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and it must be remembered that a Government note will be more readily accepted at Canton and the ports of China than one issued by a Bank.
Receivable notes would become a legal tender as soon as they were restricted to Hong Kong.
A million and a half sterling may seem a large issue, but after all it is only about £250,000.
I will venture therefore to support it on other grounds, stating plainly that whatever merit attaches to the suggestion I am about to make belongs entirely to Mr. Carvalho, Cashier of the Treasury, to whom I am indebted for it. I would add that, in considering the subject, I have endeavoured to regard the needs of the public as the primary consideration to which the fiscal advantages of the Colony are secondary.
In the course of a year or two we shall have to raise a loan probably of $1,500,000. For this loan we shall pay at least four, perhaps five per cent. Now there would not be the smallest difficulty in circulating notes to the extent of $1,500,000. Of this sum, one third might at once be placed in reserve against the