In the spring-time what can be prettier than the environs of a Chinese city? The rape-fields are all fragrant with their bright-yellow flowers; whilst the still sweeter scent of the bean blossom makes it a real pleasure to walk along the narrow paths by the river-side. Every one is walking about with a bunch of roseate peach blossom, and the tangles of trees in the gardens are all flowering and all scented. Then a little later the poppy-fields become gorgeous almost up to the city gates, only shortly afterwards to give out a poisonous exhalation most irritating to the mucous membrane. After that everything trembles and glitters with the scorching sunshine, all the leaves droop, gigantic sun-flowers are running to seed, and the large pink-and-white lily flowers of the lotus float upon the waterside. Every woman has a white gardenia flower stuck on the left side of her glossy black hair. And all outside the city is inspiriting, when the sun shines and the blue rivers laugh back at the blue sky. But inside the city it is still all dark and dank, and all is pervaded by a sickly sweet odour, the emanation from the opium-pipe; while the lean ribs and yellow faces of the opium-smokers controvert without the need of words all the scientific assertions about the non-volatilisation of the opium poison. With opium-dens all over the place, with exquisite opium-pipes and all the coquetries of opium-trays and other accessories in the houses of the rich, how is it that we all give warning to a servant when we hear that he has taken to opium? How is it that the treasure on a journey is never confided to a coolie who smokes? How is it that every man shrinks with horror from the idea of an opium-smoking wife? And this in a land in which all important business dealings are concluded over the opium-couch, where, indeed, alone, with heads close together, is privacy to be obtained, and in which all important military posts are confided to opium-smokers, not to speak of most of the important civil offices!

There is one other matter, however, I must touch upon—the all-pervading babble, row I had almost called it, of the boys in the schools, here, there, and everywhere, so that it is almost impossible to get out of earshot of them, all at the top of their boy voices shouting out the classics, as they painstakingly day after day and year after year commit them to memory. With the sickly sweet smell of the opium, and to the sound of the vast ear-drum-splitting army of China's schoolboys, all must for ever associate life in a Chinese city. And through it all, and up and down its flights of stairs, painfully hobbles the Chinese girl-child, the most ungraceful figure of all girl-children,—poor little mutilated one, with her long stick and dreadful dark lines under her sad young eyes! Whatever the men may be, certainly the little girls of China are brought up as Spartans even never were, and those who survive show it by their powers of endurance.

CHAPTER IV.
HINDRANCES AND ANNOYANCES.

As an illustration of the position of Europeans up-country, I will relate very briefly the trivial events of two days. First I must say that nearly every woman in the place was ill—some very seriously so; and as I thought I was not well either, on hearing that my husband and another gentleman, who had gone for a cure to the sulphur baths about thirteen miles from Chungking, found the people quiet, I decided I would join my husband when his friend left him. The villagers, not the priests, objected to my sleeping in the airy temple, where the gentlemen had been allowed to put up their beds, amongst all the gilded images; so my bed and I and a servant moved down to the inn, where some twelve or fifteen persons assisted at the remaking of the bed in an already sufficiently stuffy room—although, happily, most of the dirty paper was gone from its one window—and being accustomed to the ways up-country, I slept just as well in that filthy inn room as I could have anywhere.

Next day, with a chair and a variety of coolies and boys, we took three photographs, and spent the morning under the shade of a magnificent banyan-tree in a lonely valley, stuck over with palms as a pincushion is with pins. The baths were so very hot, my husband thought he would refresh himself by a swim in the limpid stream that runs with many a beautiful cascade down the extremely picturesque limestone valley of the Wentang. Meanwhile, though it was extremely hot, so that it was an effort to move, especially after the hot sulphur baths, yet, being like Frederick "a slave to duty," I took a chair and five coolies to go a hundred yards across the bridge and photograph that and the hot springs from the opposite side.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, about twenty little laughing boys ran whooping along with me, joined as they went by some older people. This is so usual, I was only bored by it as I got out, and, studying the scene first from one point and then from another, was telling the coolies to bring the camera to a grassy plot from which the best view of the arches of the bridge and the deep pool and the hills behind could be obtained, when some agriculturists rushed forward, one lusty fellow violently threatening me with a stone, and at once snatching my alpenstock out of my hand. I trust I did not move an eyelid, certainly I did not budge a step, as I said: "Is this your land? If so, you are master here; and if you do not wish me to photograph, I certainly will not. But I am doing no harm." The head coolie did his best to explain what other photographs I had taken, and that photographing did not spoil crops. But the agriculturist first listened, and then resumed his violence. Probably he was excited by the prospect of all my following capering across an infinitesimal bit of cultivation that he had squeezed out of the rocks below. He told them not to do so. The coolie told them not to. They did not. But he continued to be violent. The best plan seemed to be to get into the chair and secure the camera; and as all the crowd began to get uproarious, I thought I would be carried quickly away instead of back through them. A very steep hill must, I thought, choke my following off. But it did not. And I had either to return with them to the town, in which case there was sure to be a row, or go to a distance of about two hours up one side of the stream by a very pretty path, and back again the other side by one of the most lonely of wild mountain roads. I had done it all before, having enjoyed all these scenes two years ago, when there was no thought of violence. However, my following kept with me, and grew. So I tried my old plan, the only one I have ever found effectual with a Chinese crowd, and, getting out of the chair, standing quite still, looked solemnly and sadly at first one, then another, till he wished the ground would cover him and retired. I fancy glasses heighten the effect. Anyway, they all sat down, each one hiding behind the other as far as he could.

Next day by daybreak we set off for Chungking. After five pretty but surely very long miles, we came to a market town; and, alas! it was market day. The coolies were desired to carry me to the best inn, and take me in quickly. Of course, it was necessary for them to get some refreshment, or we should not have stopped. I walked to the farthest end of the huge room set out with tables; but the agitated innkeeper asked me to come into a bedroom beyond, there were so many people. He banged to the doors, and then there began a hurly-burly, everybody wanting to get a sight of me. He begged me to go into a bedroom beyond down a steep ladder, and again bolted the doors. This room was even nastier than the first,—four beds with straw, no chair, and a frowsy table. It was so good of him to tell me it was clean, for I should never have imagined it otherwise. A young gentleman occupying an adjacent bedroom began to look furious at the noise and the barring of the doors. With a haughty air he unbarred them. I did not wonder he did not like it. I did not either. Who wants to be barricaded in a chairless, windowless bedroom on a hot day?

It was a great relief when my husband quickly followed me, passing in through the files of people gazing at closed doors. But no one could serve us with tea, and the people got all round the room trying to peep in through the cracks, as also to pull down one partition. Meantime, there was what Germans call "scandal." At last our coolies had fed, the chairs were ready, and, handsomely escorted, we passed out through people in rows, to find the street outside and all the houses one living mass of human heads all staring. It was easy enough to get into the chair, but the coolies had to fight the crowd back to get the poles on their shoulders; and so, amongst a chorus of the usual soft Szechuan imprecations, we departed. I have composed a song with it for the chorus; it sounds pretty, but I am told it is untranslatable. One moves everywhere to the music of it.

Probably our coolies' temper was not improved by the hustling. For, a mile and a half farther on, when we had to take a boat, and after the usual amount of wearisome bargaining had secured one, they greeted a boatman, who kept us waiting some time till he appeared with the long pole iron-spiked used for poling the boat off rocks, with the usual Szechuan oath, and a tag, that seemed to me harmless enough. But the boatman, a tall, fine-looking man, said he could not stand that, and immediately rolled one of our coolies in the mud. In a minute all our gang together were on him. Vainly did my husband call them off. At last, however, somehow they got into the boat again and pushed off; and the great thing seemed to be to get away, for there was the infuriated giant with his pole and his friends wildly springing from rock to rock to get at us. But whether because we were caught in a whirlpool, or whether the owner of the boat steered it back, or what, there we were presently drifting round to the now assembled village, all shrieking, and many armed with carrying-poles. The only thing to do seemed to be to sit quite still; but I felt the more frightened, because it was impossible even to speak to my husband for the uproar. And, indeed, for a time mine was the silence of despair; for a tap from one of those carrying-poles, and all would be over for me, whilst the river was running so strongly, to get into that would be certain drowning. The fight, however, was, after all, not so bad; for a village elder appeared, and again and again collared the infuriated giant and forced him off the boat. Meanwhile, every one shouted, and the expressions of the crowd were something horrible to see, especially those of some women, whose faces seemed to have passed away and left nothing behind but concentrated rage. One of these viragoes actually came on to our boat, and was proceeding herself to capture the one of our coolies who may be said to have begun it all by his inconsiderate language. This first gave me courage. If she, a thin, weak-looking woman, could venture into the midst of these angry men, she must know they were not really so violent as they appeared, I argued. But she also was forced away by the elder. Then two spitfires of boys became prominent, shrieking menaces and brandishing their arms.

At last there was a sufficient lull for my husband and the village elder to exchange names, smiles, and courtesies, which they did with as much ceremony and as pleasant expressions as if they had just met in a London drawing-room. After a second row, the elder asked us to get into another boat. This we did. It was much smaller; but a man with cucumbers, who had been bent on getting a passage for nothing in our boat, and had been ejected, managed now to establish himself in it along with us. He was the only one who seemed to have gained anything out of the whole transaction. We had grown too weak to eject him again. We had been delayed a whole hour in a burning sun; and thanks to this, and the delay in the market town, reached Chungking about noon, both suffering from slight sunstroke.

Each time the mail came in one winter we expected to hear that some Shanghai Volunteers had gone on a little expedition, and somehow managed to knock up against the prison in which the poor people were shut up whose sole crime was having sold an estate near Kiukiang to an Englishman. In the old days the young men of Kiukiang once had a picnic, to which they invited blue-jackets from a man-of-war in port; and that picnic gained for the place undisputed possession of the bungalow where so many Europeans have since then regained health. There was no fighting, no threat of fighting, no ultimatum; they just went and did what had to be done themselves, their friends the blue-jackets helping them. But by the last accounts Kiukiang was occupied with private theatricals, whilst the men who sold their land to Englishmen—nothing more, only had dealings with Englishmen—were still in prison. Whilst that is so, whilst the man who allowed Christian services to be held in his house near Wenchow is persecuted, whilst our beautiful hills are all studded round with upright slabs of stone forbidding Europeans to build upon any of the sites sold to them, how can we expect as Englishmen to be respected in China? One American and one Englishman had even begun building upon these hills. There were the projected sites of the houses, with the hewn stones lying round and the foundations laid. Round about the upright slabs have been stood up, with the legends upon them forbidding any further building within these charmed enclosures.

No people like better to insult other people than the Chinese, in spite of all the lovely adjectives Mr. Ralph showers upon them in the pages of Harper,—"polite, patient, extremely shrewd, well dressed, graceful, polished, generous, amiable"; while Dr. Morrison, the "Australian in China," talks of "their uniform kindness and hospitality and most charming courtesy," and says again, "Their friendliness is charming, their courtesy and kindliness are a constant delight to the traveller." In illustration of all this there were these men in prison at Kiukiang and Wenchow. Do people at home realise what was the crime of which they had been accused? Short of the Home Government, it often seems as if the different European communities in China could make themselves more respected, and protect those who dealt fairly by them, with their own right hands. No Government could urge them to do so. But, as even Sir John Walsham used to say, "There are so many things Englishmen might do even in Peking—if they only would not come and ask me if they might."

In 1897 a Chinese in foreign employ was had up about an alleged debt of 500 taels. By a bribe his accuser had the matter brought before a magistrate who was well known as anti-foreign, and who no sooner heard he was in foreign employ than he ordered him to be beaten without going into the case. This was contrary even to Chinese law. The unfortunate bookkeeper was unable to do his work again for months; he was disfigured past all recognition, and, indeed, too horrible to look upon. His offence was "foreign employ." Can we wonder that the Chinese are not very fond of us? The marvel to me is that they dare associate with us at all.

Other nations seem to protect their nationals and those dependent upon them far more vigorously than the British Government does. When Chungking was first made a Treaty Port, the then British Consul, a most able and energetic man, was not even advised from Peking that the port was open. Consequently, he was absent from all public functions instituted at the formal opening, took no part in the drawing up of the regulations under which British trade was to be established there, had no voice in the rules issued by the Chinese Customs. Subsequent incumbents of the Consulate have not unnaturally employed any liberty of action given them less in promoting British interests than in keeping things quiet for the Chinese, and so have refrained from endorsing the requests made from time to time to have the obstructive Customs rules modified or the position of the port in any way improved. The rules, issued in Chinese, were so impracticable that successive Commissioners of Customs suspended their action from the day they were published; but this suspension, it afterwards appeared, was a privilege revocable at the arbitrary will of the Commissioner for the time being, and an American Commissioner revoked them to the detriment of the only bona-fide European shipping firm as yet established there, thus doing what lay in his power to take away business from European firms and throw it into the hands of the Chinese firms, which continued as before to enjoy a suspension of the Customs rules.

Business at Chungking is all carried on by so-called chartered junks. They are not really chartered; but before they can clear the Customs, they must fly a foreign house-flag and number. The permission to fly this must be obtained by a foreigner through his Consul. The British Consul, up till then the only one there, resided at the opposite end of the city to the business quarter, where the Customs Office is situated. This entailed some hours delay. And when it is considered that one junk carries as a rule from fifty to a hundred packages only, it "passeth the wit of man" to conceive why this red-tapeism was allowed to continue. The China Merchants' Steamship Co., the largest shippers in Chungking, were allowed to obtain their "passes" from the Custom-house direct—a great convenience, as the Custom-house is in one part of this city, the Customs' Bank in another, and the examining-pontoon across the river at the head of a rapid. The junks mostly lie in a reach below; and it is no exaggeration to say that it takes a day for a man to get round to the three places. Yet the Customs rules do not allow the duty to be paid until the cargo has passed examination at the pontoon; nor is the cargo-boat allowed to leave it until a duty-paid certificate is brought back and exhibited at the pontoon. This necessitates the cargo being left in an open boat all night at the head of a rapid, and much loss has resulted from the delay that occurs there in any case. Consequently, this rule had never been enforced, and the cargo-boat had been allowed to leave and proceed to load the chartered junk in safety immediately after examination. But an application to his Consul by the Britisher was met by a "despatch" in the stereotyped language, "I cannot interfere with the Customs regulations."

The telegraph office, formerly situated in the business quarter of the city, was then moved into the distant country enclosure which forms a part of all Chinese cities, because the manager owned a piece of land there, and thus rented it to advantage. Naturally here the foreign merchant could not expect a remonstrance to be of any avail, as the telegraph is a purely native concern.

It would take too much space to enumerate the further difficulties to which a foreigner is at present exposed. To enforce a claim for debt he must apply to his Consul. A Chinaman unwilling to pay is never at a loss to invent an excuse,—the papers are not in order, just as in cases of sale the land was not really his. If the Consul is content to become merely the translator of these Chinese excuses, which by transmission he appears, indeed, even to accept, and to a certain extent to endorse, we, as the farmer said, "seem to get no forrader." How far the actions of Consuls in these matters, and with regard to obstructions about buying land and renting houses, come from individual action or from instructions from Peking, of course it is not for a mere woman to decide. We used in China at one time to put down everything that went wrong to Lord Kimberley. Now even sometimes we fancy it is a Kimberley legacy. But very likely we are quite wrong.

It will be obvious from the above how much depends upon the disposition of the Consuls. Naturally they vary greatly. The theory used to be that they were too apt to look upon themselves as protectors of the Chinese against the encroachments of their nationals. Having suffered severely under the most flagrant specimen of this class, I am happy to add that I think it is dying out. Most of the Consuls in China now seem only too able for the importance of their posts. At the same time, one never knows when a crisis may arise; and then the men, who as a rule have been foremost in all the social life each of his own port, are admirably seconded by willing communities, that rejoice to follow the lead of those who are certainly generally in all things the opposite to the delightful caricature sketch well known to have been written by a leading member of the China Consular body:

"THE HAPPY CONSUL.

Even, however, where the Consul is all he should be—and probably no body of men ever was more respected and trusted than the British Consular Body in China—yet British subjects' interests must suffer, if the British Minister will not support them. Nor can the British Minister do much, if the permanent officials at the Foreign Office wish him to do little.

When two men were murdered at Wusüeh, the village ought, at least, to have been razed to the ground. When the Kucheng massacre occurred, the Viceroy and the Chinese officials, who laughed about it all as they talked with the British officials sent to settle about compensation with them, ought one and all to have been degraded at the very least. No one likes bloodshed. The Chinese only get on as they do without an army or a police force by means of very exemplary punishments; they understand slight punishment as a confession of weakness, or an acknowledgment that the offender was not so much to blame after all. Nor does any one who lives in China believe in Chinese peasantry ever daring to murder foreigners except at the instigation of men in high place. People in England often fancy missionaries are very much disliked in China. As a rule, they seem greatly liked and respected each in his own neighbourhood, although in the abstract officials and old-fashioned literati may object to them.

Whatever may be said about all these matters, an English subject cannot but be pained on finding how little British Consuls are able to effect in redressing serious grievances, such as inability to buy or rent land in the surrounding country, whereby we were for many years forcibly compelled to live in a Chinese house in a filthy street inside the walls of an overcrowded Chinese city. Let a Frenchman or a Russian be the aggrieved party, and instantly his Consul is on the war-path, and the Chinese have to give way at once. Englishmen have gone on paying likin illegally, until a Frenchman, backed by his Consul, successfully protested. British steamers are illegally arrested and detained by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, and no redress is obtainable; when a French steamer is only boycotted by Chinese shippers, an indemnity is immediately claimed, and at once paid.

It is little things like these, for ever being repeated, that lead to Englishmen in the west of China often saying they must take out naturalisation papers as Frenchmen or Italians in order to get on. Possibly the bitterness thereby engendered will do the British Government no harm; but it paralyses commercial enterprise. And Manchester will suffer from it, when it is too late to alter anything, unless a more consistent and dignified policy be pursued in the Far East. People have not been proud of England out in China lately. It may be stupid of us all; but as a rule it takes a good deal to make Englishmen ashamed of their country. And that point has been unfortunately reached some time ago.

CHAPTER V.
CURRENT COIN IN CHINA.

She was not long out from England, and a comprador order was as yet an unnatural phenomenon to her. She supposed it was something like a cheque upon a bank, or a circular note, with which Continental travel had made her intimately acquainted. "What is the value of a dollar in English money?" she had asked before starting on her tour from Shanghai. "Oh yes, I understand it depends upon the exchange. I used always to keep myself in gloves on what one gained in Italy. Now it is horrid; one gains nothing. I don't quite know why it is. But how much about is the dollar worth, when exchange is—is—nothing particular?" Then she had such long speeches made to her, and heard so much conflicting information, she felt deafened, but ultimately arrived at the conclusion that there were about—yes! about six dollars in an English pound, and there ought not to be so many. Now, somewhat to her consternation, she discovered that her comprador orders had taels printed upon them; so she made out her order in taels, secretly wondering what they were. She had never seen them.

"Do you think I got the right exchange?" she asked of her Boy; then, trying to suit herself to his needs, and speak English "as it is spoke," "He pay my right money?"

"My no savey what thing one taelee catchee Hankow side," said the Boy, with flippancy but decision. He came from farther inside the province.

She felt abashed, and supposed she must just take her money, hoping it was right. Next time she would be wiser. Arrived at Ichang, she scratched out taels, and was about to write in dollars.

"Dollars! Dollars aren't known at Ichang," said the Captain.

"What had I better do?" she asked of the oldest resident. Again she was overwhelmed with words. But she gathered she ought to ask for taels.

"Taels don't exist," said the Captain. "I never saw a tael, did you? He'll bring you your money in lumps of silver, if you don't take care."

"Yes," said the old resident, "you had better not get lumps of silver."

"They vary in value, according to the quality of the silver," persisted the Captain. "You won't know what to do with them. You can't break them up. You will have to weigh them. And what can you pay for in lumps of silver? Nobody will take them for anything you want to buy."

They actually both talked to her as if she wished for solid, uncoined lumps of silver. She felt confounded! But, determined to preserve her calm, she said, "I had better write, and say I want so many strings of cash, then, had I? Ten thousand cash? Twenty thousand cash? I can't carry them, you know; and I don't know where I can keep them. But I must have at least so much money in hand, if it is only to pay for my washing."

"Pay for your washing!" they both burst out, as if that were a most superfluous proceeding.

"I wouldn't write for cash, I think," began a third adviser. "I would write down how many taels you require, and say you'd take it in cash."

"Then I shall never know if I get the right amount."

"A—h!" they all said, waving their hands, as if no one ever did know if he got the right amount in China.

"It varies. It varies from day to day," said the oldest resident.

Needless to relate, she never saw those cash, never heard how many she had received, nor where they were stowed away. The Boy said he had them, it was all right. He said also that at Ichang it was very shocking how few cash they gave for the tael.

She was determined she would learn Chinese, of course! Was she not just out from home? And being just out from home, and anxious to be polite to every one, it was a trouble to her mind that she did not know how to greet her teacher when he came. She stood up, and rubbed her hands together, which, she understood was the Chinese for a curtsey; but it seemed feeble without a word, so she said, "Koom Shee! Koom Shee!" as she had heard the country people say.

"Oh! you should not say Koom Shee! Koom Shee! Not to a teacher, who comes every day," said a Sinologue.

"He says it is quite right," said she. "I am sure I understand that much. But he said I could also say Tsao!"

"Oh no—no! Not Tsao," said the Sinologue; but he never made any suggestion as to what she should say.

"I could not think what I ought to say when he went away," she continued. "But he says Man man tso."

"Oh no! that is a great deal too much to a teacher who comes every day."

"Well, that is what he says," she repeated rather wearily, after having waited a little to see if he would suggest any polite speech for her. "I do want to say something polite."

"It is very difficult to be polite in Chinese," said the Sinologue solemnly. That seemed final. But she asked another Sinologue. "No, I should not say Man man tso. Not Man man tso," said he dreamily. "Not to a teacher—who comes every day."

"But what do you say?" asked she in desperation.

"Well, it is very polite to say Shao pei—I don't go to the door with you, you know; I only go a few steps with you. That is the polite thing to say after a call from a mandarin."

"But surely it would be polite to go to the door?"

"Oh yes—in China it would."

"Well, I think anywhere it would be polite."

"Yes, but not—not from a lady. It would not be expected."

"A—h! yes! then I can say Shao pei." However, she did not feel quite satisfied, and she watched her opportunity.

Next time she heard a Sinologue converse with a Chinaman, she listened to hear what he would say in parting. Alas! it was not Man man tso, it was not Shao pei.

"What was that you said to him in taking leave?"

"Oh—I didn't say anything,"—with the instinctive horror of being detected in possibly a false tone.

"Yes—yes, you said something as you turned away and took leave. And I do so want to know what it was, that I may know what to say."

"Oh, I said——" mumbling very much, so that it was impossible to hear what he said. "I don't think it was the thing to say to a man of his station and quality. I think I should have said—— Let me see— I really don't know what was the right thing for me to say."

And so now she is giving it up—giving up being polite in Chinese, giving up ever ascertaining the value of money or the price of anything. For how can things have fixed prices where money has none? There is only one comfort to her soul: if any one looks offended, or if a too sensitive conscience makes her fear she has given cause of offence, she promptly says Tetsui—"I am to blame, I apologise." No one has yet made distinctly evident that he does not understand her, nor has any Sinologue yet told her she is wrong. Tetsui is therefore the one golden word for her. And while she is in China she foresees she must live in one constant state of being to blame.

In this manner I at the time recorded my first impression of the coinage and language of China. But the matter of payment is even more complicated than I then fancied. The only coinage of China is copper cash, of which about forty go to a penny. They are round, with a hole in the middle, and generally about a thousand are strung on two strings and tied together; and when carried, hanging over the shoulder, they look like so many snakes. But I say about a thousand advisedly; for there are generally a number of small and comparatively worthless cash in every string, the average amount of these varying in different parts. The lumps of silver with which my friends threatened me are made up into what are called "shoes," but what look like very large coarse thimbles. These are of various degrees of purity, and their purity has to be tested before they are weighed or broken up. In Chungking there were three different degrees of purity in different parts of the city; therefore it made quite a considerable difference whether you agreed to pay a sum of money in the upper, lower, or middle town. And the result of so much difficulty about payment is that every one is in debt to every one else, keeping a sort of running account going.

Of late years foreign mints have been started in several places; and lest this chapter should seem altogether too frivolous, I here subjoin the essay that gained the prize, when, at the Polytechnic Institution in 1890, the Governor of Ningpo started an essay competition, giving as his theme:

"The south-eastern provinces now have much foreign money in circulation, and the natives consider it a great convenience to trade. Should China set about coining gold and silver money? Would it circulate freely? Would it be advantageous to the country, or the reverse?"

The Governor himself looked over the essays, and awarded the palm to the composition of Mr. Yang, a B.A. of Kwangtung Province, of which the following is a translation:

"Those who treat at the present time of the causes which are draining away the wealth of China to foreign countries are, as a rule, in the habit of confining their observations to two of these causes: the importation of foreign opium, and the purchase of foreign ships and munitions of war. They appear to be ignorant, indeed, for the most part, that there is another cause at work, persistent, insidious, whose effects are more far-reaching than either.

"The first silver money brought to China from abroad was the so-called 'Luzon Dollar,' coined by the Spaniards from the product of the mines which they had acquired in America, a new country first settled by them. The Spanish dollar was followed by others, made in the same style—first the American, and then the Japanese. From Kwangtung and Fukien these invaders spread to Kiangsu and Chekiang, Kiangsi, Anhui, and Hupeh, in the order named, with great rapidity. Their beauty and convenience were soon in everybody's mouth, and the loss to the country became heavier and heavier as their importation increased.

"To speak of loss from the influx of foreign dollars may appear paradoxical to those who have only eyes for the palpable loss to the country caused by the importation of foreign opium and manufactures and the purchase of foreign ships and cannon. Very little reflection, indeed, suffices to show the disastrous tendency of exchanging for a useless weed the bounteous produce of our harvests, of deluding with new-fangled inventions the practical minds of our people, of spending on a gun or a ship tens of thousands of taels. But I shall endeavour to show that the proposition is no paradox, and that the loss to China caused by the influx of foreign dollars is, if less visible on the surface, at bottom none the less real.

"During the reigns of Tao Kwang and Hien Fêng (1821-1862), to buy each of these dollars China parted with eighty-five tael cents; and as the real value was seventy-two tael cents, on every dollar which she purchased she lost thirteen tael cents. As, taking all the provinces together, she must have been purchasing at least forty or fifty million dollars every year, she must have been losing every year by exchange the enormous sum of four or five million taels.

"Times have changed; but vast numbers of dollars are yearly imported from various countries, most of them composed of one-tenth alloy; and, in payment of this silver blended with baser metal, our pure silver is shipped away in heaps. Moreover, dollars which are worth at most seventy-two or seventy-three tael cents are sold in market at one, two, three, or four tael cents more than that. Such a drain will end in exhausting our silver supply, even if we had mountains of it, if not checked betimes.

"We cannot prevent the importation of foreign dollars, nor prohibit their use by the people; for the people wish for them, although they are depleting the country of its wealth. There appears to me only one way of checking this depletion, and that is by China coining dollars herself.

"Opponents will say, even if China coin them, they will not circulate. They will point to two previous instances where such an attempt was made and failed. The first was towards the end of the reign of Tao Kwang (about 1850): two officials obtained permission from the Governor of Chekiang to start a silver-mint, and everybody looked at the coins, rung them, and declined to have anything to do with them. The second experiment was made at Wusih by Mr. Lu Sueh-tsun: he turned out dollars which compared favourably with foreign dollars in every particular except one—namely, that nobody would use them. The opponents of the measure point to these two examples, and say the coinage of dollars in China will never succeed.

"Some of these opponents do not go so far, but merely say that, even if the Chinese Government is able to put home-made dollars into circulation, it can only be in the southern and eastern provinces, as in the north and west the people, accustomed to sycee and paper money, would shrink from the manifold inconveniences involved in a sudden change to a dollar medium of exchange.

"This appears to me more the language of narrow-minded pedants than of practical men of the world. Which one of all who stand under China's sky and feed off China's fields but desires his country's exaltation and the depression of foreigners? If to-day all love foreign money, it is because there is as yet no Chinese money. Once let there be Chinese money, and we shall see how many will leave it for foreign. The two instances alleged above only show that the coins which people looked at, rung, and rejected were false in look and false in ring. The semi-private way in which they were coined in a village was in itself enough to excite the suspicions of the great mass of the public. An Imperial Mint, openly conducted and turning out good work, would arouse no such suspicions; and its money would very soon be current, not only in the provinces of the south and east, but also in those of the north and west, for the following reasons:

"The travelling merchant and trader of the north and west has now to carry with him both silver sycee and copper cash. Copper cash is heavy, and it is impossible to carry much value in that form; whilst the carrying about of silver entails many and grievous losses in exchange. It is natural to suppose that he would welcome as the greatest boon a gold and silver currency which, by its portability and uniformity of value, would relieve him of the obstacles which the present system in vogue in the north and west spreads in the path of commerce.

"The opponents of an Imperial Chinese Mint for the precious metals commonly adduce four dangers, the contemplation of which, they say, should make China hesitate to incur them. Let us look them in the face. They are, firstly, the facility of counterfeiting the new coinage; secondly, the difficulty of coinage, if commenced; thirdly, the loss to China's prestige by an imitation of foreign manufactures; fourthly, the possible venality of officials and workmen in the Mint.

"Would it not be the depth of pusillanimity, the extreme of unreasonableness, for our great nation to give up, for fear of dangers such as these, a plan which, carried out under the guidance and control of well-selected men, will admittedly dam the outflow of our wealth, and put an end to our impoverishment, which is now going on year after year for the benefit of foreigners?

"The impossibility of coining the precious metals without alloy will no longer afford the foreigner a profit. This profit will go to our own Government, who will not be taking it from the people for nothing, but amply earning it by giving them a universal uniform medium of exchange. Its universality and uniformity will relieve the honourable merchant of the present uncertainty of exchange, and deprive the shifty speculator of his present inducement to gambling in time-bargains dependent on the rise and fall (mai k`ung).

"I began this essay by enumerating various evils which are sapping the wealth and power of China. How best to counteract these evils is a problem which our statesmen and politicians are now devoting their zealous endeavours to solve. The measures hitherto proposed involve, when compared with that which I have advocated, a larger expenditure at the outset, and do not seem to promise in any instance so speedy a return of benefit to the nation. A gold and silver coinage by the Imperial Government would, in all probability, in a very few years be conferring on every province of the empire advantages in comparison with which the initial inconveniences would hardly be worthy of attention. It is, of course, an essential condition of the success of the Mint that it should be organised in such a complete manner as to leave no contingency unprovided for, and thus to ensure its stability and permanence. I shall be happy if any of my humble remarks are worthy to contribute to such a result."