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Show ADVENTURES WITH AMERICAN DOLLAR H Writer Tc'ls Some of H's Expo H nuhccs With Exchange in 18 H Forogn Countries. H CHOAH MAKES IT CLEAR H nt Llttl Transaction In Exchange H Nets Traveler 700 Per Cent at Har. H bin Gold Coin at Peking, If H 6old, Would Upiet the Fl M nanclal System. H Washington, D. 0. Variation In H tun cm y ii,li....i i tied Iwve not only H A 111 mill ciolioinlc sljjnlllnilKC hut iiNu H ti i-uretiiely personal pc-rliiicnce to H tin- Hinder. Mii'iiunl Owen Wllllntns, H wlio linn Just leturned from u trip H ii, iuli IS countilcs to compile In- H f'ii iiuitlnn niiU lollect picture material H (or l lie Nutlomil Geographic society, H rehitis houio of his experience with H exUinngo as follows: H "It Ik only In times of extreme stress H Unit tlio 'average American considers H the 'cart wheel" and the 'greenback' H an (ommoilliles much like dour or ma- H drill shirting, but for most of the H timid foreign exclmngo Is a vital mat- H tor every doy In the year. When It H nkiw 'JO sliver dolluis to buy nil 'X H anil n 'V In Budapest, It sounds like H a mlii tulu to the man who stops to H think It Is Uncle Sinn's own currency Hj which Is trentcil In this manner, Dut H the Chinese keeper of nil exchange H shop makes It ns pln.u as day. H A Chinaman Make It All Clear. H "You walk up to his open counter H facing tliii sidewalk and usk him how H miuli American dollars are selling for H this morning. H " This morning, price very bail. My H no uiuit 'era. No man want to buy. H No stenmer leave today. Saturday H big steamer lcayo for 'Merlca, can give H you more hotter price. H "DurlnR the' attempt to regent the H boy emperor on the Chinese' throne In H the summer of 1017, n money changer H In Hnnkow sold mo some Peking notes Hj for 20 per cent of their fnco value, H asserting that I could get full value H In Peking If I eer got tlieie. I wus H on ray ny to I'etrogmd and had to H get my passport amended In Peking, H so I took) a chance on ,$25 worth of H Teklng notes tnsued by the Hunk of H Communications which cost $5 In lion H kow, the railway nervlco between the H Yangtze port ami the capital being H Interrupted at the time. H Transaction Nets 700 Per Cent H "Most of the money I spent nt face H valuo In Peking for government tele H grams, but as I vtas leaving I Invested H a few dollars In Chinese postngc H stamps. 'At Ilnrhlu, where the Chi- H nep and Russian post nffices com Hj IH'tcd, I trusted my letters to the Chi H i c i' i nit Lecnusc of a censorship oil H Itusslnu mall, and Instead of lutylns; H (.'hliiese Mumps In IttiKNlau currency H at u high cxLhntiKe rule, I nfllxcd H Mumps which I Ir.ul bought In Peking H nltli Chinese currency that was tie- K based In Hankow. My protlt on the H transaction rati over TOO per cent. H "CVrtnln llrnis nnd mission boards H In China nre In the habit of guarnn- H teeing Uielr workers n rate of nt least H two Chinese dollars for every gold dol H lr In their salary. Otherwise n gold H salary would bo subject In n decided Hj variation since Chinese dollars In 1015 Hi were worth only 40 Amcrlcun cents, H and lu 1018 they were worth nearly H a dollar. Under this arrangement em H plojees of one American corporation H were sending home more money each H mouth than they received as salary. H Two hundred dollars n month, con H verted at two to one would bring four H hundred Chinese dollars. For 220 of H these the American could buy Auicrl H can exchange for $200, and he would H Imvo 180 Chinese dollars to live on. H "Consutnr officers get a guaranteed H rate of exchange. Military otllcers H get their pay uud allowances at the H day's rate. In Peking, during the war, H n ronmilar clerk earning $2,000 n year, H mi which ho uus iruarunteed a rate of B 2.00, was receiving more money than H a lieutenant colonel, who was getting H fl.15 for his money. H A Bureau of Standards In Money. H "In the otllce of i American mill- H' tary attache In Peking, thcro Is an H American flve-dollHr gold piece, which H has been priced more often thnn a i uld over pulr of 1012 shoes. The of aVfl fl-ers wero hetne nald the day's rate. H hlch wn then nhout $110 Chinese H luune) for uu American dollur. Dut M mtual gold was worth 50 per cent H' more. The officer rightly Insisted tliat B his men wero being paid In n debased Hli .urreiicy unU Insisted tin receiving a H '-I'm to bring the salaries up to M (ne rate for actual gold Hence thU B illlnrv gold piece was taken around fl lo the exdiange shop every montl. H "in) lis value nKcertti'iieil. but If It M Uud tie i'ii sold It wnutil have upset M ihe ftiimiciiil system, for the Chinese B r.-nilv enough to .offer u prlco for n B NpeillK' coin, refuse to quote price HH mi iiiemetlcnl ones 9AVJ "It Is no wonder that theio Is con HH ml"ii In Chinese exdiange with for H , -j (urreiicy, for thre U a varylnji VAH iiTlmiife rate among the 11 province M i n'mKi'lvo.s. and the Yuan Slilli Knl MH 'iver dollar Is the only currency on Hj hldi there Is no cxdmnso when B rrosslng n provincial boundary. But B that doesn't mean that It has a fixed VMH value avpn then, for the valuo of a Ml dollar In small currency 18 constantly changing.,. . iV . , 'JATi5sllTerdolltr Tfbea exchanged H at a foreign store, contains 100 cents, Thus If one makes a 20-ccnt purchase at a Shanghai department store, ho gets 80 cents change, which seems fair enough until one discovers that at an exchange shop one cau get 11 dimes and 3 cents for each dollar. When he changes one of the dimes, he will get, not ten coppers, but 11 or 12. So that the price of n dollar In coppers runs from 130 to 140, Instead of the seemingly logical 100. "This state, of things given rise to the 'Oh, by the way' habit. Foreign stores will accept up to 50 cents In 'small money,' but more than that amount must bo paid In 'big money.' A woman under such conditions develops de-velops a poor memory nud yields to sudden Impulse. Sim buys something for 50 cents and thus completes tho transaction. But before she leaves the counter, she sajs 'Oh, by tho way' and purchases unothcr 50 cents worth, thus keeping a dlmo and two or three coppers for herself. The store gets Its money back by returning seven dimes aa change for a 80-ccnt purchase pur-chase and thus makes Its Income look, net Ilk 80 cents; but like ft no. Trip Cost $200 Less Than Nothing. "In Tillls, In tho spring of 1018, the rouble was selling at 15 to the dollur. I bought 0,000, for there was no telling tell-ing how long It would take to get out of Itussln at that time. When I reached Vladivostok, some weeks later, the Jupancse were preparing to send an army Into Siberia and were bujlng up roubles. The rnto there was 0 35 roubles for a dollar. I traveled from the Caucasus to the Pacific and took nearly two months to do It, and when I changed my money at tho end, of tho trip. It had cost me about $200 less tluin nothing. Ilio professor with whom I had traveled for sevcrul months In Itussln and Turkestan had converted all his gold Into roubles before be-fore leaving America, and had been Bpcndlng roubles that cost him SO cents each which bought no more, than those I had bought In Tillls for 8. "On my recent trip to India I expected ex-pected to cross Persia on my way from Eastern Europe, and slnco American gold had been worth four times as much as American paper In the Persian Pers-ian baiaara In 1018, I carried a email bag of gold with me. The trip acrois Persia proved Impossible, and It was not till tho eve ot sailing for home that I sold some of the gold which I had carried for thousands of miles, and which hud caused mu endless nr-guhicnts nr-guhicnts at nearly every boundary Most of It I paid to tho United States' customs on my arrival, after having carried It for ten months, nnd it huu dred thousand miles. There were only two times on the trip when I could have sold It for as much as I could get for a letter ot credit. Prefer Letters of Credit. "I hao nevor heard of anybody maklug money ou exchange by accept Ing expert nihlce, nnd I would never want to offer It to anyone. Hut wIipu I leave Amerlcun soil iigulii. all my mono Is going to ho Invested In a letter of credit nnd enuugh travelers' checks to help mo out when I want only a small sum. Boundaries reduce currency In a way that ularms the traveler and an AmcrUan letter of credit Is fixed at any point where there Is a bnnk.. In the varying prices thai one can get when merchandising hi American currency, the gold coin sometimes wins, tho silver coin seldom, sel-dom, nnd tho gre M'lacL most often. But In the 18 conn lies I havo Just visited, my letter of credit heat every other one of the many ways I carried my money. "Onco In a whllo fortune smiles on tho traveler. Last December, In Bombay, Bom-bay, I tried to cash a Colombo draft. The bank could not quoto a rate and sent It to Its Colombo ofllcc, advancing mo such money us I needed In tht meantime. A week later, In Karachi I received tho balance of tho amount There had been bookkeeping and telegraph tele-graph charges. But the rupeo had de creased In vnlue during tho time It took to complcto the deal, und tho re suit was that I received nearly two hundred more rupees than I would havo had If the draft had been marked Bombay Instead of Colombo" |