1st Edition

Realms of Silver One Hundred Years of Banking in the East

By Compton Mackenzie Copyright 1954
    392 Pages
    by Routledge

    392 Pages
    by Routledge

    Originally published in 1954 this volume looks at the difficulties encountered by the founders of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China in seeking, a hundred years ago, to establish the awakening countries of the East, British standard of financial probity and commercial integrity and then goes on to relate how the Bank was able to foster trade and industry in the lands to which its establishment was extended and to co-operate in the reform of archaic systems of currency.

    REALMS OF SILVER: C. MACKENZIE:

    CONTENTS

    preface by W. R. Cockburn page v

    author’s note page viii

    chapter i. The East India Company; James Wilson and the Chartered Bank; prospectus; subscription of capital; petition for a Royal charter; original directors of the Bank page 1

    chapter ii. John Company’s opposition; Wilson’s intervention; grant of the Charter; dissident shareholders; commencement of business; the Bank and Australia page 16

    chapter iii. India; first branches opened; Calcutta; Bombay; opium; cotton; boom and slump in the 1860’s; Karachi; the telegraph page 28

    chapter iv. The Suez Canal; the silver crisis; its effect on India and on exchange banking; rise of tea and jute industries page 41

    chapter v. China; the Treaty Ports; the Bank opens in Shanghai and Hong Kong; exchange banking in China in the 1860’s; the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation page 52

    chapter vi. China; the Bank in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Hankow; the telegraph and the Suez Canal; Chinese currency; the silver crisis; the late nineteenth century; new competitors page 64

    chapter vii. Burma; the Bank opens in Rangoon; rice; Akyab agency; expansion of trade in Rangoon Ceylon; rise and fall of the coffee industry; the Chettiars; the Bank’s Colombo agency page 79

    chapter viii. Japan; Treaty Ports; Nagasaki and Yokohama in the 1860’s; Japanese currency; the Bank opens in Yokohama page 93

    chapter ix. The Straits Settlements; Sir Stamford Raffles; the Bank opens in Singapore; note issue; competitors in the 1860’s; Penang branch; the opening-up of Malaya; branches at Taiping and Kuala Lumpur page 101

    chapter x. Indonesia; the Dutch East India Company; the ‘Culture System’; the Bank opens in Batavia; business in the 1860’s; the crisis of 1884; branches at Surabaia and Medan page 116

    chapter xi. The Philippines; the Bank opens in Manila; ‘A Merry Banker in the Far East’; Iloilo; the Spanish-American War page 132

    chapter xii. The City of London in Victorian times; Head Office; South Sea House; Hatton Court; the London management; the Bank’s business in the 1860’s; the Court of Directors page 142

    chapter xiii. J. H. Gwyther; the Bank and the silver crisis; Crosby Hall page 157

    chapter xiv. The Bank between 1890 and 1914; supplemental charters; Sir M. Cornish Turner; T. H. Whitehead page 171

    chapter xv. The abandonment of the silver standard; India; the Straits Settlements; Japan; the Philippines page 183

    chapter xvi. Siam and Indo-China; the Bank opens in Bangkok and Saigon page 194

    chapter xvii. The silver standard and exchange business in China; the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95; the Cassel Loan; political finance in China; the Six Power Consortium and the Crisp Loan page 200

    chapter xviii. Economic development in the East before 1914; jute; tea; rubber; tin; oil; the expansion of the Bank’s branch system 1890–1914 page 209

    chapter xix. The First World War; bank failures in India and China; the Bank in the East during the war; the ‘Emden’; the Singapore mutiny; Head Office; the Bank’s capital increased page 220

    chapter xx. Between the world wars; the Amritsar Riots; disorder in China; the Yokohama earthquake; floods; currency and exchange; demonetization of silver in China page 234,

    chapter xxi. The Great Depression; commodity restriction schemes; tea; rubber; sugar; tin; banking competition in the East; the acquisition of the P. & O. Banking Corporation; new branches opened; the ‘New Consortium’; the Court of Directors; the Bank’s charter page 254

    chapter xxii. Shanghai in 1937; the Currency War in China; the Stabilization Fund page 275

    chapter xxiii. The Second World War in the East; Japanese occupation of the Bank’s branches; the evacuation of the banks from Burma; India; changes at Head Office page 284

    chapter xxiv. The East since 1945; China; Indian independence; the Federation of Malaya; restoration and expansion of the Bank’s branch system; new directors; a valuable cargo; central banks in the East; the Colombo Plan; retrospect page 302

    appendices 321

    i Balance Sheet, 31st December, 1854 322

    ii Liabilities and Assets, 31st December, 1903 323

    iii Balance Sheet, 31st December, 1952 324

    iv The Directors of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China 326

    v The Management of the Bank 1857–1953 329

    index 351