report the steps they have taken, in obedience to Imperial orders issued at the instance of the Board of Revenue, to resume. the coinage of copper cash' in that provines with a view to the partial payment hereafter in copper cash of the subsidies due to Peking. There used to be @ cash mint in Hupeh called the. Pao Wu Chu, but it has not been; working since the early. -years of the reign Hsien Feng, and the rules and.
aments under which it was conducted become a matter of past history, so "that the revival of this institution is practi-sally the commencement of 4 new under-
The Tao-tai at Wu-ch'ang and an expectant Tao-tai called Ch'i were accordingly directed to consider with the Financial Commissioner all the details connected-with the commencement of operations, such as the raising of a capital fund, the building of workshops, erection of furnaces, ment of workmen and goforth. They have now reported that arrangements are in train, but that as the records of the old institution are incomplete, and the workmen they have engaged are new to the business, they are unable to say precisely what the cost of material, labour, allowance for meltage, etc., ete., will be, until several experimental castings of cash have been made. The cash will be one can-doreen in weight, but before operations can commence it will be necessary to purchase supplies of copper and lead.
ion the Pao Wu Chu, or Hupeh mint, should work ten furnaces and should turn out twenty-one castings a year, ench casting to consist of 4,000 strings (a string containing 1,000 cash). Tu addition to the above there was what was called a el mao; or "caudal" casting, at which 1,859 strings were turned out in' order to furnish what was turned a pai chinan, which appears to have been employed in allowing for an addition of 5 cash to every string. The weight of copper and lead annually required for this amount of cash was 750,000 catties, which used to be procured from Yunnan and Kueichow. The supplies at present obtainable from those provinces are not abundant, and the transport is attended with such difficulty that it is more convenient and economical to purchase foreign copper at Shanghai. It is proposed to follow the arrangement adopted at Foochow, and to start with a capital fund of Tls. 30,000. As cash are in due course turned out they will be changed for silver, and with the latter copper and lead will again be bought, thus keeping up a constant revolution which will enable matters to proceed without " check.—Imperial Rescript: Let the Board of Revenue take cognisance.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.