social scale to labourers and mechanics it is difficult to understand. The merchants and traders of China have gained the respect and won the admiration of all those who have been brought into contact with them. For honesty and integrity they have earned universal praise, and on this point a Shanghai bank manager, in lately acknowledging a valedictory address, presented to him on his leaving the country, bore the following testimony: "I have," he said, "referred to the high commercial standing of the foreign community. The Chinese are in no way behind us in that respect; in fact, I know of no people in the world I would sooner trust than the Chinese merchant and banker. . . I may mention that for the last twenty-five years the bank has been doing a very large business with Chinese at Shanghai, amounting, I should say, to hundreds of millions of taels, and we have never yet met with a defaulting Chinaman." It was such men as these that built up the commerce which excited the wonder and admiration of Marco Polo and other early European travellers; and it is to their labours and to those of their descendants that the existence of the crowded markets, the teeming wharfs and the richly laden vessels of the present day are due. However much in theory the Chinese may despise their merchant princes, their intelligence gains them a position of respect, and their riches assure them consideration at the hands of the mandarins, who are never backward in drawing on their overflowing coffers. It is noticeable that while novelists are never tired of satirizing the cupidity of the mandarins, the assumption of the literati, and the viciousness of the priesthood, they

ok all.

refrain from reflections on a class which at least honestly toils and only asks to be allowed to reap the rewards of its own untiring industry.

As for everything else in China, a vast antiquity is claimed for the beginning of commerce. In the earliest native works extant mention occurs of the efforts made to barter the products of one district for those of another, and to dispose of the superfluous goods of China by exchange with the merchandise of the neighbouring countries. The subject was not considered beneath the notice of the earliest philosophers, and Confucius on several occasions gave utterance to his views on the matter. Wise as many of his sayings were, it is a fact that his dicta on practical affairs were for the most part either platitudes or fallacies. It is not difficult to determine in which class his best quoted pronouncement on trade should be placed. "Let the producers," said the sage, "be many and the consumers few. Let there be activity in the production and economy in the expenditure. Then the wealth will always be ample." It might have occurred even to Confucius that, if the producers of a certain commodity were in the majority, and the consumers in the minority, the only people who could possibly benefit would be the few, more especially if they further reduced the demand for the product by following the philosopher's advice and practising economy in the use of it.

Fortunately, the merchants of China have not found it necessary to accept Confucius as an infallible guide in mercantile concerns; and they, in common with the rest of their countrymen, have benefited by the disenthralment from the bondage

which still binds the literary classes to the chariotwheels of the sage. The same problems which were at an early date worked out in the commercial centres of Europe have been presented for solution to the frequenters of the marts in the Flowery Land. Long before the establishment by Lombard Jews of banks in Italy (A.D. 808), the money-changers of China were affording their customers all the help and convenience which belong to the banking system; and three hundred years before the establishment at Stockholm of the first bank which issued notes in Europe, paper currency was passing freely through all the provinces of the empire. A later development of trade has been the adoption of guilds, whose halls are often among the handsomest buildings to be met with in the busy centres of trade. The idea first took shape in a curious way. Provincial mandarins on visiting the capital found that they were quite unable to cope singly with the exactions of the officials and the insults which their local pronunciations and provincial attires drew upon them from the people. They determined, therefore, to combine for mutual protection, and to establish guilds as common centres for protection in case of need, and for the more congenial purpose of social intercourse.

Strange as it may seem to those who only hear of the opposition shown by Chinamen to foreigners, it is yet a fact that a like hostility, though in a mitigated form, is commonly displayed towards natives of other provinces and districts. Like the provincial mandarins at Peking, travelling merchants found the advantage of being able to show a united front to the annoyances which they suffered from

the natives of "outside provinces," and, following the example set in the capital, they founded provincial guilds in all parts of the country where trade or pleasure made their presence either necessary or convenient. Natives of Canton visiting Chehkiang or Hunan are now no longer subjected to the insults to which they were accustomed at the native inns. In their provincial guilds they may count on security and comfort, and, if merchants, they are sure to find among the frequenters of the clubs, either customers for their goods or vendors of the products which they may wish to buy. The more strictly mercantile guilds serve invaluable purposes in the promotion of trade. Each is presided over

by a president, who is helped in the administration by a specially elected committee and a permanent secretary. This last is generally a graduate, and thus in virtue both of his literary rank and of his connexion with the guild has ready access to the mandarins of the district. Through his instrumentality disputes are arranged, litigation is often prevented, and the Lekin taxes due from the members of the guild for the passage of their goods into the interior of the country are compounded for by lump sums.

0.1%

The revenue of the guilds is derived from a payment of one-tenth of one per cent. on all sales effected by members. At first sight this percentage appears insignificant, but so great is the volume of internal trade, that the amount realized not only covers every requirement, but furnishes a surplus for luxurious feasts. In one guild at Ning-po the reserve fund was lately stated to be 700,000 dollars, to which must be added the amount realized by the

1

deposit exacted from each new member of 3000 dollars. Against the income account must be set down large out-goings in several directions. In the case of a member going to law with the sanction of the guild he receives half his law expenses, and a not inconsiderable sum is yearly disbursed in payment of the funeral expenses of those members who die away from their homes. Besides these outgoings money is advanced on cargoes expected, and is lent for the purchase of return ventures. The rules regulating the guilds are numerous and are strictly enforced. The favourite penalty for any infraction is that the offender shall provide either a theatrical entertainment for the delectation of his brother members or a feast for their benefit. If any member should be recalcitrant and refuse to submit to the authority of the committee, he is boycotted with a severity which might well excite the emulation of promoters of the system in the Emerald Isle.

Allied to these mercantile associations are the guilds which are strictly analogous to the tradesunions among ourselves. Each trade has its guild, which is constituted on precisely the same lines as those above described. So far as it is possible to judge, the action of the Chinese trades-unions appears to tend to the promotion of fair play and a ready kind of justice. Unjust weights, or unfairly loaded goods, are unhesitatingly condemned, and substantial fines are inflicted on members found guilty of taking advantage of such iniquities. the influence of the unions wages are settled, the hours of work are determined, and the number of apprentices to be taken into each trade is definitely fixed. Silk-weavers are not allowed to work after

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