4.
46
All our accounts are kept at the Hong Kong & Shanghai
Banking Corporation. This Government has 22 and the Command
Paymaster, I imagine, twice as many (including mess a/cs
and the like). The Bank give them 21% interest on their
current a/c and give us 1%. The Bank do a very appreciable
amount of work for Government for nothing and I am quite sure
that if Government and Treasury Chest Officer arranged their
remittances departmentally the relations between Bank and
Treasury Chest Officer, and Bank and Government would suffer
and for what? - a few thousand dollars a year on either side.
If the Bank cut the rate of interest on our current account
down to nothing in these difficult times, as they are entitled
to do, we should lose.
For these reasons I am not in favour of altering the
present position.
Paragraph 3 of the Treasury letter: Our remittances
to London vary and were as follows :-
(a) 1930
£150,000
1931
360,000
1932
400,000
1933
300,000
(b) 1934 (to date) 520,000
(a) lower than average as we had plenty of funds in London
and as exchange was low we did not remit till forced to. The
first remittance was made on 11th September of that year. (b) exceptional as some £200,000 will be required for redemp-
tion of sterling inscribed stock in October, 1934.
Paragraph 5 of the Treasury letter:
(i) depends on (ii).
(ii) we cannot be bound by monthly remittances. We must
retain a free hand.
(iii) As I have endeavoured to shew this is out of the