Tue gold chain is closing round China. "Siam has adoptd the gold standard, the Straits Sett}onents are bound to fullow suit, Freach Indo-China, as one of the telegrams we publish this morning shows, has taken the alarm, and soon China will be left alone, as the only silver-using country of avy commercial importance in Asia, Siam followed the example of India by beginning by closing her mint to the free coinage of silver, and she now offers to sell her silver coinage at 17 ticals to the £1, which is the equivalent of 1176 pence to the tical, the dollar at the fixed exchange of $60 per 100 ticals being thus taken at 23.53 pence. Taking the present value of the Mexican dollar at 20d., this is about 17 per cent above the metallic value to-day. As there can be very little nese silver in circulation outs Siam, there can be no amount of it of importance sent in for redemption in old, St will be necessary for Siam, however—and this has no daubs been done,—to prohibit the importation of Mexican dollars which are largely used as currency in the country; and with this necessary precaution taken, it cannot be doubled that the step adopted by the Siamese Governmen: will be of advantage to the country. Siam may well be encouraged by the example of Japan. Many were the prognostications of failure when Count Matsukata undertook the disestablishment of silver there, but he t and his critics were wrong,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.