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5 circulation, vol within the limits of the Colony, but on serious pie the mainland of China, is not leading them to lose sight of the risk, that is continually augmenting, of future embarrassment to the Colonial Treasury through the petition to exchange at their full nominal value, in possibly very large quantities at once.
3. I have given this subject my best consideration. I would remark, in the first place, that the profit on coins, which is little more than what this Colony would obtain, without any expenditure of labour or trouble, by simply placing money in the Banks here on fixed deposits, has not suggested the obtaining of a single coin more than would have been asked for under any circumstances short of a prohibitive loss. If the coins were obtainable only at par, I should have recommended every requisition I have recommended; if they were obtainable at a slight loss, I should have asked for as many as I could afford. I cannot see that the Government is less bound to provide coin than it is bound to provide roads, water, or police; and I consider it as my duty to see that the supply of coin does not run out, as I do to take the same precaution with regard to the stock of Postage Stamps.
4. I would further say that this Government does not encourage the exportation of coin to China, but it is powerless to prevent it. It never issued subsidiary coins undertaking they would not be exported. The promise was not worth the paper it was written on, and such an exaction was a transparent farce that I substituted a system of granting, on any reasonable application for coin according to the circumstances of the applicant. A shopkeeper in a large way
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