Saturday, January 7, 2012

BONES, GOLD, AND THE CHINESE A DISSERTATION ON SMUGGLING.

THE SOVEREIGN IN THE LAUNDRY. The Chinese have notoriously a deep conviction that they ought either to die in China, or at least if they die abroad they should send their bones horne or rather someone else should send them. It is also notorious that they take a delight in sending to China -the savings they accumulate in foreign parts, not in bank credits, but in good yellow gold. It happens that in these unfortunate times gold is "forbidden to export," and any Chinese who packs sovereigns off to Es own land is knowingly or not committing a breach of the law. _It appears that this illegal export is going on. It v/as mentioned at yesterday a meeting of the Central Gnanlber of Commerce and a relationship between bones and gold was established by a speaker who recalled certain incidents of the romantic export of Chinese bones from Australian ports, which were averse to allowing coin to leave the country. The bones over which the colonised Chinese were so solicitous were after the manner of human bones, many of them hollow and in the interstries there was great wealth, ingeniously smuggled away in funereal guise and to a sound of lamentation. Several of the members seemed to have heard of it before, so the story passed for gospel. It was told to point the moral that the Government should keep an eye on the Chinese gold-hoarders. The order paper of the meeting, however, contained a. memorandum that the Government duly had its eye on them. Incidentally it may be said that there have been report* that certain Chinese in Wellington have been in the habit of giving a premium for gold actually paying more for it than it is worth. This should be sufficient to put anyone on his guard. A person who assists "the Chinese to hoard gold presumably for the purpose of export is directly conniving at a breach of a law which has been brought into operation for the good of the State in a very serious time. Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 41, 17 August 1915, Page 2

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