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standard likely to make it acceptable in China was authorised early in the following year 1873. Ultimately China must have a national coinage of silver, and in the

meantime a more extensive use of the silver coins of other countries will be found advantageous not only to the Chinese but to foreign residents at the different ports. The American Trade Dollar has been well received in that Empire, and, if this trade coinage should incidentally afford protection to our mining interests which have already been injuriously affected by the fall in the value of silver, it could hardly be regarded otherwise than as sound national policy."

In his Report for 1876-7 Dr. LINDERMAN shows that this view of the trade dollar was adopted by the United States Government. This statement is as follows:-

"The trade dollar has of late entered to some extent into domestic circulation, and this for the reason that, from time to time since United States notes have appreciated nearly to par with gold, holders of silver bullion have been able to have the same manufactured into these coins, and exchange them at par for United States notes with a small profit. This fact on becoming known was regarded as indicating that the Trade Dollar coinage was for the time being (October 1876) in excess of the export demand*, and led to the issuing of an order by the Secretary of the Treasury to temporarily intermit the receipt of deposits at the Mints for these coins. There are weighty reasons why the Trade Dollar should not be coined for domestic circulation, but it is hardly worth while to `state them, since the law provides very clearly that they shall be coined only to meet the export demand, and leaves no discretion as to their coinage for any other purposes." An Act was in fact passed in July 1876, depriving Trade Dollars of their limited legal tender character.

In his last Report, Dr. LINDERMAN, discussing at length the position of the Trade Dollar, states that in the latter part of 1877 "from the appreciation of United States notes as compared with gold, and the decline in the value of silver, a Trade Dollar added to its coinage charge became of less intrinsic value than the gold value of a Dollar note, and holders of silver bullion deposited the same at the Mints for returns in Trade Dollars, and placed them in circulation at a profit to themselves." The amount held by the California Banks and in circulation as money within the United States he estimates at about $5,000,000.

Finally, while insisting upon the advantages to be derived from the continued coinage of trade dollars for commercial purposes, Dr. LINDERMAN shews that successful attempts had been made to place those coins in domestic circulation, and that, if they should again succeed in acquiring a legal tender character, large quan- tities of them would be brought back from Foreign countries, and he reports that, in February 1878, the Secretary of the Treasury directed that the receipt of deposits of silver for coinage into trade dollars should be entirely discontinued.

*The fact as stated, would appear hardly to have warranted this assumption, as the operation was presumably undertaken, not in consequence of any decrease in the export demand, but because of the profit on it.