Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/89

Rh engineer, "to turn out 700 tons of iron a day for 1000 years."

Quite recently a further instance of the imperious if ill-directed energy of the Viceroy had been given in a stupendous issue of copper coins. Having presumably accidentally stumbled upon Article II. of the Treaty of Commerce signed between Great Britain and China in 1902, by which China agrees "to take the necessary steps to provide for a uniform national coinage," he had with characteristic impetuosity seized time by the forelock and set all available machinery, not only in the cash and silver mints but even in the arsenal, to work upon the stamping of 10-cash pieces, whereby he succeeded in still further complicating the already inconceivably intricate currency of China by flooding the province in the course of a single year with three billion eight hundred and seventy-one million copper coins, the market value of which inevitably fell in proportion to the rapidity with which they were turned out. By the end of the year, when the central government had awaked to the danger of this reckless issue of depreciated