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on the Railway. Before my own arrival in the Colony Lord Elgin
(Despatch of 18th. June, 1907) approved of the withdrawal of
this Subsidiary Coin from circulation, and since that date up
to the close of 1910 coins to the face value of $2,059,459.04
had been withdrawn and sent to England for sale as bullion, at
a cost of about 8407,820 or including 83,398,000 worth of new
Subsidiary Coin which had been received in the Colony but
never issued and was returned to Ingland and demonetized at a
loss of about 7 per centum $793,293. The loss incurred by
demonetization of silver is about 15 per centum (copper 50 per
centum) and the coins circulate in the Colony at about 6 or 7
per centum discount. The average annual expenditure on demoneti-
-zation for the 3 years, 1908, 1909, and 1910, was thus about
$136,000, but the Votes provided in the Estimates stood only at
£36,000 (1908), $36,000 (1909), and $40,000 (1910) whereas
apart from demonetization the inevitable loss by discount would
in each year be about $75,000. Accordingly in the Estimates for
the current year the vote was raised to £75,000, but it was
still erroneously described as for the "Redemption of Sub-
-sidiary Coin", though it is clear that within the scope of the
vote it would be impossible to demonetize a single dollar's
worth of coin, and the vote was only estimated to meet the
loss
}