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where British interests are dominant over those of any other foreign country, a coinage of well-ascertained purity guaranteed by British name would in a very short time be received throughout the Treaty Ports as freely as the Mexican dollars, and might, in view of the uncertainty of the supply from Mexico, be fairly expected, eventually to supersede the coinage of that country :
2. Depending as we do at present upon Mexico for the dollars current in Hong Kong and the principal ports of China, it is hardly necessary to point out the very serious inconvenience which is frequently experienced from stoppage of supplies consequent upon the almost chronic state of disruption which exists in that country and it is a matter of notoriety that during the last year such inconvenience was greatly felt in Hong Kong and that the financial business of the Colony was seriously hampered thereby.
3. We would respectfully point out that with Colonies such as are possessed by Great Britain where dollars are the only current coin, there is an element of unfitness in a dependence upon any foreign country for supplies, more especially so when such dependence is on a country so utterly unreliable as Mexico and that, from a purely business