoubtedly much money has been made by individuals, without, however, thatbenefitto the com. munity which a more evenly balanced system would have induced. Notably has this been the case in shares. The buying and selling of shares between the members of a community causes no increase of wealth, What is gained by one individual must be lost by another, with the result that " great deal of energy which might have been thrown into wealth-creating operations is simply wasted and squandered. More than this, the fortunate winner in the game is apt to withdraw, and so, to the extent by which the settlement might be advantaged by his presence, the community becomes eventually a loser. The present collapse of the share market is however not only an inconvenience, it is a direct loss. While share speculation is little better than gambling, and does not increase the material wealth of the community, it is of the highest utility that a good share mar. ket should exist, Naturally, in a remote locality like China, there are few resident capitalists, and the only way in which many operations likely to result in profit to the community at large can be accomplished, is by the principal of ce-operation. The state of the share market, lately inflated beyond all reasonable calculation, and now as unduly depressed, makes men hesitate before placing their savings in undertakings from which, although reason ably successful, they may be unable to withdraw without serious inconvenience, Having ran the round of speculation in everything else, there still, however, remained one article which had been neglected for a series of years. So great had been the collapse of the land speculations of ten years ago, that, for an unprecedentedly long period, men avoided Shanghai mud as they would poison. The losses had not been confined to Shanghai, but had extended through all the open ports. Hankow has scarcely yet recovered, and even within the last week we have had to report the confiscation of a number of lots at
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.