CO129-368 - Acting Governor May - 1910 [8-9] — Page 668

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RY FRUNUA entseg

(To accompany 2.)

H.B.M. Legation,

Peking, August 23rd, 1910.

MEMORANDUM TO WAI PU PU.

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The Wai Wu Pu is aware that a large proportion of the subsidiary coinage circulating in Hongkong is Chinese and that the serious inconvenience to trade caused by the depreciation of these subsidiary coina has on repeated occasions during the past two years formed the subject of representations to the Wai Wu Pu by this

Legation, acting on behalf of the Hongkong Government.

Hie Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires has now received a

despatch from the Acting Governor of Hongkong in which the latter,

after expressing his gratification at the approaching issue of a

national coinage in China, states that he trusts that the innova-

tion will be carried out with a strong hand, guided by expert finan-

cial advice, as otherwise the new coinage is likely to aggravate

rather than improve the existing unsatisfactory condition of the

currency both in China andin Hongkong.

The manner in which the new coinage is to be substituted

for the old, more especially in the case of the subsidiary coins, is

a most important point as far as Hongkong is concerned and the

Governor will be much obliged if the Wai Wu Pu will ask the Board of

Finance to furnish some more precise information on this subject

than is contained in the Regulations.

•

The Hongkong Government are strongly of opinion that as

long as the present silver coinage issued by the Canton int remains

at a discount, none of the new subsidiary coinage should be to put

into circulation in the province. If, however, this procedure is

not feasible what steps will as the Board take to prevent the de-

based coinage driving the good coinage out of the market, according

to the well known rule that if good and bad money are in circulation

side by side, the former invariably is obliged to give way to the

latter?

The