Silver as Currency in China - Chinese Currency by J. Edkins.
Silver.
The silver used in China as a circulating medium in her commerce has been increasing, in quantity especially, for four hundred years, and most rapidly of all during the present century. Each industrious Chinaman represents so much wealth by his labour, that is, so much silver, for silver has now for several centuries been the standard of money value in this country. The increase of population means an increase of wealth wherever there is scope for industry; and in localities where opportunity is wanting, it leads to emigration. At the beginning of the Ming dynasty, in the latter half of the fourteenth century, the public currency had fallen into a most unsatisfactory state through the government not being able to maintain the credit of the paper notes then used. Yunnan was conquered, and it contained many silver mines, and these were worked to increase the quantity of silver then rapidly coming into use as a medium of exchange. We are
told that in 1578 the government received from Yunnan 13,764 taels in paper money, 944 piculs of grain and 5,769 strings of shells. Two hundred years later the amount received in hemp, cloth, and silver amounted to 14,801 taels of this last metal. The strings of shells used as money had disappeared. The cumbersome grain tribute in heavy bags had become changed for silver. But hemp and cloth were still received by the government tax-collector because they could be exchanged for silver and the expense of conveyance of these articles was not very great. Yet after a few more decades this mode of paying taxes will again be exchanged for silver, which in a country like China, has proved to be the most economical form of tribute. The government in these circumstances began to prize silver very highly. It keeps its value as an article in great request for ornamental work. It is cheaper to convey than other kinds of tribute. It is acceptable in trade, and the merchant is far more willing to part with his goods for silver than for paper money. Hence the government made efforts to obtain more of it. They set criminals to work in the mines of Yiiunan. This was in 1460; and they do not seem to have allowed Chinese employers of labour to manage mining operations. They considered it good policy to keep the mines in their own hands, and they ordered the high officers to report fully on any failure in the working or diminution in the yield of metal. Then in 1463 the works were suddenly ordered to be stopped, probably because of earthquakes, for a few years later, in 1511, the Governor of Yunnan sent up a memorial advising that all the mines should be stopped, on account of fresh earthquakes ; but they were opened again in 1514, notwithstanding other objections which were pressed at the time, such as the gathering of a rough-spirited population at the mines and the neglect of agriculture in the province leading to want of food to supply the needs of immigrants. At this very time American silver began to enter the country through foreign trade at Canton and Amoy. More silver was thus introduced and a real need supplied, for it enabled the government to abandon both the shell currency in the south-west and the paper currency everywhere, and the merchants were very glad to see the last of the government notes and to have in their place this shining metal. Silver was now wanted by every one to keep in store or use in buying as he pleased.
The value of silver in copper cash has gone through great vicissitudes. It has been three thousand and it has been one thousand per tael. In A.D. 1696 a tael of silver was worth 1,750 cash, and it is now, A.D. 1889, worth 1,380 in the Shanghai market. In the reign of Yung Cheng, about A.D. 1730, thirty-six taels of silver were paid for a mouth's maintenance to twenty-one workmen at cash fonndries in Yunnan. That is to say, one ounce and three-fourths of silver would then support an able bodied workman for a month. In 1555 the casting of cash in Yunnan was commenced, on account of copper being produced there in abundance. The
disuse of paper made a new supply, both of silver and of copper cash a necessity, and from that time forward both metals have been needed ; and when the growth of population is remembered they must still continue to be required in increasing quantity. Two centuries ago the workman could live for 100 cash a day. Now more is required, because prices have risen and every one who carries on his shoulder his baskets of market produce from his little farm to the adjoining local centre of merchandise expects more money for it than his grandfather did. The old currency needs to be modified to meet the new conditions. Copper cash are not enough for the uses of common life. Silver is required to do what the cash, through gradual sinking in value, cannot do. Two hundred cash are wanted to buy that amount of food and clothing for which in former times one hundred would have been enough. That is to say, the man who goes to market to buy must carry with him twice as much weight in copper as his great-grandfather did. It is more convenient in these circumstances to have small silver coins, and this is our convenience in the west, or small notes issued by native banks and properly stamped- and inscribed may be used as they still are in Peking.
Yet small silver coins could not now in China take the place of copper cash. Copper must continue to rank in China as the most widely useful of all currencies because of the disproportion in the expense of living in large cities and in country districts, and the wide differences in climate existing between the north and the south and between mountain and plain in so large a country as China. That coin is most adapted to China which has the most minnte divisibility. A dollar which is now worth 3/3rd is divisible into a thousand separate coins composed of a mixture of copper and zinc. It suits the prices of marketable articles and the incomes of the people to retain this subdivision in current coins. Even silver is circulated in very small lumps as well as in large ones, and the small hand steel-yard used in weighing it is subdivided into hnndredths of an ounce. Such a steel-yard is part of the kit of every traveller, as a check on the weighing of the money shops.
The Silver Mines in Yunnan.
Yunnan is the Chinese province in which gold and silver with lead, copper, and tin are found in the greatest abundance. When forty years ago the Cabinet Council was ordered to consider all available ways and means for replenishing the treasury and to urge the improvement of the administration in matters greatly affecting the public weal, the reply of the Cabinet embraced five points they were rivers, grain conveyance, salt revenue, taxes and duties, and, finally, mines. As a consequence all the viceroys and governors were ordered to make enquiry into the existing condition of their provinces and to report their views as to what should be done withiu the region over which they presided. Lin Tse-hsii was at that time the Viceroy of Yunnan and Kweichow. It was shortly before his death. He sent officers of ability to all the mining districts, extremely numerous in Yunnan, and from their reports of the condition of the various mining industries at that period he prepared an elaborate memorial in which he gave many interesting details. The chief additions to the supply of silver from domestic sources during the Ming dynasty and under the present government have been obtained from Yiiunan ; and of gold also. It is important therefore to know how much native silver has thus been added to the foreign silver to mate np the sycee of commerce throughout China and the staple of the Chinese revenue. Taking the yearly amonnt estimated by the Board of Revenue as that which the government should receive from sixteen mines in and after the year 1811 at Tls. 26,550, it appears that since that time till now the sycee of the country should have been increased by two million and a quarter taels sent to Peking from Yiinuan. To this should be added the amount spread among the people by the miners, whether labourers or employers of labour. The government share is fifteen per cent and the annual output, as estimated by the Board of Revenue in 1811, was therefore Tls. 177,000 of Yiinnan silver. This would accumulate annually, and in seventy-eight years would increase the stock of silver in the country, embracing that used in the arts with that employed as a currency, to the extent of Tls. 13,806,000. Yet forty years ago when Lin Tsehsu prepared this memorial he reported that one of the sixteen mines was then unproductive, so that he rated the annual output at one-sixteenth less than the Board of Revenue estimate in 1811. Making a reduction of Taels 800,000 on this account we have thirteen millions as the native yield of silver from the mines of Yunnan since 1811.
The locality of these mines is principally in the north-east, south-east, and south of the province. The great earthquake of a few years ago shook the centre, and it would appear therefore that the productive gold and silver mines of that large and thinly peopled province are on the outskirts of the earthquake region. It is an interesting question whether there is any geological cause for this. It might be conjectured that when liability to earthquakes coincides with mines of the precious metals in one locality, the existing veins of gold and silver must have been thrown up from their subterranean source at a later date than similar veins in localities which
are and have long been free from disturbance. The most not-able earthquake region of China at present is in a line north and south from Yiiunan to Kansa, inclusive of both these provinces. Geology has taught us that the Himalayas are the newest of the great mountain chains of the globe. The rich store of the precious metals in Yunnan may have some connection with the great Himalayan upheaval which found its eastern limit in the province of Szechuan. Wherever there is a vein of metal there must have been first a fissure produced in the rock where it is found into which the molten metal from below could be poured as into a mould by the upheaving force.
Lin Tse-hsu speaks in his memorial of the discovery marks which guide the miners in their search for new veins of gold and silver in Yunnan. When the Cornwall miners notice in some new locality small masses of rubbish in which a little metal is seen they call this a skoad. The Chinese call it miau. It is the end of a vein which may be uncovered by the miner with his tools, and he then learns in what direction the vein of metal runs. The approaches to the miau are called yin and the Chinese in Yunnan have a proverb which says that " when one mountain has ore a thousand mountains have the yin" or leading indications which conduct to it. Yi shan yu kung, chien shan yu yin. Our English word load in " loadstone " has the sense of leading also, and its use is analogous to that of the Chinese miners' word yin. There are in Yunnan many abandoned mines. Some mines that still yield a little are closed officially because the yield is not sufficient to pay expenses and allow the Emperor to have the fifteen per cent which the law requires. Some mines are entirely official, and all that is yielded goes to the government, working expenses being deducted. When there is a prospect of the successful working of a new mine, a petition announcing the fact and asking official permission is presented. The number of persons who may dig for the precious metals is limited by the consideration of the extent of the metalliferous locality. A thousand persons must not be allowed to gather where only a few hundreds can gain a living by digging. As to the case when any mine does not yield its quota for Peking, the high officials are allowed to supplement the deficit by the surplus of some other mine. The government will be satisfied if at the appointed time they get the whole amount fixed by law. When this energetic Viceroy, so renowned on account of his destruction of several ships' cargoes of opium in the Canton river a few years before, was sent to Ytiunan, he at once commenced diligent enquiry into mining operations, and he was prepared to make a full report when the edict requiring it arrived. He had already his emissaries distributed through all the districts collecting facts. The last part of the report gives the rules which he recommends for adoption. They are : first, the removal of the prohibition to mine for lead. In ten catties of lead be mentions that six or seven mace of silver could be obtained. Secondly, there should be the cutting down of superfluous expenditure. This improvement was needed in mines of all the five metals because an absurdly complex system of payments and obligations at the mines had grown up. Thirdly, strict discipline over the miners was called for. Among them for one honest man there were eight or nine dishonest ones. It is essential to have officials present to control the miners and punish offenders with the cangue and the bamboo. Fire-arms must not be allowed within the mine gates. Fourthly, it is necessary to take precautions against fraud. The people who collect at the mines in Yunnan form brotherhoods and have shares. There are men among them who bring a sample of ore, exaggerate the prospect of gain from working the ground where this ore was obtained, and mislead others into taking shares in a worthless claim. A strict surveillance needs to be kept at all the mines for the prevention of malpractices.
Copper Cash.
The older books written by Chinese archaeologists on the history of cash contain at the beginning examples of money professing to come down from the primitive ages. Some of them belong to Fuhi and others to Shen-nnng. The foreign collector of cash ought to know, if he has snch coins in his cabinet, that this immense antiquity is given to them by mediaeval mythmakers. The best modern numismatists do not recognise snch a claim. Yet they appear in a book of so much authority as Esi Cfcing Ku Chien, compiled by an imperial commission and published A.D. 1749. They chiefly belong to the age of Mencius or thereabouts. Seven
hundred years ago, when the capital was at Haugchow, the first complete book on Chinese coins was published. Since that time archaeologists have been numerous and a persistent effort has been made to collect newly-found coins. Builders of houses and walls, countrymen at work in the fields, restorers of bridges, and diggers of canals in any part of China, from time to time meet with old cash which are added to the current coins in circulation or are sold or presented to local numismatists. There never has been a law against the use of old cash mixed with the new, nor has there been any official effort made to collect them, and in consequence it is an every, day occurrence to meet with coins made a thousand years ago. The traveller in China does not know, unless he examines carefully, how many relics of distant centuries constantly pass through his hands or through those of his " faitfiful Achates."
The chief interest attaches to coins of a time anterior to the bookburning, B.C. 211. That was the period when literature and the arts and sciences took a mighty spring upward. It was the time when great books were written destined to be ever after preserved by a grateful nation as those precious heirlooms which a mad conqueror in his enmity against the sages failed to destroy. The coins of that time are indicators of progress in commerce and the arts in various localities of northern China. We may consider it as proved that bronze casting and the manufacture of iron implements as well as gold-smith's and silver-smith's work were well advanced long before Confucius. The history known as Kwo yu shews that this was the case in regard to work in bronze. But cash were cast before B.C. 524, for it is recorded in that year that larger coins than had been before made were then cast in Houan on the banks of the Yellow River by order of the Chow Emperor. From the collections of the numismatists it appears that a square hole in the middle and a legend of two characters were in use as early as this in Chinese coins. Hwo was the word for " money," meaning that which is changed (hua) for something else. Pao, "valuable," was prefixed to it. But coins must have existed before this, and in the Han dynasty it was fully believed that Kiang Tai-kung, the chief minister of Wen Wang in the 13th century before our era, introduced them in Sheusi when in office, and afterwards in Shantung when he retired to his principality. His special repute is for advancing commerce, and it was under his fostering care that the salt trade of northern Shantung came to exercise a decided influence on the development of internal commerce in ancient China. The history of Pankoo ascribes to Kiang Tai-kung the origin of round coins as distinguished from knives and pieces of cloth. We may adopt this view and may connect it with improvements in metallurgy and new acquisitions of foreign knowledge at the beginning of the Chon dynasty. If Kiang Tai-kung is rightly credited with the origination of round cash, the period of that improvement is then fixed to the 12th century before our era. Yet it may be that he is credited with it because he promoted trade and was possessed of political sagacity shewn in various useful measures. If at any time between the eleventh and fifth centuries before onr era the coins called cash were introduced by any statesman in Northern Shantung, whose name did not shine out with lustre in history, it was very likely that the improvement would be attributed to Kiang Tai-kung. It would be by a suggestion from the strings of sea shells then used as money that the idea of a hole for stringing the new copper coins would be most probably
derived. Further it would be before the time of Kwau Chung, the great administrative statesman of the seventh century, for in the book purporting to be written by Kwan Chung, there are several references to the coining of cash, but the compiler does not attribute the invention to Kwan Chung himself. Perhaps in these circumstances it may be best to assign the first round metal coinage to about the ninth century, the age of Siueu Wang, when the country was prosperous and wars were conducted successfully. But, this may be too late, and there is really no very strong reason based in the old literature of China why to Kiang Tai-kung
the honour of introducing a copper currency should not be assigned. The remarkable old work Chowli, in describing the administration through all its departments, mentions among them a cash office for the manufacture and issue of cash. But this book was probably small at first and its bulk increased from one period to another, and this particular statement may have been inserted, we know not when, by some unknown official. We must wait for more discoveries from underground. The railway from Peking to Hankow will in Chihli and Honau proceed through a country occupied by a people who for four thousand years at least have ploughed and sown the land, carried the produce to market, exchanged it for something necessary for use or ornament, and returned to their homes with their new possessions. The railway works may anywhere in that region, " rich with the spoils of time," yield interesting treasures which will throw light on the past. Should there be a line made "from the city of Confucius, or from Tai-shan to the north of it, to Tientsin, it would bisect the very territory which belonged as a feudal fief to the traditional founder of the copper currency of China. As about many other ancient matters, so on the question of the origin of this currency, our successors will know with certainty what now cannot be determined.
Shanghai as a Money Distributor.
The Customs Gazette gives increased facilities in its newest form for observing the part taken by Shanghai in receiving and distributing treasure. The treasure tables of the Customs Gazette mark the movements of gold, sycee, dollars, and copper cash. These four elements of Chinese currency are not only constantly circulating from hand to hand. They are a part of the freight of steamers bringing profit to the merchant, and as such find their place in the quarterly returns of trade of the Imperial Maritime Customs. The most striking feature is the flow of dollars to Shanghai, which at present amounts to about five millions in three months. Against this large amount only about $80,000 are sent away again by steamer. The five millions, in addition to the facility they give to Shanghai for conducting commerce, as for example in buying sycee to send to the north, go to increase the circulating medium in the silk districts, in Soochow, in Hangchow, and in other large cities of Kiangsu and the adjoining provinces. Of the five millions, more than three come from Hongkong and Macao and $170,000 direct from America. Ningpo sends more than half a million dollars to Shanghai in three months, while Wenchow sends $120,000 and Foochow $150,000. Amoy and Swatow together part with $350,000 more. There is no corresponding movement of dollars to or from the ports of the north or of the Yangtze river. This constant flow of perhaps twenty million dollars a year shews that Central China, especially in its eastern part, urgently needs dollars to assist in its trade. There are parts where the Carolns dollar is in demand and the Mexican dollar is not wanted, but in the rich Soochow plain a decided partiality is shewn for Mexicans. In Foochow a million dollars were parted with to Hongkong during the last quarter,
shewing that North Fukieu is willing to lose that amount from its currency for the sake of the opium smoker's gratification. Foochow imports 1,100 piculs of Indian opium in three months. The fact is similar in Formosa ; Tamsui sends in three months $50,000 to Hongkong, and Takow as many more. Formosa must have her thousand piculs of the Indian drug in one quarter of a year and diminish her store of accumulated wealth in proportion. Very likely the $200,000 which Formosa sends to Amoy may also be chiefly set down to the love of opium. The Chinese in .Formosa have now smoked opium for more than a century and a half, for it must be remembered that the first imperial edict against the sale of opium for smoking was made because of the spread of that habit in Formosa 160 years ago. When Amoy and Swatow present their statistics, export of dollars to pay for opium is still the chief fact calling for remark. This is not so much in regard to Amoy, which sends only about $20,000 to Hongkong; but in Swatow no less a sum than $700,000 is parted with from the people's store, chiefly, it must be supposed, to obtain opium as an indulgence ; for looking into the
table of imports we find that Swatow received 1,859 piculs of opium from Hongkong and paid 57,000 Haikwan taels of opium duty. Opium then is the. great derauger of finance in the eastern portion of Canton province and the neighbouring part of Kiangsi. In Canton city, representing the central and northern portion of the province and the adjoining prefectures of Hunan and Kuaugsi, the most striking feature is the absorption of dollars from Hongkong, amounting to more than a million during the last quarter. The receipt of
opium from Hongkong was during the same time 3,300 piculs. The people there want dollars and will not part with them, preferring to pay for opium in other ways. Hainan is like Formosa in its hahits, but on a smaller scale, parting with $150,000 to Hongkong in return for 160 piculs of opium. So it is with Pakhoi, which, situated on the south-western coast of the province of Canton, 'sends $240,000 to Hongkong, receiving from it in return 280 piculs of opium. Thus the regular growth of trade allows the Kiangsu people to absorb twenty millions of dollars in a year to facilitate the operations of commerce, and those of the Canton region about four millions. In all at the present time China is absorbing somewhere about twenty-four millions of dollars in a year, so far as we can judge approximately by a single quarterly number of the Customs Gazette.
In regard to gold, at the present time Shanghai is sending away every three months to Europe an amount whose equivalent is 187,000 Haikwan taels and to India 280,000 Haikwan taels. Including smaller amounts, such as 20,000 taels' worth of gold to Hongkong, China is at present parting with hoarded gold and the produce of mines to the extent of about two million Haikwan taels in a year. All this or almost all comes from the north. There is 131,000 taels worth from the Manchurian gold mines, and 57,000 taels worth from the Chefoo gold mines, but the main part of the export is from Peking, which amounts to 500,000 taels. There is evidence here that the European demand for gold affects the rich families in Peking to this extent at the present time, and wealthy people among the higher classes are learning now to study the rates of exchange and make profit by the diminution of their gold hoardings. According to the tables Shanghai has received other amounts of gold daring the quarter to the extent of 77,000 Haikwan taels. This is chiefly from Corea, which has sent from her gold mines 254,000 dollars worth of gold, of which $134,000 went to Japan and $120,000 were shipped to China. Thns it appears that the Corean gold mines are the most productive at present, and next come the Manchurian.
In the northern provinces dollars are very little known, and silver is the favourite medium of payment for commodities. In consequence of this, Shanghai sent to Newchwaug during the quarter half a million taels of uncoined silver to pay for beans, oak-leaf, silk, and gold. To Tientsin, Shanghai sent 575,000 taels of silver to pay for samshu, strawbraid, boots and shoes, gold, wool, felt, skins, and medicines. To Chefoo she sent 86,000 taels chiefly for beans, beancake, vermicelli, and gold. Up the Yangtze river Shanghai sent during the
last quarter 400,000 taels to Hankow to pay for tea, tobacco, medicines, silfc, oil, vegetable tallow, and wood. She also sent 53,000 taels to Ningpo, receiving in return tea, medicines, silk, piece goods, and fish. Shanghai has during the closing months of last year also been sending to Europe and India 68,000 taels of silver each. Should any one ask from what places Shanghai received the silver amounting to nearly two million taels which she has distributed,' it may be replied that 870,000 taels came from America and half a million from the Straits Settlements. Hongkong sent her 70,000 and Japan 180,000. Of the river ports Chinkiang sent her 40,000 taels, and Wuhu 60,000 taels. But Shanghai sends away by steamer much more uncoined silver than she receives. The difference for three months is not less than a million and a half taels. She therefore draws upon some hoarded stock of silver near at hand. The key to this is found in the circumstance that dollars are rapidly taking the place of sycee silver in the hoards of Kiaugsu people. The northern trader likes uncoined silver best, and he obtains it. He can conduct his mercantile transactions without the dollar. So with the Hankow trader. The native owners of medicine and tea prefer sycee to dollars, and Kiangsu to please tliem makes an exchange of hoarded sycee for dollars whenever the supply from America and the Straits proves to be insufficient. At the southern ports too, when there is an export of dollars this is the most likely to be the reason. It is not that the southern merchant begins to tire of dollars or that the southern provinces cease to absorb them ; the cause is partly found in the demand for sycee at
Shanghai. When western and northern commodities are brought there by steamers, Shanghai has to pay for them in a currency acceptable to the northern and western trader. Sycee is bought with dollars in Shanghai, where the bankers can find it in the neighbouring cities. Thus Swatow, longing for opium and partly to pay revenue, sends 420,000 of her hoarded dollars to Hongkong to buy it, and Hongkong ships them as revenue to Canton, or as cargo to Shanghai. There the banker changes them for sycee, which is preferred to dollars at Newchwang, Tientsin, and Hankow. In the three Manchurian provinces represented by Newchwang foreign opium is not wanted, and hence the people there are able quietly to absorb about two million taels of sycee silver in a year in return for their produce and as a fund to buy cotton goods from England and America. So it is with Tientsin. Sycee there is changed for wood, gold, felt, and skins. Hankow in the same way pays her tea cultivators with the sycee which Shanghai sends. Thus Shanghai is shewn to be the real centre" round which the money circulation of the whole country revolves. Shanghai stands between the north, the west, and the south, and adjusts the money circulation so as to satisfy the demands of each.
The Opium Drain of Silver.
Political writers in China for more than half a century have constantly repeated the statement that opium depletes the national store of silver. They continne to do this down to the present time, and there is no doubt that the statement is true. The confirmed opium smoker cannot wait for his
gratification. He mast enjoy it every day at a fixed time. If he does not possess the necessary silver he must beg; borrow, or steal. This he will do through the imperious demands of a depraved appetite. A victim to a bad habit, he does not yield to the argument of the reasoning faculty ; as it is with one so it is with millions. When an immense number of individuals daily insist each of them on the expenditure of a small amount of silver which is rapidly exported to foreign countries, the silver question comes necessarily before the attention of the government. The governing authorities in their care for the country's interest are obliged to consider what can be done to prevent the constant outflow of silver. Not being able, as they supposed, to destroy a bad moral habit, they first tried to check the impoverishment of their country by destroying an enormous quantity of opium while it was still the property of foreign merchants. They would have done far better to have bought it all at its price and then destroyed it. This would have saved a war. Since that time the native growth of the poppy and the manufacture of opium by the Chinese themselves have been extending so greatly that now every year the region which makes use of opium from India is contracting. The contraction of the area, however, is somewhat slow and irregular.
At Ningpo the import of Indian opium in ten years sank from an annual amount of 8,000 piculs to 6,000 piculs. But Shanghai still (1889) imported 17,400 picnls, while seven years ago the amount was 13,000 piculs. Seven years ago Shanghai and Ninzpo imported in all about 21,500 piculs, all apparently for local consumption ; at present they require 23,000 piculs. There is an advantage in linking together the amount received at these two ports for local consumption, because Shanghai now sends opium direct to Hangchow,
which city was formerly supplied from Niugpo. In Soochow, Hangchow, and the other cities of the two provinces of Chekiang and Kiangsn, the consumption of Indian opium is still therefore increasing. It is not here that the competition with the native drug is at first view very perceptible. In 1873 Shanghai and Ningpo required in all 20,000 piculs. If we take the river ports together, the opium of India was imported in 1873 to the amount of 19,000 piculs. In 1879 that amount was still required, and also in 1884. Since that year the
amount has declined. It fell to 17,000, then to 16,000, then to 15,000, then to 11,000, and now it is 14,000. From Chinkiang west to Hankow the people use one-third less of Indian opium than they did eleven years ago. Here may be seen the gradual triumph of the government policy on the opium question. The people in Kiangsu, Anhni, Kiangsi, and Hupeh smoke as much opium as ever, and more than ever, but they only buy Indian opium to the extent of Tls. 5,300,000, whereas eleven years ago they spent on this indulgence Tls. 7,200,000. Of the Tls, 5,300,000 the Chinese government gets nearly a third, and the remainder is lost to the country, and is devoted to the relief of Indian burdens, to the support of the native Hindoo cultivators, and the maintenance of the government of India. The results will be somewhat different if we class Chinkiang with Shanghai and Ningpo, and throw Wnhu, Kiukiang, and Hankow together. The fall of the Chiukiang
import has been very rapid. In 1884 the import there was nearly 11,000 piculs. It has now fallen to 4,000. This must be partly because Shanghai now supplies many smokers who formerly were provided for through Ghiukiaug. If we include Nanking in one category with Soochow and Hangchow, as we must do if we place the imports of Chinkiang, Shanghai, and Ningpo together, we have another advantage. The chief seats of the cultivation of the mulberry and of the silk and satin mannfactnres are thug combined in one set of figures. In
1873, then, the silk country of China used 36,000 picnls of opium. In 1888 the amount was 28,000, and last year it was 26,000. That is to say, the silk districts have within seventeen years changed the use of foreign opium for that of the native product to the extent of one-fourth of the whole amount used by them seventeen years ago. Their expenditure on foreign opium has been reduced from 13,000,000 taels to 10,000,000 taels.
Nothing will induce the statesmen of China to alter their opium policy after such results. After a few years they will have the courage to tax the native drug heavily, but for the present they have a firm conviction that it is their duty to prevent their people, if possible, from enriching India at the rate of 32,000,000 taels a year. If they will injure themselves physically by smoking opium, let them at least smoke the native article. By classing together tbe three river ports above Chinkiang, we learn that whereas in Central China 8,500 picnls of foreign opium were used seventeen years ago, the quantity required now is only 6,500. That is to say, nearly one-fourth of the smokers there have adopted the native and cheaper article instead of the dear Indian product, Probably we have here arrived at a law of change which may, to a great extent, justify the prediction that in about fifteen years more, if diplomacy makes no more changes, the whole Indian import will be less by one-fourth or one-third thau it now is. The central provinces will then lose to India three million taels per annum less than at present. In Peking and Tientsin the people still love foreign opium, but the use of it all over the north is steadily declining. In that part of China the effect of the import of this drug on the currency has never been very great. But it has been sufficient to prevent unanimous action on the part of successive governor of the northern provinces in prohibiting resolutely the cultivation of the poppy. They preferred that evil to the increased use of the Indian drug. To stop opinra smoking as a vice was they thought impracticable, but at least they might prevent the silver of the people from being carried away to foreign lauds to buy a drng which wastes their resources and impoverishes the country.
Since 1882, when these observations were made, the import of opium has diminished. In 1898 it was for all China 49,785 piculs, costing 7,000,000. In 1899 it was 59,000 picnls, for which the payment was 8,400,000. In March, 1901, the price is about Taels 670 at Shanghai, or about 7,000,000 for the year.
Opium Drain of Silver from South China.
To understand the relation of currency to opium in China it is quite requisite to consider the trade of the southern ports separately and in groups. If the market rate of opium is $500 a picul, then at Pakhoi, a small port on the west coast of the province of Canton, 1,000 piculs of opium cost the people there $500,000. They buy the cheaper kinds. In 1888 they bought 1,100 picnls, and in 1885 the amount was 773 picnls. To pay for it they sent vi& Hongkong to Canton, and to Hongkong itself, $600,000, and the value of exports and imports together was $6,000,000. If the profit made on this sum was only ten per cent, nearly the whole of it was covered by what their opium cost. They threw away 5/6th of their profits for the gratification of smoking. The principal exports from that port are liquid indigo, hides, sugar, aniseed, and tin, and the people, if they must injure themselves, can afford to gratify their appetite in using the opium pipe when the industries which prepare these products for the market are thriving. There are four other ports in the province, namely, Canton, Lappa, Kowloon, and Swatow. Let these be grouped together. They imported in 1889 the large amount of 23,000 piculs of opium.* In 1899 it was 14,258 piculs, and in 1897 it was 12,376 piculs. For this enjoyment they parted with an enorraons snm. They have a fancy there to bay a considerable quantity of Malwa, the dearest kind of foreign opium. The quantity consumed in previous years was reported as 8,000 piculs, or in one case 10,000. At other times it was not more than 4,000 or 6,000. A large amount of smuggling then existed. There is now much less smuggling because it has been rendered extremely difficult by the new system recently put in operation. We are in a position at present to know much more accurately than before the laws of the distribution of opium and its effects on particular localities. It may be said in regard to Canton itself, on account of its numerous industries producing in one year $40,000,000 worth of exports and imports, that its population can better afford to pay for their opium pipe than the population in districts where these industries do not exist. The value of the exports and imports at Swatow last year was $21,000,000, at Lappa $5,000,000 and at Kowloon $18,000,000. Out of the $84,000,000 represented by these figures the owners consented to lose oneseventh for the luxury of opium smoking.
Do the profits made by the sugar industry in Swatow, joined to the other rather limited paper and cotton weaving industries, at all justify the people in that part of the province in their heavy expenditure ? We cannot but admire the many forms of mechanical skill which flourish in the city of Canton and its neighbourhood. The favourable position of the city led to their introduction. Foreign trade created a demand and the ingenuity of the people assisted in the origination of a great variety of useful trades. Tea and silk are both produced there. Chiuaware and grass cloth, printed books, mats, fireworks, paper, tobacco, sugar, sugar-preserves, and packing cloth, all figure to a considerable extent in the exports. There is also a large seafaring population, bold and patient, and there are workers in silver and gold, glass blowers, brass founders, artificers in ivory and in jade stone, and makers of every sort of clothing. Only a city conveniently situated for commerce, on
an arm of the sea with good shelter for ships, could develop all these trades. In addition this city is the seat of government, and as such a centre to which taxes flow from all the cities of the province. Here, too, the graduates pass their examinations for the second degree. All this has tended to raise the standard of education and contributed to render the people well-to-do. While other southern ports part with dollars, Canton absorbs them. The multiplicity of her commercial products allows of this, and the constant drain of silver to Peking or elsewhere in the form of revenue increases the absorption of dollars. Last year, for instance, the city of Canton absorbed $2,700,000. Under the direction of the treasurer the dollars he received would need, if intended for the north, to be first melted down and made into sycee or exchanged for sycee by bankers. In contrast with Canton, if we consider the character of the Swatow population we find that, excepting the cultivation of sugar, some grass cloth, paper and cotton cloth, they shew but little active industry They are indeed strong and active as day labourers, and the native employers of labour have adopted steam machinery for refining sugar, bat the labouring class have not risen to any repute for successful ingenuity as is the case at Canton. Yet Swatow needs in a year 7,000* piculs of opium, and the people there are very fond of Malwa. For this poor gratification, costing them $3,500,000 in a year, they bear the tropical heat of the sugar plantations over a tract of country large enough to produce $6,000,000 worth of sugar in a year. What is needed in the region to which Swatow belongs is an active anti-opium propaganda, and the wide introduction of useful trades suited to enrich the people and increase the revenue of the State. In this way habits of ingenious industry wonld take the place of the indolence and inefficiency cansed by opium smoking. If the silk industry were introduced the climate would probably be found, as on the West River near Canton, very suitable. Tea should be cultivated in hilly districts. The manufacture of cotton cloth by Western machinery should be introduced. Workmen there have a very fine physique. The opportunity should be given them to learn to manufacture articles of daily use which they now buy from elsewhere. As to opium, they should be persistently tanght not to use it. This can only be done by religious and moral teaching. Without these, laws and treaties become a dead letter. They will not submit to be restrained till the convictions of duty and self-interest are thoroughly aroused.
Chinese writers are constantly saying that the purchase of foreign coal from Japan and England causes a drain of silver. So they say also of English sheetings and American drills. Money leaves the country and makes it poorer than before. The Chinese will now feel this more strongly than hitherto because the production of silk and tea have become appreciably less profitable to them than they were. Thus they will be driven inevitably to the expansion of their manufactures and mining operations. But to adopt the same policy
in supplying the demand for opium by a native product is a great error, however successful it has been of late years. They will be compelled to return by the way they came, and that after no long time. To prevent the opium drain of silver from the southern provinces the true policy is, not to meet the demand for this narcotic by an increased native production, but to encourage an anti-opium smoking propaganda. Smokers are, in the six provinces where foreign opium is still preferred, twice as numerous among the commercial classes as among the labouring classes. Nine in ten of the labourers are probably still free from the vice. Great efforts should be made to cure the victims in both classes and save the enormous number of occasional smokers who are always approaching the day of helpless enthralrnent. The governing classes must hold out encouragement to their foreign friends to assist them in this necessary propaganda.
Import of Silver and Copper to China.
Silver by weight is money, just as coins weighing each the same quantity of silver are money. It is the large extent of the commercial area of China that has till now prevented the adoption of a national coinage. Local rules of trade are fixed by commercial guilds ; and guilds in different provinces take divergent views. There has been a good deal of caprice in the adoption of certain dollars. Certain guilds formerly favoured the old Spanish dollars. Others have favoured Mexicans, and others chopped dollars. Each Viceroy and Governor has the assistance of a Treasurer ; and each Viceroy, Governor, and Treasurer is a new man from another province in every instance, and he is appointed in Peking on account of favourable influences which are there paramount at the time. The Treasurer and the higher officials being new to the province, find it advantageous to be in amicable relations with the commercial guilds. The officials are fresh to their work and are open to adopt the local policy, which is determined by the combined power of the native merchants in the form of guild action. Thus each great commercial city is like a small kingdom with a commercial parliament in which self-interest and local predilection are dominant. In these circumstances the form of money in which all can best unite is silver by weight. The importation of American silver during and since the Ming dynasty has been the unfailing stream by which the ruling currency of China has been kept in a flowing condition. America has itself used half its production in its internal coinage or in storing up bullion. A hundred years ago the population of China arrived at the portentous height of two hundred millions, and it has been growing ever since. All this time commerce has been extending and the rich men have been growing richer. More silver
therefore and copper also are constantly required. The merchants want them in the cities and the government wants them in Peking. The quantity of new metal required is in exact proportion to the growth of population, to the activity of merchants in extending their trade, and to the energy of the government in coining and in public works. The absorbing capacity of China for foreign silver and copper is therefore always on the increase, because the population never stops growing; the commercial classes like to extend their trade, and the government are compelled by passing events to institute expensive public works.
The cry of China for more silver and her dislike to the loss of it is a necessary instinct. Whether the silver be coined or uncoined does not much matter. It is the metal that is wanted. The market demand for silver coined or uncoined must in these circumstances continue without any great interruption. As to the relation of silver by weight to Chinese internal trade, it is so far like that in kingdoms, where silver dollars are the currency, that paper packets of the metal are in established use as money in making payments over an immense region of country. Taking China in its entirety, silver by weight is the dominant currency for large purchases. The smaller half of the country uses dollars in place of silver, and as more dollars are imported this area is constantly increasing. If the present importation of dollars continues, the region of dollar currency will gradually extend from the provinces where the import exists into the provinces which lie adjacent. The present residuum of chopped dollars will not increase but rather disappear. Good dollars will advance and
attain a more extensive circulation as trade becomes yearly more active. But should the government adopt dollar coinage, this tendency would be accelerated. The cheapness of dollars has enabled China to increase her circulating medium very conveniently to herself during the last few years. While she can get such #ood dollars at siach a cheap rate as she has been receiving, why should she trouble herself to have coins of her own ? The import of her silver will go on for the present, although the price of silver is rising. The trade of
the country wants it China cannot produce her own silver. She must use that of foreign countries; and, among them Australia, Mexico, and United States must occupy the position of chief exporters of silver to satisfy the ever growing demand of China for her internal and foreign trade. India requires for her coinage the equivalent of forty-five million dollars a year. There the currency expands as trade increases. China lags behind India, but she also is on the ascending grade and needs annually more silver to use in the employment of labour and in the purchase of native and foreign goods. If the dollar rises in value and costs her twenty per cent, more, she will buy a smallar number of dollars, but she must still buy because she is, like India, always needing more silver.
China is always needing more copper cash, and this the government undertakes to supply. During the present peace, trade cannot but continue to flourish. Commercial transactions are larger and more numerous in amount. Silver meets the greater trade necessities, and wholesale dealers are able by means of it to complete their daily business. But copper is also required in the form of cash for the small transactions of the market and the shop. China is striving to meet this need by coining new cash. Enough copper is being imported in a year to make more than four million cash, if we suppose the cash to be pure copper and no alloy to be included. In fact, however, an immense quantity of copper is used in the arts, and a large percentage of zinc is mixed with copper in making the coins which are now being produced in various parts of China. At present the Peking coining is specially energetic. Yet all the new cash made are not enough for the demand, and Japan contributes a share from her cash, as does Corea also to swell the total. China refuses nothing good. She can allow foreign cash to circulate with her own just as she welcomes foreign dollars to meet her ever growing needs. It is a good thing to encourage the import of copper cash from countries where copper is cheap, and it is for the interest of China not to prevent this.
Native Silver.
The present supply of new silver in China is chiefly from foreign countries. But there has always been in the country itself a certain limited production ; and the whole mass of silver now in use in the currency must be regarded as much less than half native and much more than half foreign. It was when the population was one-sixth of what it now is, about 500 years ago, that silver began to be regularly sent to the capital as a representative of the taxes from the provinces, and gradually took the place of paper money, which had followed on the invention of block printing in the tenth century. The population being many times smaller there was much less spinning and weaving done, much less grain grown, a much smaller boat population, a much smaller number of shops and a much smaller class of commercial travellers. Yet when the demand
was limited there was never enough silver to be used as a current representative of commodities and other property. It was never sufficient to be employed along with copper cash as now. The scientific traveller Richthoven, when describing the productions of Yunnan in 1872, says that the supply of silver from native sources in that province was at no time large. He was persuaded that Chinese native silver came mostly from Yunnan or from Wei-ning-chou in Kwei-chow. He was told that .the Kwei-chow silver ore was very rich, of a black colour, looking like coal, and very plentiful. But the difficulty of procuring it is great. Robbers attack the miners, and so also do the soldiers. Neither can the owners, the official administration, nor the miners retain the silver when it is procured, on accouut of the anarchy which reigns in the neighbourhood of the mines. Armed bands have too much their own way there. This is not the only difficulty. We are told that in the year 1556 a mine was opened at an expense of 30,000 taels. The silver obtained only amounted to 28,500 taels. The result was too discouraging to allow of the enterprise being continued. Richthoven shews that gold occurs in China in very many places, but not in sufficient quantity to render the search for it remunerative. It is true of China as of many other countries that gold and silver are found in not a few localities. But in regions where wages are high, the occupation of washing for gold does not attract workmen. It pays them too little. In China wages are very low because the population is large, and in consequence gold washing is much more common there than in countries where wages are high. But in fact wherever gold
and silver are found in China it is in very small quantities. Mr. R. Pumpelly has printed a list of sixty districts where gold is a product in China. In topographical works, the existence of gold in any place where it has once been found is sure to be mentioned because it is a sign of good luck to the neighbourhood. The Red Book mentions silver as a production of Ning-yuen Fu, in that part of Szechuan which borders on Yunnan. Lien-chow in Canton province also counts it among the native productions. Another district very near Canton still produces silver. It is called Shun-te. So also it is obtained at Shao-chou Fu, a prefecture of the northern part of the province of Canton. In the south-east part of the same province silver is also found in the prefectures of Hwei-chou and Ch'ao-chou. In the western prefectures of Kao-chou and Chao-ch'ing the same mineral occurs. Some localities are mentioned in Kuangsi as argentiferous, such as Sin-chou and Ping-to Fu. In the Red Book it is recorded also that silvef is found in Chiung-chang prefecture on the upper course of the Wei river in Kansu and on the Li river which flows from the west into the Tung-ting lake.
The state of matters in regard to native silver in China is on the whole that there is a hopelessly small production and that China must look to foreign countries for her chief supply. For this the present time of peace and expanding trade is highly favourable. Though the lo\v value of silver is now a thing of the past, and the rate of exchange probably may continue to rise, China will still, while paying more for it, have to procure foreign silver by purchase and by loan, because the newly-produced commodities in passing from hand to hand always require a money representative, except in cases of pure barter. The import of foreign silver must continue because, for instance, the Chinese will still wish to buy foreign artillery, machinery, cloth, watches, and every sort of product made by the skilled workmen of the West Within the period of three months the price of silver rose on one occasion from 3/6d. 4/2d. China therefore could buy one-sixth more of foreign products with the same amount of silver than she could three months before. More silver improves trade, and as trade increases in its prosperity yet more silver will be required. Though the price is greater the country will still require it for its growing trade.
The hardness of metals tends to keep them in existence during a very long period, especially when they are in such large irregular lumps as we see in China. The old silver of fifteen centuries ago, as in circulation at that time in South China, cannot have entirely disappeared. A large part of it must be contained in the current sycee of our time. This old silver was like that of other days, not so much the result of mining as of foreign trade. At that time Cambodia and Cochin China belonged to China, and the currency of South China thus became assimilated to that common in India in those days. There are productive silver mines, too, in Cochin
China, and the Chinese, while aware of this fact, tell us that before the Tang dynasty mining for silver in China is not much spoken of. The silver used was then mainly brought from foreign countries. The Golden Tartars made a steady effort to push paper money into a permanent position, but failed, and the paper issued by the government was about A.D. 1225 avoided by the people, who preferred the silver which had now become more plentiful through their trade with South China and with Bokhara and Persia.* The Mahommedans of Central Asia had great facilities afforded to them for trading with China by the existence of Tartar dynasties.
The Kin, the Liao, the Si Hia, and the Yuen were all Tartar, and they ruled for different periods from A.D. 907 to 1368. Merchants brought silver and medicines to China to pay for silk piece goods. All this time the Canton trade and that of Amoy never rested. Mahommedan traders in the Indian Ocean were always busy securing everywhere commercial preeminence and, where it was possible, political power. Probably, therefore, of the old silver used in China before the Spanish conquests in America, four-fifths would be of foreign origin ; and the result of those conquests has been that of the new silver circulating now in China, four-fifths are also imported from abroad, coming in the way of payment for silk, porcelain,
and tea.
The History of Silver in China.
The history of silver in China shows that its value as compared with gold has fluctuated greatly since the beginning of the Ming dynasty, A.D. 1368. Rev. Peter Hoang, a Chinese priest of the Kiangsu mission, tells us that four ounces of silver were then equal in value to one ounce of gold. Silver was scarce and therefore dear, because then the trade with America had not commenced. In 1574, about eighty years after the discovery of America, and sixty-one years after the Pacific Ocean was first seen by Bilboa from the mountain tops of Nicaragua, the import of silver had been so large that seven or eight ounces of silver had the value of one ounce of gold. At the end of the Ming dynasty in 1635 gold was ten times as dear as silver. With the progress of trade, the value of silver diminished as compared with gold. In the time of Kang Hi more than ten ounces went to an ounce of gold But under Chien Lung, about 1737, it became much cheaper. Twenty and more ounces went to pay for an ounce of gold. About A.D. 1840 silver was eighteen times cheaper than gold. In 1850 it was fourteen times cheaper and in 1882 eighteen times cheaper. On the whole it is quite clear that the value of silver, if judged by gold as the standard, has gone down in proportion to the growth of foreign trade. Silver became cheaper as more was imported. The discovery of the silver mines of
America was therefore the undoubted cause in the main of the dominance of silver in China as the currency in all large transactions. The salaries of all officers are, as a rule, paid in silver, which is in fact of foreign origin. More than half of the taxes are paid in the same foreign silver. The duties at all custom-houses in the interior and on the coast are charged in the same foreign silver. For the last forty years Chinese writers have been saying, and they still say, that foreign trade deprives them of their silver and that the foreign merchant grows rich at their expense. They forget that foreign trade brought them the silver they possess, and that it is only since the great maritime discoveries made by European navigators four centuries ago that they have been able to abandon an unsafe paper currency for a silver currency of solid utility.
The value of copper cash as a medium for purchasing articles in the market has undergone a regular depreciation since the time when the Chinese had not yet adopted silver as their chief medium of currency. We may see this in historical statements by Sung dynasty authors. In the eleventh century Shen Kwo tells us the amount of tea sold in his time at the chief places of trade in Hnpeh, Houan, Auhui, and Kiangsu. North China depended on Central China for its tea then as now, and the Sung dynasty Emperors levied a* tax on it at custom-houses in a line running east and west through these four provinces. He mentions the value of the tea sold and paid for in copper cash or its paper equivalent. The phrase t'ung shang of those days meant " freedom to trade " between north and south, This had been interrupted by anarchy and the Sung dynasty gave it as a boon to the people. At Kuang-choo, in Honan 307,216 catties of tea were sold for 12,456,000 cash. Hence we learn that forty cash bought a catty. At Shou-chou in An-hui a catty was bought for seventy-four cash. At Lnchou in Honan forty-eight cash was the price. At Shangch'eng in Honan sixty-seven cash was the price. About fifty cash a catty was expected on an average for an article which was sold in immense quantities to the northern people at that time as now. At present if we say that a picul of tea costs sixteen taels and rate a revenue tael at fifteen hundred cash, a catty of tea costs 240 cash. Thus it may be seen that the depreciation of copper for purchasing articles in the market in 800 years has been such that five cash now are required to buy what one cash would have bought then. From this it will be seen that China might easily be content with copper as a currency in the days of paper money. The country people had not any need to carry to market more than one-fifth of the copper they have to carry now when they wish to buy. There was also a convenient system of cash notes, tea notes, silk notes, and grain notes. These paper notes were exchangeable for so much cash or tea or silk as was mentioned on the note. So far as these were confirmed by official stamps they would obtain a wide circulation. But they were partly of course notes issued by private commercial houses.
If it be asked what are the causes of this great diminution in the purchasing power of copper cash, it may be replied that silver in the Ming dynasty became its competitor. Ju proportion as silver took its place, coined copper was no longer in so much request. Official salaries, for example, entirely ceased to be paid in cash. In all large transactions copper is bulky compared with silver, and it lost ground with the trader. Its value gradually fell, and when it began to tread the downward path, its pace was accelerated by the ever increasing weight which operated against its easy conveyance. If then it be asked why copper is still greatly in demand so as to be coined in Peking and in the provinces just now in large quantities, it may be answered that it is the currency of the poor as much as ever, and the increasing population must have a coin of small value to take to market. It is not that copper can ever recover its former value in commerce. That is impossible. But while the country has so many poor and while the land and other property continues through excess of population to undergo such perpetual subdivision, copper cash must continue to be a very important part of the currency of the empire, and be useful to the majority for the purchase of the small conveniences of life.
New Silver Coinage.
The proclamation of the Tientsin and Ho-kien Taotai and the Customs Taotai at Tientsin in August shows that the Canton dollars and parts of dollars, made by the order of the late Viceroy Chang Chih-tuug, are a legal tender in any part of China. The immediate basis of this action of the two Taotais was the order of Viceroy Li, Governor-General of Chihli. The proclamation is local, but its contents show that the new dollar has full Imperial sanction. Yet its use is tentative, and this is probaby one of the reasons that two Taotais were directed to issue the announcement. The words are : " The Canton local administration have purchased mint machinery and commenced coining dollars as an experiment The Board of Revenue memorialised the Emperor on the subject and the Imperial consent was given. Li, the present Governor-General of Canton, has communicated specimens of the coins to Li, the Governor-General of Chihli, who has sent some to us with the order to issue this proclamation announcing that these coins are to be in use in future as coins of China. We have examined them and observed that they are like foreign dollars, except that there is a curling dragon, outside of which foreign characters are embossed. On the front are the words ' current coin of Kuang Hsu ' and ' minted at Canton.' The treasury weight of these coins is stated. Orders were given to make them in weight and size similar to the dollars common in trade, and they were to be of good metal and to agree one with another in all respects. Hence they ought to be and are now issued as current coiu for the benefit of trade, as by this proclamation indicated. Orders are therefore hereby given to all merchants and others that from the issue of this announcement the Canton coins are to be taken at their standard value. Their price is not to be lowered. They are not to be refused as strange. Let all know that heavy punishment will be dealt to those who impede their circulation."
China has now, like Japan, a silver coinage of her own, and the way is open for her also, if she pleases, to form a national bank, extend her silver coinage and make it the basis of a paper currency on European principles. This mint, however, was established later by nearly twenty years than the Japanese mint. In China changes take place slowly. The government is just now uncertain as to how far the new coins will be circulated. They may be accepted less willingly than Mexicans, and the more pure silver they contain the greater will be the temptation to tamper with them till they become like the chopped dollars of the southern ports. But this coinage is certain evidence that China is resolved to follow in the path of European progress. The Canton mint is in fact a tentative mint for China, and these coins are tentative coins for the empire.
The memorial to the throne on this subject of the Canton viceroy with the Emperor's approval of the coinage has also been published in the Shanghai native newspapers. Thus the year 1890 is an important epoch' in the history of Chinese Currency.
The Spread of Morphia.
Messrs. Rocher and Hippisley, Commissioners of Customs, have both, in the Shanghai Trade Reports, given it as their opinion that the sale of morphia ought to be specially restricted. During ten years, the use of this preparation from opium by the Chinese, has spread with remarkable rapidity. For the first time, morphia appeared in Trade Reports as a separate item among foreign sundries, in the year 1891. Before this it was only covered up under the general title of medicines in the annual Returns of Trade which are published by the Imperial Customs. The annual import amounts now to about 150,000 ounces, while in 1891 the value stated in the Amoy trade report is Tls. 1,079. This represents from 400 to about 750 ounces. Two years later the Amoy import reached 2,632 ounces. In 1898, the amount stated is 11,810 ounces. The Commissioner remarks that the morphia habit is making continual and rapid progress. An increasing number of shops, both at Amoy and in the interior, advertise morphia pills as a cure for the opium habit ; generally it is taken in the form of pills, but subcutaneous injection is rapidly coming into favour. He adds that the use of morphia is more injurious than the opium habit, as it is the most harmful of the narcotic alkaloids contained in opium and cheaper, and, being more convenient for use, a greater number of persons are able to indulge in the habit; the retail price of an ounce bottle is $3 to $3.20. The rapid increase in the nse of morphia at Amoy is accompanied by a diminution in opium import. In 1897, Amoy purchased 4,306 picnls of foreign opium, and in 1898 the quantity was 3,790 picnls, which was less by 12 per cent. la 1899 the Amoy people bought 3,984 picnls. At the same time poppy crops go on increasing in area every year. The total production of native opium was in 1897 valued at $2,400,000 for the district in which Amoy is situated; native opium bought at Amoy amounted to 1,00.0 picnls in 1898. This was bought from Yiinnan and Szechuan. If we compare these figures with those of the year 1882, when the entire import of opium at Amoy was 8,000 picnls, there is a probability that the disastrous opium habit is still increasing in a part of China where it has existed for about 170 years. This is unhappily a picture of all China ; the people will, against remonstrances, injure themselves by this habit. They expend the capital made by their labour in the purchase of a distinctly injurious article. This prevents the use of the same capital in productive industries. This pernicious effect of the opium habit is very clearly seen in the trade in exports at Amoy. In 1898, the Amoy exports of tobacco, tea, paper, sugar, boots, and shoes, China ware, bricks, samshu, umbrellas, fishing nets, garlic, and vermicelli, amounted in value to Tls. 2,550,000. In 1882, they amounted to Tls. 4,865,000. The opium habit, through the misemployment of capital, has caused the exports to decline one-half in sixteen years. From an economical point of view it appears therefore that the opium habit is far and away the greatest hindrance now existing to the industrial -productiveness of Chinese labour ; the falling off occurs in sugar, tea, and paper. Sugar export fell from the value Tls. 937,000 to the value Tls. 716,000. The export of paper fell during the same sixteen years from the value Tls. 316,000 to the value Tls. 266,000. The tea export has fallen from a value of Tls. 2,600,000 to Tls. 147,000. Opium is the bane of Amoy, and it cost the people Tls. 2,300,000 in 1882, Tls. 2,370,000 in 1898, and Tls. 1,776 000 in 1899.
At Swatow, the next neighbonr of Aruoy, the sugar export has risen daring the same interval of sixteen years from a value of five millions of taels to six millions. The entire exports at Swatow amounted to Tls. 7,000,000 in 1882, and to Tls. 13,000,000 in 1898. Morphia is not mentioned in the imports, and it is probably still unknown there. The foreign opium imported has dropped from 10,000 piculs in 1879 to 4,500 in 1898. In 1899 it rose again to 5,598 piculs. Native opium paid duty on 489 piculs in 1898 and on 625 piculs in 1899. It may be concluded therefore that, because there is less devotion to the opium habit in Swatow, there is a greater development of the industries which produce wealth. As additional evidence on this point it may be mentioned that in the Trade Report for 1895, Mr. Simpson stated that the small area devoted to poppy cultivation near Swatow does not increase. The demand for opium must be less than it was to account for this fact. The exports become, in this view, of special interest ; the most valuable are sugar, Tls. 6,000,000 ; tobacco, Tls. 914,000; paper, Tls. 900,000; native cotton cloth, Tls. 628,000; grass cloth, Tls. 580,000 ; indigo, Tls. 196,000. The superiority of Swatow to Amoy in industries is very remarkable; the industries are much the same, but the quantities of exports are five or six times greater at Swatow than at Amoy; industry at Amoy is paralysed by the opium habit. At Swatow, there is less opium and no morphia, and a diminution in opium smoking leads to a great increase in the products of native industry.
Morphia follows closely in the foot-steps of opium ; wherever the paralysing effect of the opium habit is severely felt, morphia receives an invitation to enter. In 1892 it appeared in only two trade reports those of Amoy and Shanghai. In 1895 it occurs in that of Canton for the first time and also in that of Foocbow. In 1896 morphia went up the Yangtze River to Kiukiang. In 1897 it reached Chinkiang, and in
1898 Hankow. It was in that year iu seven trade reports only. We may predict that it will follow everywhere the opium sconrge. Recourse is had to morphia when the tyranny of the opium habit is most severely felt. Morphia in the form of pills is a cheap substitute for opium smoking, and this accounts for its rapid extension. The subcutaneous injection will not be preferred by many persons to the pills. The disfigurement of the skin by ugly scars is too inconvenient to become a widespread fashion. How is it in Kiangsi ? If Kiukiang expended Tls. 856,000 in buying opium iu 1882, and Tls. 1,500,000 for the injurious article in 1898, the people have now less capital to extend their industries. Accordingly we find that the value of tea export has fallen from Tls. 6,700,000 in 1882, to Tls. 4,496,900 in 1898. Yet there has been a large increase in the export of paper, porcelain, grass cloth, and vegetable tallow. Notwithstanding this fact, the presence of morphia is a forewarning of evil to come in the province of Kiangsi. The import was 577 ounces in 1898 and 2,433 ounces in 1899. Such a rapid increase in the use of a deleterious drug is most melancholy.