With the tael at eight shillings and the dollar, roughly, at six, the case for a standard unit, with a name as individual as dollar, but of only half the value becomes stronger han ever. It cannot be too often insisted that the value of the common unit of currency in any country directly affects the cost of life. In England people think in shillings, here in dollars, in France in francs while the great mass of French people think as low as in sous, halfpennies, thereby being just twice as well off as the working classes in England. Generally speaking, the same article in all three countries costs pretty well the same number of units. We are not accusing anybody in particular of profiteering; but there can be no doubt that any number of things; cost a dollar in Shanghai because there is no lower coin of sufficiently individual character, What we want is a 50-cent piece with a proper name to it. The new Mint to be established in Shanghai might turn its attention to this matter. It would take time, of course, for the new unit to make its influence felt. But that it would do so eventually cannot be doubted
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.