501; of subsidiary coinage, but his cheaper substitutes are driving British coins out of circulation in the Colony, and the public when paid for one British dollar five twenty-cent Kwang-tung pieces are actually losing 4 cents equal to $4.50 discount on the $100. Chinese servants and workmen naturally refuse the Chinese subsidiary coins on account of the loss they would sustain. Whilst the local Government offers no protection to the public, and allows the Chinese authorities to appropriate its profits, it curiously enough refuses to allow the Post Office or other departments to accept Chinese coins, greatly to the inconvenience of the public who frequently have nothing but Chinese coins in their possession, owing to the scarcity of Hongkong money. At the same time it often happens that the same department tenders Chinese money as change! The Government should take this matter in hand, for the evil is rapidly becoming worse. Singapore and French Indo-China decline to admit any silver money to be circulated within their borders but their own, and refuse to allow any outsiders to participate in their lawful profits on minting and circulating coinage. Of course we shall be told that owing to our proximity to dear old Canton it would be impossible to restrict the importation of foreign coinage but, the fact remains that the present arrangement is bad and is a hardship and our Government has never tried to check it. It might try.
A fact, however, that does not appear in the above, and which the Board have only quite recently learnt, is that, owing to a decreased demand for British coins in the interior of China, the same are at a heavy discount in Hongkong. Board are of opinion that it is far from desirable that British coins should be at a discount in a British Colony.
When the attention of the Board was first drawn to the matter, they were under the impression that the Chinese coins were legal tender, but on enquiry the Board find that this is not the case.
The Company's Manager in Hongkong has mentioned the matter to His Excellency the Governor, who advised that the only remedy which to his mind could prove efficacious was for every person trading in the Colony to decline to accept any ...
The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Elgin.