June 20. is extremely welcome to see from the "Sinwanpao's" article which we reproduce to-day on the opposite page and from the recent telegram of protest sent by the Shanghai Bankers' Association to Peking, that Chinese business men are becoming seriously ex-creased over the depreciation of dollars, small silver and copper. As regards the latter, the Sin-wan pao" says that debasement has gone so far that some mints have found it is no longer profitable to coin it. The fineness of the dollar used to be maintained by the steadiness of sycee, which, being controlled by merchants and not by officials, preserves its purity, But apparently the mints no longer care about the ratio of sycee and dollars: they fill the latter with pace metal, with the result that whereas for rough purposes of calculation one used to add a third to a given amount of taels to find the equivalent in dollars, which meant Tis, 75 to the hundred dollars, the price has now dropped below 71.
There are three mints with which Shanghai is mainly con-earned, those of Nanking, Hangchow and Anhui, The fineness of dollars issued by the two former has been fairly maintained at the proper standard. Tut the Anhui mint, which is under the control of the General of the province, has been adding more and more base metal to its coinage. Whereas the authorized fineness of the Chinese dollar is 887 and of the old Mexican dollar 898, the Anhui mints dollar, according to a recent test, showed a fineness of only 830. During the past two months this mint has been producing these dollars at the rate of 50,000 a day In respect of small coinage, notably twenty-cent pieces, the Kuangtung and Fukien mints are the.worst offenders. Both of them have been passing large quantities into circulation, The fineness of the Kuangtung coins is said to be about 700, of those of Fukien about 400, as against the 800 in former years. Thi depreciation coupled with ove production amply accounts for the present cheapness of these coins. During 1922-23 the Canton mint, was closed, but it has recently been reopened—under conditions, it is popularly reported, which will tend to make its output worse than ever. For once we may believe that rumour is likely to be correct.
With twenty-cent pieces running six to the dollar and copper cents in the region of 200, it follows that additional cost of life ty the poorer classes of Chinese must be severely felt. All the: day labourers, wharf coolies and the like, who are paid so many cents a day, find their income: reduced in value by a large percentage. To some extent the value of dollars is influenced by the large number of them now in Shanghai. Only ten millions of them went out this year for the financing of the silk harvest as against fifteen last year. But the chief cause is undoubtedly do-preciation. Some day the Customs will find that the value of the dollars they are taking is making a serious difference to the quantity of the silver they have for the service of loans: and then perhaps the Powers will make a fuss. But that day is still far off. Peking has been ap-' pealed to by the Chinese bankers close the Anhui mint. But Peking has no power, and it would probably be more efficacious to appeal to Marshal Chi yuan, who is Governor-General of Kiangsu, Kiangsi and Anhui and therefore responsible for the goings-on of his subordinate at Anking. But the most efficient way of all would be that the leading foreign and Chinese banks should boycott new dollars, at any rate for a time. They must between them have sufficient, dollars in their treasuries for everyday needs and they also have a properly-secured paper issue. It is scandalous that the Anhui mint should be allowed to thrust its debased coinage on the public and it should be taught that until it calls in the bad stuff and issues '00d, it shall not be allowed to sell its dollars at any price.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.