summer. It is urged by some bankers (especially the British, for reasons that will be considered later) that the interior stocks of the white metal in China (sycee silver being the refined article in commercial bars or other shapes and forms ready for minting) will be ample to keep the Imperial mint and branches busy without drawing heavily upon outside supplies. There is no possibility at present of getting even an approximate idea of the amount of these internal holdings, but this much is selfevident: with the progress of the currency reform and the penetration of its advantages and benefits into the interior trade of the Empire, the demand for the new currency will grow to enormous proportions. Whether the silver be coined or, by subsequent decree, be held in Government custody against certificates issued, like our own silver certificates, the consumption of the white metal by so multitudinous a population as China's must be remarkable in time. To-day the total silver circulation in the United States (not counting subsidiary coins) is about $532,000,000 (on August 1, 1911, it was $72,225,849 in silver standard dollars and $460,700,634 in silver certificates), which, on a total coinage, would call for about 412,000,000 fine ounces of silver. Six dollars is our per capita silver circulation. To reach a circulation of only one dollar a head in China (say $325,000,000) would bring to the mints about 260,000,000 fine ounces of silver (the amount of pure silver in the new Celestial dollar being a trifle larger than in our own). Now, the world's production of silver in 1909 was only a little more than 200,000,000 fine ounces. The Director of the United States Mint has not yet obtained sufficient data on which to base estimates for 1910. The amount, however, has probably not been much in excess of the 1909 total, in the absence of any exceptionally stimulating influence. Canada's cobalt field is the principal contributor to expansion in output.

A "corner" in silver? The idea seems preposterous, and is, undoubtedly. But less potent stimulii than this factor of growing Chinese demand have at times in the past given silver prices a fillip. A long era of depression followed the breakdown of the ill-advised attempt of the American Government to bolster the value of the white metal through the purchases made under the

Sherman Act of 1890. May it not be possible that the new addition to the forces of consumption provided by China's currency will serve to provide a price basis for silver more remunerative to producers than the quotations of the last two decades—a basis fixed in response to the economic law of supply and demand? Current silver production and consumption cannot be far apart. In fact, statistics on their face indicate an actual overconsumption. The available data in respect of output and demand are given below. Reasonable accuracy attaches to the figures of production and to the coinage of silver by the different Governments of the world. But when we come to the extent to which the metal is used in the arts and manufactures, we enter upon a region still largely unexplored by statisticians. By diligent official circularization of foreign Governments and by a thorough domestic investigation, our Mint Office has secured information that serves for the most authoritative calculations with regard to this important economic and commercial factor. ing, therefore, the material prepared by the Director of the United States Mint (in conjunction with the work of the National Geological Survey), herewith are presented the statistics of the world's production and consumption of silver for a series of years:

Us

In the last two years the world's coinage has been much below the average. The United States ceased to coin silver dollars in 1906. India's coinage of silver dropped from $84,600,000 in 1907 to $58,800,000 in 1908 and to $9,250,000 in 1909. There have been large decreases in the silver output of the mints of Mexico, Germany, the French Indo-Chinese Colonies, the British Straits Settlements and our own Philippines. The coinage for 1910 may therefore be assumed to be about the amount of 1909. But, as the Director of the United States Mint has, in recent years, been including estimates, long ignored in his statistics, of the consumption of the metal in the arts and manufactures of the Far East, and as the use of silver in photography is enormously increasing (and herein that which is used is actually destroyed), it may be assumed that the figures relating to the industrial use of silver are greatly under-estimated rather than exaggerated. In the Mint estimates, only new material is considered. But in the returns under the head of coinage, the re-coinages of the world's mints are included. Deduction for this account would reduce materially the amounts given as to coinage. Yet re-coinage has gone down pari passu with new mint output. The value of the world's silver re-coinage in 1907 was $63,400,000; in 1909, only a little more than $20,000,000. But, offsetting this allowance, is the fact that in the process of re-coining abraded coin and, to some extent, worn foreign coins converted into domestic circulating media, a loss of about five per cent. is involved. Furthermore, to make an additional offset to the re-coinage deduction to be made as indicated above, we have the economic disappearance of coined material: the loss by abrasion and the destruction in fires, floods, earthquakes, shipwrecks and like dis

asters.

Leaving these various cross-currents to partisan estimate, one way or the other, we have in the foregoing table an apparent relation between supply and consumption as follows: The consumption in coinage and the arts fell below production from 1893 to 1896; it rose above production in 1897 by 630,000 fine ounces; it fell below in 1898 by 18,500,000 ounces; it rose above production in 1899 and 1900; it fell below by 21,500,000 ounces in 1901; it rose above the output from 1902 to 1908, and in

1909 it fell below by 18,700,000 ounces. The estimates for 1910 would show an excess of production of 10,000,000 ounces. The aggregate results may be summarized as follows, in fine ounces, the estimates of 1910 being ignored:

.......

Total, 17 years... As regards the immediate outlook we have every indication of steady increase in the silver output of the Dominion of Canada, but the probability that the political situation in Mexico will interfere to some extent with mining operations in that country. On the other hand, there are no prospects, judging from recent official statements of the Government of India, that purchases of silver for coinage into the rupee will be resumed in 1911. That great dependency of the British Empire is itself undergoing significant and vital industrial and economic changes. Not only are the silver rupees that have been hoarded beginning to appear in general circulation, but there is a noticeable prominence of the gold sovereign in recent phenomena of the currency media. There is an important development of native coöperative credit institutions now going on in India and the use of modern machinery in commercial exchange is bound to increase. Yet even the remarkable prosperity of this Dependency and the material development of the country will call for increased use of silver currency so long as the Far East remains wedded in attitude and practice to the white metal. And now that the fiscal reform of the Chinese Empire has at last been started in earnest, the demand for silver looming up brings into view a most important consideration for the markets. Let it be remembered, also, that with any uplifting of the social conditions of both of the great Eastern bee-hives of humanity, the use of silver for ornament, common utility and manufacture is bound to reach limits not easily comprehended by the imagination.

3,034,328,437 2,929,678,129 104,650,308 (C)

As the producer of one-quarter of the annual supply of the white metal, the United States has a large interest at stake in the entire category of influences bearing on its price. But British India is a creditor nation on a large scale. While a small excess

of merchandise imports over exports in its trade with the United Kingdom and the other British Colonies has been maintained even in recent years (a late English Blue Book showing an excess of imports into India averaging $35,000,000 a year in the last five years ended March 31, 1910), on her total overseas trade account India holds a large credit balance. Not to overburden ourselves with figures, it may be stated that, ignoring the movements of bullion, the British Empire created in name by Disraeli enjoyed the following excess of merchandise exports over imports in its trade with the world in the fiscal years named, only round numbers being used: In 1906, £39,000,000; 1907, £45,700,000; 1908, £31,600,000; 1909, £21,200,000; 1910, £47,000,000. For the calendar year 1910 this excess of exports was £56,700,000, against £38,000,000 in the calendar year 1909. As the London market is practically the Clearing House for the world's transactions in silver, it is to the interest of the British bullion merchant and dealer to buy cheap and sell dear, and hence he is rarely sympathetic with an advance in the white metal. Anyone whose business calls upon him to read the weekly and annual market circulars of London's leading bullion brokers can hardly fail to be impressed with the general attitude maintained -that of minimizing the factors of a nature to stimulate the price, and of giving full weight (if not a little more) to such handicaps as silver must assume at times under the rule of life which governs all commodities and all markets. To the British broker, therefore, the new potency of China's currency demands becomes vital: it may put a conservative check-rein on his operations in contracts for future delivery by which he has frequently balked a rising tendency developed by the condition of the New York market or those of Bombay and Calcutta.

We may be sure that the acumen of the Chinese Government will prevent the adoption of any course in connection with purchases of silver for the Imperial coinage which will unnecessarily "boom" the silver market or make its reform programme too costly at the start. Yet having entered upon this monetary project of magnitude, it will be contrary to Celestial traditions if its influence in the market for this commodity is not turned to home advantage and in the political relations of the Empire with the