Mints Issuing Trash: A
General Outery The chaotic condition of our currency seems to have become still more pronounced recently, remar! the "Sinweaxpao." Reckless coinage; of copper cents was soon followed! by reckless coinage of - 20-cent pieces, Next appeared the lightweight copper cents, and then lightweight 20-cent pieces in our market. Lately, silver dollars below the standard purity that is stipulated in our Currency Law have been discovered. All the provinces have had quite a busy time in trying to prevent their respective domains: from being flooded by these base coins.
Currency tokens should enjoy to the fullest extent a free circulation, but over-supply and inferior quality have both adversely affected such circulation. By the inexorable Law which tells us that bad currency' will diminish and replace good currency, our market will soon' handle "nothing but light-wight copper coins and light-weight and inferior quality 20-cent pieces and dollars, unless remedial nieasures; be taken forthwith. However, to find a solution to this complicated problem in the present cireumstances is impossible, while it will increasingly more difficult as times go.
Copper cents in Tientsin have depreciated to 220/225 for a dollar, 235/287 in Changsha and 195/19¢ jin Shanghai, with a decided tendency to fall still' further. Conditions in other places appear to be no better, since most places are prohibiting th: importation of copper coins from neighbouring provinees. We hear that Tientsin is forbidding thely import from Manchuria, and Hupeh refuses to admit them from Hunan. Although Hunan is itself prohibiting the influx of coppers from Szechuan, itis nevertheless straining: every energy to transport and sell its own coppers to Hupeh.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.