CO129-116 - Sir MacDonnell - 1866 [11-12] — Page 263

1st opinion

We have shown that in our view, the primary object of the Hongkong Royal Mint, namely the production of British Dollars, will not make it a paying concern, unless hereinafter indicated, but with regard to the subsidiary coinage of fractional parts of a dollar, there is so much necessity for that here, that we think it will always return a profit upon its own cost to the Mint, but the extent of that profit it will be impossible to estimate until we know how far the Colony and the neighbouring parts of China will absorb such coinage.

We are unable to discern any further circumstances materially affecting the chance of rendering the Hongkong Royal Mint a paying concern, unless it be that the Chinese Government will either make the British Dollar the universal Currency of China or employ the Mint to fabricate Imperial Chinese Coins. For more definite information upon these points, we would suggest an application to Peking, or the Home Government; for ourselves, we regret to say that the faint prospect of the universal Dollar Currency apparent in 1862 and 1863 (when expansion of the Shanghai trade, already described, enabled clean Mexican dollars partially to take the place of Carolus ones, known to the silk growers from the early days of the East India Company) has utterly faded.

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