Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/711

Rh £10,800,000, that is to say, about 4½ millions more than the sterling equivalent of the Maritime Customs revenue at that date. Between 1917 and 1921, the Boxer indemnity payments having been sus- pended by the Allied Powers, and the sterling value of the customs and salt revenues more than doubled, the financial resources at the disposal of the Chinese Government were greater than at any pre- vious period. No advantage was taken of this favourable oppor- tunity of reducing the nation's foreign debt; on the contrary, it was materially increased by repeated borrowings from Japan, in the course of which many potential sources of national wealth were recklessly mortgaged. The amount of these loans, chiefly incurred by Premier Tuan's administr tion between 1916 and 1918, is not definitely known, for the details of several agreements have not been published, but it was estimat d at over 200 million yen at the end of 918. L ttle, if any, of the money thus raised was devoted to reproductive enterprises; it merely served to increase the numbers and rapacity of the Tuchuns' military forces.

The official Statement of the Foreign Debts of China," issued by the Government Bureau of Economic Information in Jan. 1920, giving a list of loans and liabilities outstanding at that date, will be found on the following page.

The Bureau estimated the total of obligations outstanding as approximately $657,627,083, but the rate at which exchange was calculated is not stated. (At the rate prevailing in Jan. 1921, the liability in dollars was practically double that of Jan. 1920.) Nor is it clear upon what basis this official statement was compiled, for it contains no reference to a number of railway and other loans, for which the Chinese Government is responsible, and its list of the advances obtained from Japan in recent years is evidently incomplete. The total amount of loans contracted for purposes of railway con- struction at the end of 1918 was about 40 millions sterling. Ac- cording to a statement published by the Peking Leader, the total amount of foreign loans raised by the republican Government between 1912 and July 1918 was $1,057,900,000; and new loans, to an aggregate of 230 million dollars, were under discussion.

Currency Reform.—In the commercial treaty concluded with Great Britain in 1902, China undertook to create a uniform na- tional coinage. In 1908, the Government considered that the best solution of the matter would be a standard "tael," and orders were issued to the provincial authorities accordingly. In 1910, this plan was abandoned and a 72-candareen dollar was adopted as the standard national coin. In April 1911, an agreement was concluded between the Ministry of Finance and the Four-Power Consortium for a loan of 10 millions sterling, of which 8 millions were to be used for the reform of the currency, but owing to the outbreak of the revolution, the loan was not floated. In 1912, the establishment of a gold standard was discussed, but in March 1914, the silver dollar was definitely adopted, and in 1915 coins bearing the effigy of Yuan Shih-k'ai were minted at Tientsin in large numbers; there had already been a considerable production of "standard " dollars by the mints at Nanking and Wuchang. A memorandum by the Minister of Finance in 1918 put the total coinage of new dollars (of 89% fineness) between 1914 and 1918 at 184 millions, against which 52 millions of old coins were withdrawn from circulation. The currency law promulgated in March 1914 was intended to secure a limited coinage of dollars and subsidiary decimal coins of fixed values. A code of regulations to this end was adopted by a currency commission advised by Dr. G. Vissering, but the Government authorities themselves failed to observe them and the output of the mints continued to be regulated by the necessities and op- portunities of the officials concerned. The copper coinage, in par- ticular, rapidly deteriorated. In Aug. 1918, the Minister of Finance (Tsao Ju-lin) proposed the issue of gold currency notes and the establishment of a currency department under the direct control of the premier. The President endorsed the scheme by mandate, but the opposition was so strong that it was indefinitely postponed.

The chaotic conditions of the metal currency have been ag- gravated by the fact that numerous native banks and provincial Governments have issued bank-notes, in taels and dollars, for large amounts, uncontrolled and unsecured by bullion reserves, most of which circulate at varying rates of discount. (The Peking notes of the Bank of China and Bank of Communications were quoted at 50% discount in 1919.) During the revolution, moreover, military notes were indiscriminately issued, some of which the Government has since redeemed. The amount of provincial paper money in circula- tion at the end of 1915 was estimated at $169,000,000. Many foreign banks having branches in China also issue bank-notes within the limits of their charters, which circulate freely in the treaty ports. The number of foreign banks doing business in China has greatly increased, the majority of the newcomers being Japanese and American. In 1921 the Native Bankers' Association at Shang- hai was an organization of increasing influence; it restricts its membership to banks conducted on modern lines.

—China Year Book (1919); T. W. Overlach's Foreign Financial Control in China; The New Financial Consortium in China, Blue Book, Misc. No. 9 (1921); G. Vissering, On Chinese Currency, 2 vols. (1912-4); H. B. Morse, Trade and Administration of China, 3rd ed. (1921); J. O. P. Bland, China, Japan and Korea (1921); and S. G. Cheng, Modern China (1920). 665 agriculture, and its perpetual function is to produce the rice upon

Agricultural Products.—The principal industry of China is population. Such new economic factors as the wide-spread revival the supply of which staple food depends the survival rate of the of opium-growing (forbidden by imperial edicts and actively sup- growing area due to the successful development of the spinning in- pressed between 1907 and 1911), or the extension of the cotton- dustry, necessarily involve a corresponding reduction of the home- grown food supply. These changes, unless accompanied by an in- abroad, must expose the nation to increased danger of famine in crease of national wealth sufficient to replace it by purchases from bad years. According to the report on trade published by the statistical secretary of the Maritime Customs in April, 1920, the cultivation of the poppy had been regularly resumed on a wide scale in several provinces, notably Szechuan, Yünnan, Kueichow and Fukien. Between 1913 and 1920, the area under cotton cultivation steadily increased, in response to the growing demand of the spinning and weaving industries at Shanghai, Hankow, Tientsin and other Shantung, Honan, Hupeh, Kiangsi and Chekiang. The total pro- industrial centres, the chief producing areas being Chihli, western duction of raw cotton in 1919 was estimated at 12,000,000 piculs, a figure which placed China third on the list of cotton-producing agricultural economics, all calculated to diminish the nation's countries. Simultaneously with these changes in the country's home-grown food supplies, the extraordinary demand for rice and other foodstuffs in Japan and Siberia, which became acute in 1919, had resulted in a serious shortage of food in many parts of the country, before the bad harvest of 1920 produced a devastating famine in the northeastern provinces. In the summer of 1919, the Japanese competition for rice was so insistent that the south of China was deprived of its customary supplies from Indo-China and Burma; consequently, the staple food of the people rose to un- precedented prices. Other recent features of the agricultural economic situation are the rapid extension of the bean-growing area in Manchuria and the development of wheat cultivation (combined with a steady increase of the flour-milling industry) in N. China and the central Yangtsze provinces. The statistics of the wheat and flour trades are particularly significant, illustrating on the one hand a change in the habits of the Chinese people in certain districts, and on the other, the increasing pressure which has been brought to bear upon China's resources by better organized or piculs; in 1919, it was 2,694,271 piculs, of which Japan and Siberia wealthier nations. In 1913, the total export of flour was 194,451 took each a third. In 1919, Japan and Siberia divided the wheat nearly 50% higher than in 1913, while that of bean cake rose by export amounting to 4,453,471 piculs; in 1913, the total export was 1,848,071 piculs. Similarly, the export of beans in 1919 was 75%, Japan being practically the sole importer of the latter. The manufacture of bean cake and bean oil has become one of China's most profitable industries.

Mining.—The mineral industry in China has advanced but little under the republic and remains, generally speaking, beset by the same difficulties and impediments as those which confronted the first Bureau of Mines in 1898. The fact is noteworthy, not only because of the nature and extent of the country's resources, but because of the seriously increasing financial obligations of its rulers. Under the Manchus, attempts were made to develop valuable min- ing areas by native enterprise under the direction of officials or merchants, or both combined, but without success. The foreign and even that of the provincial viceroys, was never sufficient to concession system, subsequently adopted, failed also to attain the desired end. for the reason that the central Government's authority, overcome the conservatism or the vested interests of the local officials capitalists under the monarchy were either repurchased or in- and gentry. In many cases mining concessions granted to foreign validated as the result of local opposition, and native mining con- erally speaking, by primitive methods. (In 1914 it was officially tinued to be conducted on the small-scale claim system and, gen- estimated that the amount of coal produced by 4,962 small mine owners was 6,315,000 tons.) No practical steps have been taken to fulfil the undertaking given in the Mackay Treaty (1902) that China would recast her mining rules in such a way as to offer no im- pediment to the attraction of foreign capital." The mining reg- foreign ministers at Peking, were soon declared to be unworkable; ulations issued in 1907, as the result of much pressure from the they failed to make definite provision for the operations of large- revolution, matters drifted. In 1913, inspired by a Minister of scale mining by joint-stock companies. Thus, until and after the industrial methods, the Government of the republic took up the subject again; the result was a bewildering mass of over 300 mining Commerce (Chang Chien) with some practical knowledge of modern regulations, issued under seven headings, at various dates between March 1914 and July 1915. By this code the Government for the first time asserted the claim of the State to dispose of all mineral rights, and "no longer to allow landowners to hinder mining de- velopment"; at the same time, it reduced the hitherto exorbitant rate of direct taxation levied on the industry. But it still left the miners' produce exposed to export duties and transit taxes amount- ing to over 10%, in addition to property tax, land tax and output tax.