It is and it is not—a ban will be placed on silver and a baa will not be placed—Mr. Soong left for Nanking yesterday to do it; he will return to Shanghai to-morrow because whatever is done will be done here—the Government has taken a definite stand; the Government-will take no stand—and so on every morning from 9 to 12 and from 2to 4. There is then an interval for tea and cocktails during which silver is talked with less authority but more certainty.
As a matter of fact, nobody knows what will be-done. The brokers, with inside tips, have as much knowledge as the outsider with no tip. at all. Perhaps even those who are eventually to do whatever is to be done, do. not yet themselves Know what is to be done. For the great astronomical laws work in marvellous and ddviots ways and it is a brave man indeed who would attempt to i terfere with the functioning of economic laws. Who has' yet found an improvement on Gresham's law, except on Kiukiang Road, where everything is improvable if a sixteenth is to be made out of it.
Now in the old days, such a. crisis would have been handled very simply, as simply as the Gold Franc case was handled some years ago. A solution would have been found and everybody would have been happy, except posterity which would have still another bill to pay. What are economic laws or any laws compared to the friendship of those who know how to make and those who are willing to make. A bottle of champagne, a delightful dinner of 40 or 0 courses, another bank account in Daiven or somewhere like that. How very disappointed are all the wise men of the street that that has not happened this time with silver! After all, why should an economic law interfere with the comity of friends?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.