CO129-352 - Public Offices - 1908 — Page 24

instructed to adopt whatever measures appeared most suitable and His Excellency Chang assured Sir F. Lugard verbally that no subsidiary silver currency was being coined and led him to understand that no more would be minted for the present. Nevertheless the minting complained of continued and I therefore spoke to the Viceroy on the subject when I was at Canton at the beginning of last month. His Excellency expressed himself as quite ready to meet the views of the Hongkong Government provided the Board of Finance (Tu Chi Pu) would forego the profits which they derive from the minting of the coinage. We fully recognised and appreciated the good offices of the Hongkong Government with regard to the export of arms &c. and said that he would be pleased to reciprocate if his obligations to Peking permitted of his doing. From this statement it was apparent that the Viceroy was unable or disinclined to act in the sense desired, except upon definite instructions from the Central Government and I therefore addressed a further Note to the Waipu on the 30th ultimo (copy enclosed) in which I urged that the Chinese Government