6139008-History-of-Money

Chinese was weighted entirely to the British side. Its first and fundamental demand was for British "extraterritoriality"; allBritish citizens would be subjected to British, not Chinese, law if they committed any crime on Chinese soil. The Britishwould no longer have to pay tribute to the imperial administration in order to trade with China, and they gained five openports for British trade: Canton, Shanghai, Foochow, Ningpo, and Amoy. No restrictions were placed on British trade, and,as a consequence, opium trade more than doubled in the three decades following the Treaty of Nanking. The treaty alsoestablished England as the "most favored nation" trading with China; this clause granted to Britain any trading rightsgranted to other countries. Two years later, China, against its will, signed similar treaties with France and the UnitedStates.Lin Tse-hsü was officially disgraced for his actions in Canton and was sent to a remote appointment inTurkestan. Of all the imperial officials, however, Lin was the first to realize the momentuous lesson ofthe Opium War. In a series of letters he began to agitate the imperial government to adopt Westerntechnology, arms, and methods of warfare. He was first to see that the war was about technologicalsuperiority; his influence, however, had dwindled to nothing, so his admonitions fell on deaf ears. Itwasn't until a second conflict with England that Chinese officials began to take seriously the adoption ofWestern technologies. Even with the Treaty of Nanking, trade in Canton and other ports remainedfairly restricted; the British were incensed by what they felt was clear treaty violations. The Chinese,for their part, were angered at the wholescale export of Chinese nationals to America and the Caribbean to work at whatwas no better than slave labor. These conflicts came to a head in 1856 in a series of skirmishes that ended in 1860. Asecond set of treaties further humiliated and weakened the imperial government. The most ignominious of the provisionsin these treaties was the complete legalization of opium and the humiliating provision that allowed for the free andunrestricted propagation of Christianity in all regions of China.China's defeat at the hands of England led to the publication of the Illustrated Gazatteer of Maritime Countries by WeiYüan (1794-1856). The Gazatteer marks the first landmark event in the modernization of China. Wei Yüan, adistinguished but minor official, argued in the Gazatteer that the Europeans had developed technologies and methods ofwarfare in their ceaseless and barbaric quest for power, profit, and material wealth. Civilization, represented by China,was in danger of falling to the technological superiority of the Western powers. Because China is a peaceful and civilizednation, it can overcome the West only if it learns and matches the technology and techniques of the West. The purpose ofthe Gazatteer was to disseminate knowledge about the Europeans, their technologies, their methods of warfare, and theirselfish anarchy to learned officials. It is a landmark event in Chinese history, for it was the first systematic attempt toeducate the Chinese in Western technologies and culture. This drive for modernization, begun by Lin Tse-hsü andperpetuated by Wei Yüan would gain momentum and emerge as the basis for the "Self-Strengthening" from 1874 to1895. http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTMThe American Revolution (1764 - 1781)By the mid 1700's Britain was at its height of power, but was also heavily in debt. Since the creation of the Bank ofEngland, they had suffered four costly wars and the total debt now stood at £140,000,000, (which in those days was a lotof money). In order to make their interest payments to the bank, the British government set about a programme to try toraise revenues from their American colonies, largely through an extensive program of taxation. There was a shortage ofmaterial for minting coins in the colonies, so they began to print their own paper money, which they called ContinentalColonial Scrip. This provided a very successful means of exchange and also gave the colonies a sense of identity. ColonialScrip was money provided to help the exchange of goods. It was debt free paper money not backed by gold or silver. TheBank of England asked Benjamin Franklin how he would account for the new found prosperity in the colonies. Franklinreplied: "That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in properproportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers.In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest topay to no one."America had learned that the people's confidence in the currency was all they needed, and they could be free of borrowingdebts. That would mean being free of the Bank of England. In response, the World's most powerful independent bankused its influence on the British Parliament to press for the passing of the Currency Act of 1764. This act made it illegal forthe colonies to print their own money, and forced them to pay all future taxes to Britain in silver or gold. Here is whatBenjamin Franklin said after that: "In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and adepression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed." "The colonies wouldgladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies theirmoney, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their ownmoney permanently out of the hands of George III and the international Bankers was the PRIME reason for theRevolutionary War." Benjamin Franklin's autobiographyBy the time the war began on 19th April 1775 much of the gold and silver had been taken by British taxation. They wereleft with no other choice but to print money to finance the war. What is interesting here is that Colonial Scrip was actuallyworking so well, it became a threat to the established economic system of the time. The idea of issuing money as Franklinput it "in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry" and not charging any interest, was not causing anyproblems or inflation. This unfortunately was alien to the Bank of England which only issued money for the sake of makinga profit for it's shareholder's.The Hidden History Of Money & New World Order Usury Secrets Revealed at last! Page 245