India Office, London,
310
26th June 1903.
Financial, No. 104.
To His Excellency the Right Honourable the Governor General of India in Council.
MY LORD,
Coinage in India of British dollors and New Straits Settle- ments dollars.
In your letter in the Finance and Commerce Department, No. 82, dated 16th April 1903, you repre- sented to me that the undertaking made by your Government in 1894, to coin any quantity of silver bullion brought to your mints fit for coinage into British dollars, for use in Hong Kong and the Straits Settlements, at a seigniorage of 1 per cent., is under present conditions liable to cause inconvenience, while the rate charged barely meets expenses.
2. Acting accordingly on the suggestion made in paragraph 4 of your letter, I have caused notice to be sent to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Chartered Bank of India, Australia, and China, of the termination in six months' time of the agreement made with them on the subject on the 14th December 1894; and they have been asked whether they desire to enter into a new agreement ander
* From Colonial Office, dated 23rd April 1903, with enclosure.
To ditto, dated 27th April 1903. To ditto, dated 8th May 1903.
From ditto, dated 9th May 1903.
To ditto, dated 16th May 1903.
From ditto, dated 19th May 1903. From ditto, dated 3rd June 1903, with enclosure.
To ditto, dated 9th June 1903.
From ditto, dated 9th June 1903, with enclosures.
From ditto, dated 13th June 1908, with enclosure.
which the rate of seigniorage shall be 2 per cent., and the coinage of rupees, and also of the New Straits dollar, shall, if necessary, have pre- cedence over the coinage of British dollars.
3. The stipulation in favour of the New Straits dollar is the outcome
of correspondence with the Colonial
Office regarding that coinage, on which I have already been in com-
† Dated 28th May 1903.
munication with you by telegraph.
A copy of the correspondence* is
now enclosed for your information, together with the letter addressed to the two banks on the subject of the agreement with them.
I have the honour to be, My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient humble Servant,
(Signed) GEORGE HAMILTON.
13052. L. 1266.
A