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Chapter
VI
Finances of China
HE ability of the Chinaman to contradict
himself reaches the maximum in matters
of finance. This strikes the observer as
singular, for the Chinese have no equals in their
understanding of the use of money, in their ability
to husband it and make it go far, and in their
economical and saving habits. Yet they have
elaborated a monetary system which, for cumber-
someness and downright wastefulness, is without
an equal.
This lack of progress is rendered more extra-
ordinary by the fact that bank-notes, one of the
greatest steps in the way of making financial
transactions more convenient, originated in China,
where they were known probably as early as
a.d. 800, or about eight centuries before the de-
vice was reinvented in Europe. In the first place
there is no standard of value; the nearest ap-
proach being a tael, which is subdivided deci-
mally into maces, the mace into candareens, and
the candareen into li. But these things exist in
names only, and not as coins, for the tael is but a
weight of silver bullion. This would be serious
enough if there was only one tael, but, as a matter
of fact, there are over sixty in different parts of
the country differing in value as much as fren per |
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