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

Currency problems 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 testing 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.2 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,

behind the Chinese, while elsewhere in Asia, with the exception of India and Japan, the old, worn-out appliances of patriarchal agriculture sum up the resources of the people pretty much everywhere.

Many Asiatic countries, and China not the least among them, are endowed with as yet unexplored resources. Mineral wealth in apparently exhaustless abundance and variety, untouched

ties of the Orient.

The industrial capabili- natural sources of power and production, are kept in wasteful idleness, while the people to work them are swarming on every side, with the finest gifts of patient industry, awaiting that inspiring and guiding leadership which will direct them in paths of usefulness. Asiatics are by no means deficient in capacity; they are able to do an immense share of the world's work with a skill and deftness which, if they could be brought into touch with the appliances of modern times, would astonish and perhaps greatly disconcert the Western nations, who seem to look upon their trade and commerce as beyond competition so far as Eastern rivalry is concerned. Japan has already sent a nervous thrill through the commercial circles of the West, and other peoples of the East will before long add their increment of force to the shock. An illustration of the prompt advantage of the adoption of modern improvements is at hand. China since the days of the Roman emperors, as has been shown by Mr. Gundry,1 has been noted for her trade in silk, but, adhering to her primitive methods, her output was limited, and other nations with improved machinery absorbed a large share of the industry. Now her people are just beginning to adopt the facilities for machine-reeling, and China is coming into rapid competition with her rivals.2 So in the case of the sugar-cane industry in Central China; the native mills are so im

Chinese farms appear to partake more of the nature of market-gardens than of agricultural holdings. The implements used are primitive in the extreme, and are such as, we learn from the sculptures, were used in ancient Assyria. Two only may be said to be generally used, the plough and the hoe. The first of these is little more than a spade fastened to a single handle by bamboo bands. As a rule, it is drawn by a buffalo or buffaloes, and some travellers even claim to have seen women harnessed in the same yoke with these beasts of burden. From the shape of the share the Chinese plough does little more than disturb the surface of the soil, and rarely penetrates more than four or five inches. . . . The spade is seldom used, and the hoe is made to take its place. Rakes and bill-hooks complete the farmer's stock in trade. The bamboo, which is made to serve almost every purpose, forms the material of each part of the rake; while the bill-hook has a treble debt to pay, serving as a pruning-knife in the spring, a scythe in the summer, and a sickle when the grain is ripe to harvest."-Douglas, "Society in China," p. 126.

2 "In a recent report from the British Legation in Peking on Chinese commercial topics, silk is described as the most characteristic of all Chinese products, and that