Kiangchow, Nov. 4 At last a movement he. been made to supersede the use of sycee in the interior. This half-year' taxes are to be collected and re. mitted to the capital in dollars. Farmers who have never handled silver coins are now inquiring for these—in this distriet—rather rare objects, Money shops are busy importing the needful, and the study of coin testing and varieties is absorbing much popular attention.
For the last few years every woman in this part of the world has been a customer of Germany for aniline dyes. These form part of every pedlar's pack, and no vil-Inge maiden or matron fails to invest a cash or two in the means by which plain homespun cotton may be transformed into brilliant red, blue or green. The great advance in price advertises the war to every hamlet and never before have Shansi peasants been so much aware of the world's doing:
The Government loan is being pushed here too and is creating considerable local interest. This loan calls up our perennial friend the Shansi Railway Scheme. For the last dozen years this has been regularly trotted out in one form or another of begging. borrowing and possibly the third means of annexing cash. But the evolution from the mythical to the concrete seems still far off. Is this the last time of asking or is it the first on behalf of a scheme which will ultimately mature?
There are no big buyers for the foreign market here this season, and no large orders going to the coast, Grain is being called for from famine regions. For the agricultural and labouring classes unemployment is the order of the lay.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.