CO129-376 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1911 [3-4] — Page 431

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4.

If, however, "no effective action

can be taken to rehabilitate Hongkong Coinage until Chinese

coin is excluded", and if moreover no process of natural or

automatic exclusion is deemed feasible, the conclusion is

either that the Chinese coins must be excluded by force, or

that the coinage of Hongkong must remain indefinitely at a

discount. I understand that the latter is the conclusion at

which Lord Crewe arrived, since Mr. Cox states that exclusion

of Chinese coins "would attract enormous masses of Hongkong

coin from China" and "their importation would either sweep

away the increase of value or would oblige the Government to

continue these operations at a cost which is quite beyond the

present means of the Colony". This assumes that there exist

# enormous masges of Hongkong coin in China which would be

free to be imported into Hongkong. It is very doubtful if

this is the case, and if it proved to be so, the operation

I have advocated would not be prejudiced, nor would the

Government be compelled to repeat it until it was in a

financial position to do so.Meanwhile at the proposed cost

of $500,000 a mass of redundant coin approximately of

$3,800,000 worth or some 55 millions of coins would have

been got rid of, and in withdrawing them this Government

would have benefitted to the full rate of the discount at which