The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-12-05
JAPS ISSUE
BAD MONEY
Are Accused Of Coun.
terfeiting Russian
Notes.

4 The Japanese, according to the tale
told by w. H. Lewis, the New York
Herald correspondent who passed
! through Honolulu on the Korea, have
adopted the war measure of issuing
counterfeit Russian money, thereby
discrediting their enemy with the peo-
pie of the region where the great
struggle is i'll progress. This it win be
| remembered, was the charge brought
by Victor Hugo against the English of
the time of the French revolution, it
being asserted that smuggiers flooded
the Breton provinces with bales of
false assignats, thereby further de-
preciating those already deprecated
tokens of exchange.
Acc erding to the story told by Lewis,
the Siberian Railroad has all it
can do to carry troops and supplies of
food and ammunition without hauling
the trains of treasure necessary to fin
anee the big campaign if all disburse-
ments were made in coin. Paper money,
therefore. is the only medium of ex-
change circulating among the Cars
troops. and all purchases in Manchuria
are paid for in the ruble bills issued by
the Russian Government. Chinese and
others who have had dealings with
the Russians have grown to prefer this
convenient form of money. In
order to discredit the Russian paper
money the Japanese have flooded the
country in which the Russians are op-
Grating with limitations of these
royal promises to pay. The counterfeits
are so cleverly made that even the
Russian army paymasters have ac-
cepted some of them. The japanese
leaven is working. and the Chinese
merchants are beginning to look ask
ance at all paper money.
Lewis says that the Japanese peo-
pie are getting very weary of the ex-
pense of the war. In the first enthu-
siasm at the outbreak of the war, he
says, everybody wanted to turn over
all his money to the Government and
to bind himself to pay more as he earn
ed it. 1t is different now. The first
popular loan, which was f1oated at a
few per cent below par was nearly
all subscribed by the populace. The
kings of the land were sane and
safe in their patriotism. and when the
people rushed in to buy they stood a
side and reserved their coin for the |
second loan when the bonds could be
secured at much lower figure.
Few of the original subscribers to !
the first loan. says Lewis, are now
holding the bonds. After making one
or two payments they turned over the
obligation to some more patriotic /
neighbor. Many of the bonds have
been transferred several times, and in
many cases the holder has been OBJ
liged to pay his little brown brother to
take the bonds off mis- hands. The
banks and big corporations took most
Of the second loan, and the bonds of
4 third loan, Lewis declares, are NOV
ing very slowly.
Lewis does not believe that Japan
will be able to stand the financial
strain of much longer continued war.
and he expresses the conviction that
Ultimate Russian success is certainty
As an evidence of Japanese conf
lence in the success of the Mikados
irnas, Lewis spoke Of the calm assur
Ince with which the little brown war
'iors had programmed the campaign.
70 such an extent has this been carried
tut that as soon as the japanese had
control of the railroad from Dalny to
Port Adams they printed a stock of
ickets covering the system as far as
Iukden