4
specified in the proclamation at the
rates respectively assigned to them.
And that "agreements de Hongkong
"to pay
a
certain amount
"Dollars"
Page 180
"might be discharged by the payment
of Gold Sovereigns at the rate of
"4 Dollars 80 cents,
of Rupees at
the rate of 44 cents, or
of British Shillings at the rate of 24 Cents!".
5
In the adoption of these provisions the exceptional condition
-
exportation
of the Colony without agriculture or manufactures - producing nothing either for consumption would seem to have been overlooked. Hongkong is a mere barren rock
from whence are directed the operations of a large portion of the
Chinese foreign trade carried
on outside it.
Here is not to
be found in connection with that
trade either the buyer or the seller-
or the consumer
and
the producer the Colony has not and never has, I conceive, any pretensions whatever to establish an isolated system of
Currency
at variance with that
of
the
great Empire on the confines of
which it is established. I believe it is not too much to
say it had been possible to
impose the Proclamation referred to on the Mercantile Community,