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to submit that at the dates of Mr Kinder's report and the Governor's Despatch, the Mint appears not to have had warrant or sufficient trial to come to a conclusion as to its working or any future prospects.
The injury to the Driving shaft and Rolling wheel, which appears to have been the only serious accident to the Machinery, could not be foreseen. Such accidents are far from infrequent when Machinery is first erected, particularly in a new building.
The difficulty of setting the Machinery of a Mint once in motion is also generally found to be very great, owing to the numerous nice adjustments upon which the final result depends.
A private Mint erected a few years ago at Birmingham, under the most favorable conditions, did not succeed in producing coin for four or five months after it was opened. It has occurred to another Establishment, of many years standing, to be entirely stopped from an unknown cause which it took several weeks to discover. Similar stoppages were known to the late Moneyers of the Royal Mint. The Sydney Mint was also at work for a year or two before the difficulties of coining were fully overcome.
Further, the Hong Kong Mint has had to commence with a large and difficult coin - the dollar, trying its presses to the utmost.
All parties appear to have been most laudably anxious for an early practical result, but it would have been safer to have preceded the opening