56 issue of Silver Note to the extent of $74,000 and an early importation of Subsidiary Coinage.
With regard to the issue of Note action can be taken without Your Lordship's sanction, as far as the Subsidiary Coinage is concerned.
The provision for a fresh importation has already been made by the transmission of £10,000 to the Crown Agents, and so long as the price of silver at home and the exchange continue at their present rates, this importation from time to time can be effected without loss, and the demand for this Coinage can be satisfied as well in Canton and the Treaty Ports of China.
I fear, however, that dependence cannot be placed upon the hope that the even balance of the price of silver and the rate of exchange will be maintained with sufficient steadiness to reduce future operations to a certainty, and the Government may at any time have to face a possible loss in the importation of Subsidiary Coinage.
If any step, therefore, could be devised by which the ...