CO129-301 - Governor Sir Blake - 1900 [9-12] — Page 441

phragman

Enclosure 2

The Hon.A.M.Thomson,

Treasurer,

HongKong,

Sir,

439

40243

IRECT

REG 10 DEL 00

The Mercantile Bank of India,Ltd.

HongKong, 30th. August, 1900.

In reply to your letter of the 29th.inst.

informing me that the question of the re-establishment of the

Mint in the Colony is under consideration, and that His Excel-

lency the Governor invites anyremarks on the subject, which

anyremarks

may occur to me, I have to say that I am not in possession of

sufficient information to give an opinion as to whether the

Mint would pay well or not. You do not state in your letter,

what amount of small coin the charge of $200,000 was on,or

whether this charge includes freight and insurance.

No doubt it is possible to get pretty cor-

rect estimates as to whether the profit would be large, on the

basis of the quantities of small coins required last year, and

if the profit can be proved really to be large,I think it

would be worth while having a Mint, as I think the chances are,

the demand for small coins for China, will last for a long e-

nough time to repay the cost,provided the profit on the pre-

sent demand is large enough, but it depends to a great ex-

tent

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