CO129-265 - Public Offices & Others - 1894 — Page 492

GO. 484 4805

CHINA ASSOCIATION 4

31, Lombard Street,

*

15th.,March, 1894.

My Lord Marquis,

The General Committee of the China Associa- -tion desire to submit for the favourable consideration of H.b's Government copies of communications that have been re- ceived from Shanghai and Hongkong, expressing warm interest in the proposal to coin a British dollar for circulation in our Eastern dependencies, '

The project is no new one, the experiment having been actually made in Hongkong in 1864, though it was abandoned after a few years' experience, on account of the weight of the Minting

The charges, which fell entirely upon Coloni.

+

The desirability of having a British dollar that should

be legal tender in the Straits Settlements, the Malayan peninsula, and Hongkong

has since been frequently urged; and it is pro-

bable that such a coin would have been long since introduced

but for the comparative cheapness of the Mexican dollar which

has become established as the principal currency in those

Colonies and in the Treaty ports of China. Exported from

Mexico in large quantities, in payment for European goods into

Mexico, these coins were transmitted to London and sold there,

often below their original cost, practically for re-export to

the East.

The extreme variatiore in exchange which have disturbed

our trade with all silver-using countries have, however, lately

increasingly diminished the supply; Mexican exchange having been unable to

A

The Rt. Hon.The Marquis of Ripon, K. G.

H.M.'s Secretary of State for the Colonies.

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