Mr. Sung Han-chang gave 1 short address on banking and Chinese banks in particular. He sketched the history of the financial industry in China, attributing to its inhabitants the first institution dealing with monetary matters. He referred to the early cumbrous methods of exchange and the usage of Sycee. The universality of the dollar at the present time, along with the minting facilities at hand, made it advisable to standardize all currencies, and use only the silver token for a medium of exchange. Mr. Sung declared that all government accounts were payable in this flexible way with the exception of the Customs accounts, which still clung to the antiquated Haikuan Tael, and depreciated the service for this reason.
The native as well as foreign banks in the business centres favoured rationalization of the system, which required only official action to make it nationwide.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.