30971 T
(Re 22 AUG 06
Crown Agents to Colonial Secretary, Hong Kong.
Extract from letter dated 23rd February '06
We propose that the whole of the monies received from the Chinese Viceroy on account of his debt to the Colony, whether in respect of interest or repayment of capital, shall be remitted to as from the Colony and be paid into a special fund to be under our control, and that this fund shall be administered in the following manner:
7.
(1) The payment of the interest required for the Stock raised to provide the £1,100,000 to be the first charge on the fund.
(2) The monies required for building the Colonial section of the Kowloon Canton Railway estimated to cost £500,000 to be provided out of the fund, the Colony paying into the fund interest at the rate of its public debt on the amount of all advances made.
(3) All further monies remaining in the fund including the interest earned on lending out monies in the fund to be considered as being earmarked towards paying off the debt created to provide the £1,100,000.
If this proposal is carried into effect we estimate that there should be in the fund in April 1918 a sum of about £700,000 which could be applied towards liquidating the Stock created to provide the £1,100,000 and this sum together with the further sum of about £100,000 which will have accrued in the Sinking Fund for the previous issue of Stock would enable the debt of the Colony to be reduced in 1916 from about £1,300,000 to about £700,000 by means of a conversion operation or by the issue of a new loan as the circumstances of the case may prove to be desirable when the time arrives.
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