Japan maintains the gold standard and its unit is the yen, equal to $0.498; the yen is divided into 100 sen, the sen into 10 rin. The yen equals 11.574 grains of pure gold.
The Bank of Japan may issue notes to the extent of $120,000,000 upon securities, any amount upon specie, and also may issue further sums in excess of specie, subject to a tax of 5 per cent. The stock of the bank is all privately owned. Japan first copied the national banking system of the United States and after trial abandoned the same for a central bank. She has managed her finances and her banking with wonderful ability and great success. Besides the Bank of Japan, there are many strong private banks, notably the Yokohama Specie Bank.
China
China, silver basis, had for its unit the tael, divided into 1000 cash; there are said to be sixteen different kinds of tael in the different states of China; the most valuable is the "Haikwan," or "customs tael," the one in which customs dues are reckoned, and this equalled $0.664 United States currency, October 1, 1914. The cash is of base metal, with a square hole punched in the centre and is worth less than a mill in our currency.
In the last years of the Empire a new system of coinage was established and since continued by the Republic. The unit is the yuan of silver, worth $0.477, but varies with the price of silver; one-half, one-fifth, and one-tenth yuan are also coined in silver and smaller coins in copper and brass....
Philippines
The unit of value is the peso, equal to $0.50 in United States currency. The fiscal affairs are administered by the United States and the currency is safe and maintained on [essentially] a gold basis.
Argentina
At a time when the cultivation and development of trade relations with South America seem most alluring, we find a principal embarrassment in the currency and credit conditions which obtain in most South American States, but Argentina, one of the most favored of South American States, has a stable and sound currency system. Her unit is the peso, of 100 centavos. The gold peso is equal to $0.9647 in United States money. In 1889 the Government took measures to acquire gold and fixed the relation of paper to gold at 227.27 per cent., and it has since been maintained at that level without fluctuation. This made the paper peso equal to about $0.44 gold. They have a very large gold reserve in their caja de conversion, 262,000,000 pesos gold, which protects the paper money and gives it stability. Gold payments were suspended temporarily at the commencement of the European war (1914), but paper money seems to have remained at par....