In another column we report the result of a meeting of influential Chinese organizations in Shanghai, when the decision was arrived at to boycott light-weight copper coins for the future, this on account of the excessive depreciation now in vogue. The decision is courageous but is it. practicable? To start with, we must.have sub-divisions of the silver ten-cent piece, and none are in evidence save copper coins, good, bad and indifferent. The fact that this boycott in enforced by a considerable number of firms, and influential firms too, will not prevent their circulation in other quarters, and sooner or Jater, unless anything interferes to prevent the operation of Gresham's Law, everybody will have to deal in bad cents or else have nothing to do with sums lower than the smallest silver denomination. So far as can the seen the other well-known law about currency—probably Peel's—will not apply at any stage to these copper coins, for no matter how contemptible their status as tokens becomes, their intrinsic value, no doubt becoming steadily less all the time, will still remain. Tf, as in the case of paper, they could ultimately cease to have any purchasing power at all, the law to which we refer—a good currency replacing a worthless one—would come into force,-but as a matter of fact they will always have their value as base metal. On top of this there is every sign of the smaller silver coins (the 20-cent piece is becoming notorious) following suit.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.