London, Jan. 15.
Messrs, Montagu's silver report "The difference between to-day's cash and forward prices, which are 79 and 75} pence respectively, is a record. The cause is the unprecedented' quantity of. refinable silver offered. This is almost certainly the product of German and other coin. melted down abroad and sent here for refining and realization.
"4 German who is fortunate enough to possess 20,000 marks in silver coin can have' them melted into bars and sell them as bullion for £1,143 which at to-day's exchange would buy 235,459 marks in currency. In spite of the great capacity of London refiners, it has not been found possible to refine these bars except after. a delay of some weeks, hence the scarcity of spot, supplies and the high premium therefore.
Recorp Suipmenrs to Swanowaz.
The fall in prices is due to the news of the arrival of probably a _tecord.shipment of four millions sterling of silver at Shanghai. The newspaper Financial America'' declares that the report that 15,000,- 000 silver dollars have hitherto been shipped to China is incorrect. The time or amounts of shipments wil] not be announced. The reason for secrecy, the newspaper says, is the banking situation in Shanghai and Hongkong where the financial machinery is not controlled by the Chinese Government but dominated by outside interest. Full informa. with regard to the amount which is to be shipped under the agreement might be harn-ful to the object. of the shipments, namely, the stabilize ation of the American exchange in the Chinese markets.
The Indian mint has issued nickel eight anna and four anna pieces instead of silver.—Reuter. a "Financial America" is talking nonsense. It is perfectly correct that 15,000,000 silver dollars have been shipped to China, as the figures of every shipment, published in these columns, have shown. To talk of secrecy in respect of such shipments is rubbish. If the American Government decides to supply the Eastern banks through the Aimerican banks with silver dollars, it will certainly announce the time and amount of shipments. To do otherwise would defeat the whole purpose of making them. Imagine the effect on the market of the totally unexpected arrival of an equally unspecified amount of silver—Ed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.