In
questions of currency, taxation, railways and every other
vexatious problem, it is solely by using this instrument that
satisfactory results can be attained.
[Footnote: We need only give a single example of what we mean. If,
in the matter of the reform of the currency, instead of
authorizing trade-agencies, i.e. the foreign Exchange Banks, to
make a loan to China, which is necessarily hedged round with
conditions favourable to such trade-agencies, the Powers took the
matter directly in their own hands; and selecting the Bank of
China--the national fiscal agent--as the instrument of reform
agreed to advance all the sums necessary, PROVIDED a Banking Law
was passed by the Parliament of China of a satisfying nature, and
the necessary guarantees were forthcoming, it would soon be
possible to have a uniform National Currency which would be
everywhere accepted and lead to a phenomenal trade expansion. It
should be noted that China is still on a Copper Standard basis,--
the people's buying and selling being conducted in multiples of
copper cent-pieces of which there has been an immense over-issue,
the latest figures showing that there are no less than
22,000,000,000 1-cent, ten cash pieces in circulation or 62 coins
per head of population--roughly twenty-five millions sterling in
value,--or 160,000 tons of copper! The number of silver dollars
and subsidiary silver coins is not accurately known,--nor is the
value of the silver bullion; but it certainly cannot greatly
exceed this sum.
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