Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1910 — CURRENCY OF CHINA. [ARTICLE]

CURRENCY OF CHINA.

Tea-Cash Piece DfapkacM Old Ceppea Cuk—New Chlaeae Delian. Business transactions between Chinese merchants and foreign firms are usually in taels, says -Daily Consular and Trade Reports. The tael varies in different places both as to weight and “touch” (or fineness), and the exchange between the tael and the dollar, or between the former and the copper coinage, is constantly fluctuating. The only coin in .use until recently was the copper cash (of which there are about 1,200 to the Mexican dollar, or 2,850 to the American dollar), but these are fast disappearing except in the more or leas, remote interior. A new coin or fen cash piece has been made at the provincial mints, and it is rapidly displacing the ola copper cash. The relative value between these and silvdS: dollars or taels is constantly fluctuating. At first they were supposed to represent one one-hundredth of a Mexican dollar, or about one two-hundred-and fortieth of a dollar, but the exchange is now (Oct. 1) from 130 to 136 for Mexican dollar, or from 307 to 319 for the gold dollar. * . For many years the Mexican dollar was current at and in the vicinity of the coast and river ports, but now Chinese dollars are coined at the provincial mints at Tientsin, Nanking, Wuchang, Hankow, Canton and elsewhere, but the mintage of one province is only accepted at a discount in another province. Subsidiary silver coins, 10 cent and' 20 teent pieces, are also made at (she provincial mints, but these are never worth their face value. They are discounted about 15 per cent when exchanged for dollars.