The best scheme, therefore, is to start with the cash which has been the standard in China for tens of centuries and build upwards. The Chinese people themselves would be ready to admit that as a standard the cash is too low, in view of the development in trade, not only throughout the world, but also in China. The best compromise which, while meeting modern conditions in trade, would also be acceptable to the Chinese, would be to have as a standard a multiple of the cash. Such a multiple exists in the currency of the country, although not in coin; in all business connected with foreign trade the tael is the currency of the land; every child knows that a tael is ten mace and a mace is ten candareens and a candareen is worth ten cash, so that the tael, properly speaking, ought to be worth 1,000 cash. Although this fact is recognized, various causes, to which reference has already been made in the earlier chapters, contributed to make the tael variable in terms of the cash in different parts of China. The conditions that have contributed to the variation in the value of the tael are more or less purely local, and amenable to the control of the Government. I do not mean simple legislative control, which does not go very far in this country; but trade conditions and transportation, and, most important of all, the payment to or receipts of the Government are to a large extent controllable by the Government, in such manner as not to disturb the several local conditions. By slow degrees a fairly fixed relationship could be brought about between the cash and the tael on the basis of the established traditions; how this is to be done is, of course, worth careful inquiry.