Marwaris. Other names, as, for instance, sowkar, in the Deccan, prevail in other sections of India. These money-brokers drive a thriving and ruinous business. It is a characteristic weakness of Hindus to fall into their trap. Mr. Malabari, in his "Gujarat and the Gujaratis," has pointed out the insidious wiles of the Marwari, and the fatal ascendancy he soon secures.1 Books upon India give detailed accounts of the inveterate habit of borrowing, and the methods long in use by moneylenders to get the peasantry and small traders into their power, and of the inevitable catastrophe which follows.2 "One of the greatest curses in India," writes Dr. Robert Stewart, "is the Hindu broker." 3 'The

escape from it, when once entrapped, is very uncommon."-J. W. McKean, M.D. (P. B. F. M. N.), Chieng Mai, Laos.

"The King promulgated a law a few years ago providing for the gradual abolition of debt-slavery. It is beginning to take some effect."-Rev. W. G. McClure (P. B. F. M. N.), Petchaburee, Siam.

1 "" 'The Marwari allows credit to his customers till it has reached, say, a rupee; then begins the interest at two annas a month; then it becomes a book debt; then is required a security-an old ring, a few cooking utensils, some wearing apparel, etc. These are lodged with the Marwari till the lodger has drawn upon the shop for about half their value. Fresh security is now required if fresh supplies of rotten grain, adulterated oil, wet fuel, etc., are applied for. He charges heavy interest for the credit money, and he turns to account the security lodged with him. He lends the ring, the clothes, the utensils, or the furniture to others, and charges for the use. If those who have lodged the articles with him object to their being used, why, they must close their account with him!

"The Marwari will lend and sell on credit to the last pie compatible with safety. Infinite is his power of lending, so is his power of recovering. The moment the Marwari finds difficulty in repayment, he sets about squeezing the last drop out of the unhappy wretch. He removes from his house everything worth removing. He does not scruple to put his victims to the vilest uses, so he can recover what he thinks to be his due. When all fails to satisfy the relentless fiend, he resorts to the Small Cause Court. Those who know what a summary suit is need not be told that the Marwari has the power to sell by auction everything the debtor may possess. He often buys up everything himself.

"The Marwari feeds upon the poorer classes of Hindus, but clerks and others likewise fall victims to his rapacity. His policy is the policy of the long rope.' He lends and lends till the man is completely in his power, and is virtually his slave for life."― Malabari, "Gujarat and the Gujaratis," quoted in "The Principal Nations of India," p. 81.

2 Cf. Raghavaiyangar, "Progress of the Madras Presidency During the Last Forty Years," Appendices, p. cclxxv.; Wilkins, "Modern Hinduism," pp. 409, 410. See also "Debt and the Right Use of Money," a timely little pamphlet in the series of Papers on Social Reform, published by the Christian Literature Society, Madras. The beguiling allurements and sinuosities of Indian debt-traps are briefly and instructively treated in this useful tract written especially for Indian readers. 3" Life and Work in India," p. 127.

conditions, however, are greatly improved by financial reforms introduced by the British Government.1

in China.

In China currency is the sport of tricksters. Few are inclined to part with coin without surreptitiously extracting something of its value; all are reluctant to receive it without carefully testCurrency problems ing its integrity. The rate of interest is uniformly high, ranging from twenty-four to thirty-six per cent., and sometimes even more.2 The mysteries and uncertainties of Chinese finances are discussed by Mr. R. S. Gundry, in "China, Present and Past," in a special chapter on "Currency (pp. 141-158). China is still dependent in her treaty ports and vicinity upon the Mexican, Japanese, and to some extent the British dollar issued at Hong Kong, for her current medium and her accepted standard. In the interior the small "cash" and the awkward silver "shoes"-blocks

1 "The extension of the security of property to all parts of the country, the adoption of a uniform currency, the introduction of the money-order system and of currency notes and State banks, and the creation of a public stock in which money can be invested with perfect security, have rendered it now impossible for the moneylending classes to make the enormous gains which they did in former times. . . There can be no doubt, however, that, with the increase of trade and the growth of a money economy, money-lending classes have increased in large numbers and spread all through the country instead of being confined to the towns. According to the returns of income tax for the year 1890-91, there were in this [Madras] Presidency 14,621 money-lenders with incomes exceeding Rs 500 per annum. There is no means of forming an estimate of petty money-lenders with less income than Rs 500."-Raghavaiyangar, “Progress of the Madras Presidency During the Last Forty Years," p. 160.

At the Poona Social Conference held in December, 1895, the president, Dr. Bhandarkar, in his inaugural address referred to the money-lender and his virtual war upon Indian society as follows:

"And I will make bold to assert that the chronic poverty of the agricultural classes and the depredations of the proverbial sowkar, or money-lender, are a great social evil. The Government has been endeavoring to do a good deal by means of mere special legislation; but that does not seem to have remedied the evil, and the money-lender continues to charge interest from eighteen to twenty-five per cent. on loans raised on the security of lands. This is a political as well as a social question. The Government has been on several occasions urged to establish agricultural banks. An ordinary bank with agencies at the district towns, and sub-agencies for circles with a radius of about ten miles, will, I think, fully answer the purpose. Money should be lent on the security of land at an interest of from nine to twelve per cent., payable about the same time as the land revenue. Sympathetic, though firm, treatment should be accorded to the peasants, and the agents employed should not be unscrupulous men exacting perquisites for themselves." See for full text of the Address, which deals with many aspects of social reform in India, Delhi Mission News, July, 1896.

2 Smith,

"Chinese Characteristics," p. 255.

Euphrates College, Harpoot. Girls' Seminary, burned by Turks and Kurds, 1895.

Euphrates College, Harpoot, Turkey. Group of pupils in the Girls' Department, 1890AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL WORK IN TURKEY (A. B. C. F. M.)

valued at about forty dollars-are the common currency. The Celestial Empire awaits some system of terrestrial coinage which will be of practical service and guaranteed stability for advantageous commercial use. Just at present financial matters are in a confused and unstable state, and foreign investments, as well as native ventures, are attended with considerable risk, all of which is depressing to China and retards her commercial progress.1

It is sufficient to say, in conclusion, that systematic and regulative measures are desperately needed in the sphere of finance and banking everywhere throughout the less civilized sections of the world. The assurance now felt is almost entirely due to the fact that great banking establishments, under foreign control, backed by foreign capital, conducted by orderly methods, having the confidence of the whole commercial East, and with a bed-rock of moral stability under them, control the finances of the Orient.

4. PRIMITIVE INDUSTRIAL APPLIANCES.- Financial uncertainties are in league with clumsy tools and antiquated methods in trades, industries, and agricultural labors to retard the de

trial methods in the East.

velopment of the East. It is social heresy of the The fixedness of indusmost pronounced kind in many sections of the Orient to forsake the time-honored ways of antiquity for new and improved methods, however advantageous they may be. Every one is afraid to begin, lest he offend public sentiment or become the butt of ridicule, or possibly find himself incompetent to succeed in any other way than that of his fathers for generations past. The gradual development of better facilities has been hitherto checked as if by proscription; the natural transformation of ways and means from the old and cumbersome to the new and facile has been interdicted as if it were high treason to society. The result of this wholesale condemnation of better methods, simply because they are different from the old, is a check to the business prosperity and the social advancement of the East, while it is a serious drawback to progress.

In China the old, awkward methods of farming with rude implements are still in vogue, and the modern facilities of Western nations are under a ban of contempt. Harvesting and threshing are done in primitive and laborious fashion. The Koreans are, if possible, even

1 The subject has been fully and ably treated by Vissering, "Chinese Currency" (Leyden, Brill, 1877)..

2 "Accustomed as we are to large farms and extended systems of agriculture,