Excerpt from On Chinese Currency, Preliminary Remarks About the Monetary Reform in China It is questionable, not only if it is advisable, but even if it is possible to introduce at once one single system for the whole of such a country as China; The best monetary system for China in the first twenty or thirty years; Advisable, as an introductory period, to have two standards together: a gold exchange standard as far as possible, and also at the same time a silver standard; China requires as soon as possible an uniform currency, and, as far as practicable, a monetary system with a stable valuta; How to start with a stable gold unit and meanwhile maintain a silver currency; A unit with a fixed relation to gold should be selected from the very start; How to bring such a theoretical or fictitious unit into practical use and make it a real unit for the calculation of daily transactions though it be not minted into hard coins; The Amsterdam Exchange Bank; The Hamburger Giro Bank; The great force of the Amsterdam Exchange Bank was derived from the institution of a bank guilder, which in later years existed no longer as a coin but acted as a fictitious unit and procured absolute stability to all payments; The bank, that will act as a central bank of issue, will also take the initiative of introducing such a bank unit; The bank must also be ready to make transfers in that fictitious gold unit from one account to another; The bank may be able to issue notes to bearer; The gold value of these notes can be secured by offering a redemption in gold value abroad About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.