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"""GENERAL SURVEY, 7enticed to Peking, flattered (and snubbed) while there,ostentatiously honored, sent on his way, reproved,exhorted, and suddenly degraded. China seems bentupon making herself felt in Thibet as never before, butin this as in all Chinese affairs prophecy is a lost art."But there is evidently a great and a growing respectfor miltarism as an essential condition of the securit) ofChina, a change in sentiment so great as to be itself arevolution.With the greatest of all her economic problemsthe currency China shows no disposition to deal, thetreaties of the early years of the decade to the contrarynotwithstanding. The early Brnperors of the Yuandynasty distinguished themselves by flooding the empirewith bank notes made from mulberry bark, leading to afinancial catastrophe. The later years ot the reign ofKuang Hsii will be remembered as the period when theCentral Government, the various provinces, and manyofficials found a Golconda in the minting of copper coinsworth from 2^ to perhaps four or five brass cash, andpassing them on the people for ten cash. But for thepromise that they would be taken in payment for taxesa promise no sooner made than broken they might nothave got into circulation at all. But the mischief wassoon done. The Statistical Secretary of the ImperialMaritime Customs estimated five years ago that theamount coined at the scores of mints then in operation(now closed down) could not be less than sixteenthousand millions annually. Meantime, Gresham andhis Law*promptly arrived on the scene, and the goodold clumsy round brass cash with a square hole in it(one of the few illustrations of the round and thesquare" meeting each other in China) quietly disappeared. (This is a general but not a universal occurrencesince some localities positively refused to have anycopper cash within their bounds.) China shares withthe rest of the world the burden of rising prices of everykind, but this particular calamity is a copyright of her