Page:Europe in China.djvu/511

Rh Ordinance was favourably regarded by a majority of bill and bullion brokers, but that the proposed Ordinance would not affect exchange brokers in any way, and that therefore the object of the Government would be better fulfilled by means of an Association invested with certain powers of regulation over its members. Legislation was accordingly postponed, in order to give the brokers time and opportunity to form such an Association, and the Bill was withdrawn. This was virtually the end of the whole movement, for the proposed Association was not formed, and although a spasmodic effort was made a year later (December 18, 1873) to start an open stock exchange, where shares were to be sold by public auction, the attempt was a conspicuous failure.

Another set of questions, which troubled the mind of the commercial community off and on, from 1872 down to 1876, was connected with the systematic adulteration of grey shirtings in England and of tea leaves in China and in England. What, in the history of British manufactures, is known as the question, troubled the minds of Hongkong merchants, particularly since 1872, under the name of the mildew question, sizing and mildew being related as cause and effect. During the American War, the British manufacturers of cotton goods had to use bad and short-fibred cotton, which required proportionately more sizing with flour and tallow. But when the Russian War raised the price of tallow, the practice arose of substituting, for tallow, the cheaper China clay which increased the weight of the fabrics considerably. Now to counteract the destructive effects of the clay on the fibre of the cotton stuffs, it became necessary to use certain deliquescent salts which, while invisible in the fabrics before shipment in England, developed mildew whilst in the hold of steamers in transit through the Suez Canal. But what irritated Hongkong merchants in the matter was further this, that, whilst they looked upon this system of sizing as a fraud practiced by the manufacturers, the advocates of the latter represented sizing as a practice resorted to by order of British merchants in China, who asked for cheap and inferior goods, necessarily