Mux week just ended will long be remembered in Shanghai.
With silver in London at 39d., in New York at 854 c., exchange in India 1/238 and here 3/9§,—Chinese banks failing in Hongkong, and compradores absconding,—the strain on merchants and bankers must have been intense, and had it not.been for the firmness, common sense, and great consideration displayed by our bankers here, most disastrous consequences might have ensued, It speaks well for Shanghai that it assed through this ordeal without The. "silver question " is at the bottom of our unrest, but there are indications of -a renewed effort on the part of America and Europe to arrive at semic fixed ratio between silver and gold. - India—although'a purely silver country—also desires it. Recent events will materially strengthen the hands of hi-metallists, but so longas Americaholds such an enormous stock of uncoined silver, their actions must be considerably hampered.
Americans will not use coin if they can get paper, and it is argued that the issue of paper against bullion is the same as coining it,—but the effect is different. Issue paper by all means if it is wanted, but let it be against coined metal.
In the last ten years, India, China and the Straits have imported from London alone about £70,000,000' (severity millions sterling) worth of silver. Now, if that large amount of hard silver had been stored in the Presidency vaults, looming as a menace to the whole world, what would be the price of that metal to-day? Whereas being coined and absorbed, it is not felt.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.