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and regulating Stamp duties in the colony". I have accordingly directed publication in the next Gazette of that allowance, but the Ordinance itself cannot come into operation (under Section 32) till the issue of a proclamation by myself, fixing a day for its commencement, which must of course be deferred till receipt of the Stamps and Dies, which Your Lordship informs me the Crown Agents have been directed to procure.
3. I have considered, in connection with this subject, the letter addressed to Your Lordship by Mr. H. G. Gordon, Chairman of the Directors of the Oriental Banking Corporation, suggesting the impossibility of that Bank paying any tax on their notes without incurring a loss, and the consequent necessity of retiring all such notes, a result which Mr. Gordon states would cause inconvenience to the great Mercantile Community.
4. I can well suppose that such statement might lead Your Lordship to apprehend a far greater amount of inconvenience to the Public, than is at all likely to result. In proof of this I now enclose a return from the Bank, giving a list of all the notes in existence here on the 12th January 1866, and during the 13 months which have elapsed to the end of last January.
5. Your Lordship will perceive that there were eleven Banks here at the last commencement of the year, of which six...