CO129-560-18 Bank balances- six monthly returns of deposits 12-1-1937 - 27-5-1938 — Page 14

DIE

MON

Colonial Secretary's Office.

Mong hong.

24th January, 1938.

6.

14

My dear Gent,

We send Home every six months a statement of

amounts deposited with local banks. I am not sure

whether these are still dealt with in the Eastern

Department or now go to General Division but in any event

they seem to me of very little use. The report is sent in pursuance of instructions in the Secretary of State's 13/142156 30. despatch No.21 of 21st January, 1931. They arose out

Dopy to

to H.C. Ransom (6.4.) (?)

of correspondence for the initiation of which I fear I

was responsible. There used to be a limit on the amount

the Eastern Colonies were allowed to deposit as

unsecured balances, with local banks. The constant

applications for authority to exceed the limit from the

Straits and Mauritius used to irritate me and finally

after an extraordinary amount of labour and research I

succeeded in persuading the powers that were that there

was no point in preserving this limit, the origin of

which was a distrust of the Eastern Banks owing to the

failure of the Oriental Bank in 1887. In cancelling

the limit, however, it was apparently thought desirable

to retain some control and these six monthly returns

were therefore asked for.

It seems to me that even this vestige of the

old suspicion is no longer justified so long as Colonial

G.E.J.Gent, Esq., O.B.E.,

Colonial Office,

LONDON.