4
money in the payment of the troops, large quantities of this were imported; there is now in the colony a sufficient
nearly sufficient quantity answer Government payments; and it has become depreciated to the extent of eight for cent. -
or
5. The real standard of value mi China in all money transactions is, and always has been, the Spanish Dollar; in this coin Mercantile accounts are kept; and no other finds a circulation otherwise than as so much Marchandise, at the current
are
calue of the day- In Hongkong, the cmonetary transactions of Government, insignificant as compared with even the small Mercantile operations here carried on, much greater is their inferimity to the vast trade at
135
the Ports of China. To this last however the tracking transactions of Hong Kong muct of necessity conform; they remain therefore maffection by Government Proclamations. Thus the real standard measure of value and medium of Exchange in Hongkong continues to be, notwithstanding Government Proclamations to the contrary, the same as in the Ports of China, and the British coins constituted legal tenders by the- Proclamation above referred to, are and always will be, rather articles of Commerce, than portions of the circulating medium; their price on the real standard being regulated as at present by the supply and demand-
6. The Bank at present receives such
Y.