28th Aug. Tne history of silver in China shows that its value as compared with gold has fluctuated greatly since the beginning of the Ming dynasty, A.D. 1368, Rev. Peter Hoang, a Chinese priest of the Kiangsu mission, tells us that four ounces of silver were then equal in value to one ounce of gold. Silver was scarce and therefore dear, because then the trade with America had not commenced. In 1574, about eighty years after the discovery of America, and sixty-one years after the Pacific Ocean was first seen by Bilboa from the mountain tops of Nicaragua, the import of silver had been so large that seven or eight ounces of silver had the value of one ounce of gold, At the eud of the Ming dynasty in 1635 gold was ten times as dear as silver. With the progress of trade, the value of silver diminished as compared with gold. In the time of Kanghi more than ten ounces went to an ounce of gold. But under Chien-Lung, about 1737, it became much cheaper. ''wanty and more ounces went to pay foran ounce of gold. About A.D. 1840 silver was eighteen times cheaper than goal. In 1850 it was fourteen times cheaper and in 1882 eighteen times cheaper. On the whole it is quite clear that the value of silver if judged by gold as the standard has gone down in proportion to the growth of foreign trade. Silver became cheaper as more was imported. he discovery of the silver mines of America was therefore the undoubted cause in the main of the dominance of silver in China as the currency in all large transactions. The salaries of all officers are as a rule paid in r, which is in fact of foreign origin. More than half of the taxes are paid in the same for-ver. 'I'he duties at all customses in the interior and on the coast are charged in the same foreign silver. For the last forty years Chinese writers have been saying, and they still say, that foreign trade deprives them of their silver and that the foreign merchant grows rich at their expense. They forget that foreign trade brought them the i \d_ that it is only g discoveries made by European navigators four centuries ago that they have been able to abandon an unsafe paper currency for a silver currency of solid utility.
"The value of copper cash as a medium for purchasing articles in the market has undergone a regular depreciation since the time when the Chinese had not yet adopted silver as their chief medium of currency. We may see this in historical statements by Sung dynasty authors. In the eleventh century Shen-kwo tells us the amount of tea sold in his time at the chief places of trade in Hupeh, Houav, Anhui and Kiangsu, North China depended on Central China for its tea then as now, and the Sung dynasty Emperors levied a tax on it custom-houses in a line running east and west through these four provinces. He mentions the value of the tea sold and paid for in copper cash or its paper equivalent. The phrase tung shang of those days meant " freedom to trade " between north and south. This had been interrupted by anarchy and the Sung dynasty gave it as a boon to the people. At Kuangchou in Honan 307,216 catties of tea were sold for 12,456,000 cash. Hence we learn that forty cash bought catty. At Shouchou in Anhui a catty was bought for seventy-jour cash, At Luchow in Honan forty-eight cash was the price. At Shang-cheng in Honan sixty-seven cash was the price. About fifty cash a catty was expected on an average for an article which was sold in immense quantities to the northern people at that time as now. At present if we say that a picul of tea costs sixteen taels and rate a revenue tael at fifteen hundred cash, a catty of tea costs 240 cash, Thus it may be seen that the depreciation of copper for purchasing articles in the market in 800 years has been such that five cash now are required to buy what one cash would have bought then. From this it will be seen that China might. easily be content with copper as a currency in the days of paper money. The country people had not any need to carry to market more than one-fifth of the copper they have to carry now when they wish to buy. There was also a convenient system of cash notes, tew notes, silk notes, and grain notes, hose paper notes were exchangeable for so much cash or tea or silk as was nientioned on the note. So far as these were confirmed by official stamps they would obtain a wide circulation, But they were partly of course notes issued by private commercial houses.
If it be asked. are the causes of this great diminution in the purchasing power of copper cash, it may be replied that silver in the Ming dynasty became its competitor. In proportion as silver took its place, coined copper was no longer in so much request. Official salaries, for example, entirely ceased to be paid in cash, In all large trausactions copper is bulky compared with silver, and it lost ground with the trader. Its value gradually fell, and when it began to tread the downward path, its pace was accelerated by the ever increasing weight which operated against its easy conveyance. If then it be asked why copper is still greatly in demand to be coined in Peking and in the provinces just now in lange quautities, it may be answered that it is the currency of the poor as much as ever, and the increasing population must have a coin of small value to take to market. It is not that copper can ever recover its former value in commerce. That is impossible. But while the country has so many poor and while the land and other property continues through excess wee
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.