Not for a very considerable sine have the members of the Shanghai Rotary Club, which held its weekly: timm reunion meeting at the Metro~ pole Hotel on Thursday, under the Vice-presidency of Mr. C. M. Wentworth, listened to such an interesting and informative address as that which was delivered to. them by Mr. E. Kann, a Leading authority on currency China, who took for his subject "The Currency Crisis in China."
'The speaker of the day, who disclaimed any preparation for his remarks, but said that he only proposed to deliver a "friendly chat," stated: "It is not easy for us to £0 back to ancient history, in dealing] with the subject of my' present remarks, Let us begin with the present time—two or three years ago—with. the origin of the Chinese currency which has been felt in every! part of the country. I do not wish to be alarming, but it is with us, and it is necessary that we grasp the meaning and the understanding it'in order to keep our heads The Chinese currency crisis ly due tothe world's economic of China in any respect 'When the world economic crisis, at the end of 1929, made itself clearly felt, the first commodity, in our view, that began to decline' rapidly was silver, There is a, saying—with what Justification T don't know—that with aliver rests the wholesale prices of the different commodities in the world; If you see silver go down, you see commodities go down, and vice versa, Tt is very difieutt to which one of them is the frst to be affected, but I have charts to prove the exactitude of this view, and, anyhow, we saw silver declining in 1929, 1990, and 1932, to an extent which all' of us felt was alarming. "The situation was either good or bad the case might be; I never specula te and what T'say T say with sincerity "and. absolutely unbiassed. Av that time, there were many seriously minded people who strongly ad~ vocated the imposition of an. import duty on silver, or even an embargo, in order that the world should not bbe permitted to dump silver, into China, I felt very strongly that that would be an unwise thing to do, Because there is no question of dumping silver. There may bea question of dumping goods, but the more silver China has. the better it would be for the country. As matter of fact, I felt sure it was th endeavour and wish of the then Minister of Finance, Me. 'T. V, Soong, that nothing was done, "This had the advantage of permitting silver to come into China, and consequently of preventing interference with the free movement of same, and we received a very large amount of silver.
In. order that you may judge the present situation, during) the last Qwelve. years—from 1921 to, 1933—Shanghai, as the centre of finance, received $560,000,000 worth of silver {rom abroad and from the, interior, although we shipped more silver into the interior than we received. The effect of this permission, on the par fof the authorities, helped us tremendously—to such an extent that very few, unless those possibly actively connected with the Stock, Exchange, realized that there was a world crisis. Our wholesale com= Todity. prices instead of falling Went up) and Chiea vas the only country tu the world that was Spared the horrors of the world economic depression. Things went fu that. direction unfit 1932, and the frst shock to drive us from our Paradise was when England in 1931 went off the gold standard, followed Japan. "it had rear repercussions China, When America followed ult in 1088, we felt it more and more because the buying power of both. England and America" became smaller than it was at the time; in other" words, since 1033 Chinese commodity prices have been going, down and China was placed in the dimeult position of having to stop deflation, the most difficult situation Which you have ever known China, "until when. Deflation meant that China could not even keep up het very small. export. in, compari sion, to her Import, and the situa tion' grew very. serious indeed. woud not say" that Suffered very mush feeount who balance of ead, Maree, and stw clearly that some-saw. the situation. growin
Thing' disagreeable and "dangerous Was" comings and they became. sus
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.