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A Letter to be ddressed to
THE CHIEF MANAGER"
SLESRAC ADDRESS, ARADISE, LONDON"!
413
THE MERCANTILE BANK OF INDIA, LIMITED
40. Threadneedle Street,
London e
C.O.
12146
Rece
REC & APR OC
6th Novr. 1908.
To His Excellency,
Sir Frederick Lugard, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.0.,
Governor & Commander-in-Chief,
Your Excellency,
Hong Kong
20
İ TRUL Z0
**Leleano
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98976
DATA LEN IVO!
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When Sir George Murray was recently in Hong Kong on a visit of inspection of the Bank's business in the Colony Your
Excellency was good enough to accord him the honour of an interview
on what I may term the currency problem as it presents itself to us
as a Bank carrying on an Exchange Banking business in Hong Kong.
will be convenient if I recapitulate the points to which Your Excel-
lency's attention was called. Under the Queen's Order in Council of
the 2nd Feby., 1895, British and Mexican Dollars of specified weight
and fineness of Silver are made legal tender in the Colony. Whilst,
however, these Silver Dollars constitute the sole legal tender of the
Colony, they labour under this disadvantage, that the shroffing of
the dollars and the moving of any quantity of them from point to
point entail a great deal of time and trouble, and even some
expense.
Consequently the favourite medium of currency is the Notes
of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation and the Chartered Bank
of India, Australia & China, by means of which, as a matter of fact,
the great majority of monetary transactions are settled. These two
Banks have a monopoly of the privilege of Note Issue in the Colony,
and the convenience afforded in settling commercial transactions in
paper money as compared with silver coin is so great and so much
appreciated that the legal tender coin is generally at a discount, or
to put it perhaps more correctly, the paper money, which is not legal
tender, commands a premium over the legal tender coin.
During the
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