Peers are also traders, mostly by proxy, though some of them refrain from making investments and are content to subsist on the income derived from their land. None the less the business spirit permeates the whole Peerage, and even these non-trading Peers are ready to make small bargains now and then. Suppose a visitor to a Peer’s house takes a fancy to some of the furniture or hall decoration in it. In such a case it is not considered impolite for the visitor to ask the host the price of that particular article, and to ask him, if the price is considered reasonable, to sell it to him. Nor is it thought derogatory for the host to sell his belongings, and so the bargain is struck when both parties can come to terms. The whole proceeding is conducted with the shrewdness and vigilant attention to details which characterise regular businessmen.
It is interesting to note that even boy-disciples in monasteries are traders in their own way, and do not hesitate to invest their money whenever they happen to notice in the shops or other places articles that appeal to their fancy. These they bring home and either sell, (generally at a large profit) to other boys, or exchange for other objects.
One great evil attends this propensity, and that is the danger of stimulating cunning practices, each party trying to impose upon the other in all those dealings.
[CHAPTER LXV.]
Currency and Printing blocks.
Commodities are either bartered or bought with regular coins. I should more strictly say the coin, there being only one kind of coin, and that is a twenty-four sen silver piece. That is the only legal tender current. Transactions have to be conducted therefore in a rather complicated manner, inasmuch as that coin admits of being divided in two ways only. In the first place it may be cut into two, thereby producing two twelve-sen pieces; or it may be divided into a ⅔ piece and a ⅓ piece, the former passing at sixteen sen and the latter at eight. The cutting is far from being exact, and cut pieces are in most cases perforated in the centre or worn down at the edges. These however are passed and received without complaint.
In Lhasa and other prosperous places the unit of transactions is four sen, but there being no four-sen piece one must take with him in making a purchase of four sen one ⅔ piece valued at sixteen sen, and receive in return for it one ½ piece valued at twelve sen. When the seller happens not to possess this one-half piece, the buyer then produces one ½ piece and one ⅔ piece, and receives in return for the two one whole piece called a tanka which is valued at twenty-four sen. For a purchase of eight sen a buyer produces one tanka and receives a ⅔ piece in change.
The unit of transaction being four sen there are six gradations of value between this minimum and a tanka, each possessing a distinct denomination. Thus four sen is called a khakang, eight sen a karma, twelve sen a chyekka, sixteen sen a shokang, twenty sen a kabchi and twenty-four sen a tanka.