which is an important undertaking to be entrusted to it, is at present dealt out to it.
I apprehend that the chief duty of the Colonial Government towards the Mint is to secure the services of an efficient staff, fully competent to the rigid maintenance of the fixed standard and weight of the several Coins to be issued and to supply effective machinery to turn out perfect Coins with dispatch to the extent of all probable demands on it, - the financial success being a question apart dependent on conditions over which the Government can have no control.
Of the efficiency of the present staff I am not competent to speak, but the English machinery with which the Mint was opened was a total failure, both as to the character of the dollars stamped, and rapidity of Coinage. To that circumstance I attribute much of the despondency as to the success of the Mint - that is now, I dare say, groundlessly.