CO129-431 - Governor Sir May - 1916 [1-2] — Page 375

accumulations which may came to during the year. As he has has chud off the existing stock me and not telegraph at

? In desp appoint & his selling

of

accumulations other

Lu also En/13584.

Resp/16

NA CONFIDENTIAL.

Hoe

GG.

21.3.16

22. J. a

alou

Dr.

372

13291

RES

16

GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

HONGKONG. 9th. February, 1916,

25/7/3

sir,

15

for 58833/15

7833

35772

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt

of your Despatch No. 344 of the 31st. of December on the subject of the Estimates for the current year.

2.

I trust that my Confidential Despatch of the 26th. January will have satisfied you that effective steps have been already taken to establish equilibrium between Revenue and Expenditure and that your approval will in due course be given for the additional taxation by which the over-draft now less than 21,000,000, with the Hongkong and Shanghai Baking Corporation will be paid off, if soles of land this year do not enable me to repay the debt.

You will have learned from that Despatch that

the rate of interest on the over-draft is only 4 per centum, end in view of these facts you will, I hope, agree that a local loan

is unnecessary.

3.

I gather from the 6th. paragraph of your Despatch that when you wrote it you were under the impression that this Government was still purchasing subsidiary coins in the open market. These purchases ceased in February, 1915, as reported in

my Confidential Despatch of the 2nd, of July last, and have not

been resumed. The loss in discount on subsidiary coins paid in as

revenue cannot be avoided, and the only economy on the vote for

loss on subsidiary coins that is possible is the temporary saving in the cost of converting such collections into bullion. For the

E RIGHT HONOURABLE

ANDREW BONAR LAW, M.P.,

&C..

&C..

&C...

reasons