The daily Alaskan., 1913-10-07
\ CRAZY CURRENCY
China Has a Monetary System
 That Borders on the Chaotic.
UNIT OF VALUE IS THE TAEA

Vet the Tae Is Neither Coin Nor an
 Insot, but Merely an Abstract Tsrm'
 and Signifies a Unit of Weisht-sil-
 yer Shoes and Cash on a String.
 Of the many strange things in China not the least strange is its currency. To the foreigner it seems a miracle that any business can be transacted successfully with such medium Of exchange. It has been described as chaotic. Nevertheless business and
 trade flourish in China, which speaks
 volumes for the business acumen or
 the Chinese. Perhaps the fact that trade nourlshed in China long before such a thing as currency was known accounts for the fact that the Chinese. with such a lax system as they now possess. still stand in the front rank
 of commercial nations.
 In China all forms of exchange from barter up are in use A very large
 part of the cOuntry's business Is done against the actual delivery of weighed silver. For convenience silver is melt ed into rough ingots having the shape of the Chinese shoe. These silver shoes have stamped upon them their
 fneness and weight The unit Of
 weight is the tael, which Is equal to quantity of silver weighing 5S0 grains troy and is worth about 60 cents tn our money
 The tacI is not an ingot nor a coin. but simply an abstract term signifying n unit of weight, such as pound" of butter or an "OunCe" of gold. Though m abstract term, It Is the measure of
 wealth and the unit of value through out the length and breadth of China.
 4 man buys a business for so many taes of silver. His profits are com puted in taels When be makes pay ment he weighs out the silver accord ing to this unit.
 The silver shoes vary in weight from one to scveuty-fVe taels. All silver
 shops and banks have forges, where
 the silver is melted in iron ladies and poured into mOIds. The smelters with their ladies and molds remind one of cooks They stir the silver with pair
 of metal chopsdcks. To one not aware
 of what they were doing 1t would be
 natural to suppose that they were en- | gagged in conCocting something good to
 eat. Tn the process of recasdng the ingots their fineness is often changed, being either improved or debased, whichever best suits the interests Of 1 the shC0. Bankers and money chang | CTS are able to determine the quality
 of the silver by the sense of touch. l The sellers or depositors are always at their mercy and must often submit to the operation of having their silver discounted on account of "bad touch"
 in the interior of China small pur- chases are made with copper coins with square holes in the center. These are called "cash" and are threaded on strings so that they may be carried across. ones shoulder or on pole. A string of 1000 of these cash Is worth about 50 cents In our money. Some times bits of silver are clipped from tbe silver shoes and used for small
 purchases. When travelling in the in- ferfor one must take with him large amount of silver shoes. exchanging them for strings of cash at the various shops. The money changers have two sets of scales, one to be used in the purchase of silver and the other in the selling of it. In an attempt some years ago to in- troduce a currency based on western models the Chinese government pur
 chased and put into circulation several
 million Mexican dollars. The people
 tool, to the new coins and called for
 more. The provincial governments then set up hints and began to coin Chinese dollars of approximately the same weight and fneness as the Med- can dollars They also coined an enor-
 mons amount of subsidiary items in the shane of small silver coins and copper pennies.
 Soon 1t was discovered that the new currency was as unstable as the old.
 The value of the dollar in relation to the subsidiary coinage varied from day
 to day. The cent was never worth the hundredth part of a dollar. Some days no cents were required to make up e1. and on other days 1t took 130 cents.
 Similarly the value of the dollar as compared with the tael was continual
 ly hnctuating. Sometimes S1O0 would
 bring 70 taeIs and at other times only 65. It was sickening to the people,
 but very profitable to the money
 changers. -Harper's Weekly.