132  THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
broke  the  parcel  of  copper  pieces.  The  result  was
that  the  matter  was  referred  to  the  officials,  and  after
plea  and  counter-plea,  the  shopkeepers  have  won,
and  by  proclamation  the  rate  in  Wusueh  from  tomorrow ­
  will  be  98  to  the  100,  so  that  the  banks  wi
hand  over  unbroken  packets  of  copper  coins.  Does  not
the  commercial  strength  of  the  Chinese  lie  just  in  this
pertinacious  struggling  against  the  smallest  losses  .
Double  Value  of  Cash  in  North  China
In  the  north  (Chihli,  Shantung)  one  cash  counts  for
two.  The  price  of  an  article  being  there  quoted  at  100
cash,  you  hand  over  50  coins,  at  2  tiao  you  give  what  in  the
south  constitutes  1  tiao.  The  same  rule  of  deduction  holds
here  too,  and  the  tiao  nominally  of  1,000  and  nominallyactually
  of  980  cash  contains  actually  49°  c0 * ns ;  ^
Peking,  too,  the  rule  holds  good,  and  the  tiao  nominally
of  1,000  cash,  i.e.  nominally  of  100  and  nominally-actually
of  98  pieces  of  10-cash  actually  contains  49  pieces  of  10-cash
=20-cash.  In  Manchuria  the  tiao  consists  of  160  ordinary
(small)  cash.
I  make  no  excuse  for  devoting  so  much  of  my  space  to
this  part  of  my  subject.  The  copper  coinage  is  the  currency
of  the  people,  in  which  the  daily  transactions  of  four  hundred
millions  are  carried  on.  The  importer  and  the  exporter
have  an  exchange  question  ever  present  ;  the  wholesale
dealer  buys  and  sells  with  taels  of  silver  bullion  ;  but  the
shopkeeper  sells  his  commodities,  and  the  artisan  and  the
farmer  sell  the  produce  of  their  labour,  for  copper  coins,
and  with  these  copper  coins  buy  what  will  suffice  for  their
daily  needs.  The  basis  of  the  currency  system  of  the
Empire  is  the  copper  cash  which  was  originally  yoVo  of
a  tael  of  silver,  worth  only  a  generation  ago  the  third  of  a
pound  sterling  ;  and  of  this  copper  cash,  at  the  exchange
ruling  a  couple  of  years  ago,  it  took  approximately  10,00c
to  equal  a  pound  sterling,  2,000  an  American  dollar,  5 oC
a  mark,  and  400  a  franc.