CO129-555-6 Banking crisis 24-9-1935 - 18-10-1935 — Page 4

CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案 All

3M Youny

Durther report

18.10.

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Wery

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subsidiary Compance

Страни

رمی

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This letter deals to a certain extent with

currency matters, and I assume that is why it has

been sent to me in the first place, but the main gist

is on the banking question. On that issue it gives

further information to supplement that in No. 1., but

does not, I think, require any action.

The banking situation has itself a bearing

flation in

on currency in two ways. The first and more

ephemeral bearing is that sustained Hong Kong might bring down the concerns referred to

by Mr. Young and, owing to the repercussions of

their collapse. might produce widespread financial

difficulty. In view of the fall of the Hong Kong

rate in the last ten days, that is perhaps not a

matter with which we need concern ourselves very

much. The second and more lasting bearing of this

banking situation on the currency position is that

the difficulties of the Wing On and Sincere groups

arise, at any rate partly, from speculations on

Exchange. This is only another aspect of the evils

of an unstabilized Exchange. It also strikes me in

this, and in every other discussion of Exchange

operations in Hong Kong, that the rate which every-

body has in mind is the rate on London, not the

rate on Shanghai; there is every indication that

the bulk of the business transacted is with London

not with Shanghai, and this does not lend support

to the time worn plea that the essential thing for

Hong Kong is to maintain its stability on the Shanghai rate (it is not the case that the absence

of speculation in Shanghai Exchange is due to any

absence of variation, because in the last twelve

months

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