CO129-265 - Public Offices & Others - 1894 — Page 437

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dollar without more expense than that which now attends the purchase of Mexican dollars in the market, would equally prove financially unsuccessful. Mexican dollars

can frequently be purchased in London, and at Hong Kong, at a price but slightly above their value as bar silver, and occasionally even at a price not exceeding their metallic valus. If a British dollar were coined in London, on the other hand, the silver would have in the first instance to be bought at its market price, and a Mint charge of at least two per cent would be incurred for coinage . To these expenses must be added the cost of freight to the East and insurance, which may be taken to be one per cent, so that, before laying down at Hong Kong a dollar coined in London a shipper would have incurred an expondi- ture equal to three per cent on the value of the bar silver which he had purchased.

I may add that besides the Mexican dollar the Japanese yen is current at Hong Kong, and the yen and United States trade-dollar in the Straits Settlements, and that there would appear to be no reason for appre- hending any falling off in the supply of Mexican or other dollars. Even during the period of serious political disturbances in Mexico, if there was any dearth of

dollars at Hong Kong, that dearth is to be accounted for,

not by a decrease in the number of dollars coined, but by

the fact that the rate, of exchange in China had for some

time ruled so low as not to attract shipments, and that it

became more profitable, therefore, to melt the coin in this

country. The coinage of yen, moreover, would appear to be See Eighteenth increasing, as during the year ended the 30th June 1887 Annual Report (1887) p.39

a far larger number of these coins were struck than in

any