that the profits derivable from the subsidiary coins alone would pay the expenses of the Mint. It was also stated that if the Government objected to undertake the management of the Mint, it might be started by a private Company under Government supervision. Sir John, however, shelved the whole question. Meanwhile attention was drawn to the manufacture in the Colony, at the village of Tokwawan, of immense quantities of Annamese cash for exportation to Annam and Tungking, where no State Mint existed. Some of the manufacturers of these cash were tried in the Police Court (Hon. C. B. Plunket) but discharged, as no offence against English law was brought home to them. But thereupon the Colony itself was flooded with these cash, until a notification was published in the Gazette (October 29, 1879) warning the people that the circulation of these cash in the Colony was illegal. On 23rd February, 1880, the Chamber of Commerce resolved to memorialize the Government, requesting that action be taken with a view to make the Japanese yen current in Hongkong, the Chinese community having (February 5, 1880) petitioned the Government to the same effect. Although this was in entire accordance with Sir John's own wishes, no action appears to have been taken in the matter by this administration.
In the sphere of emigration, considerable irritation was caused in January, 1878, by the case of two ships which took emigrants under the belief that permission would be granted, but at the last moment Sir John refused to sign the warrant. The S.S. Perusia, the first steamer of the new China-Peru line, had thus to sail (January 13, 1878) without her cargo of emigrants, and the charterers of the American ship Charter Oak were put to serious loss, having filled the ship with emigrants for Honolulu, but being met, at the moment of her intended departure (January 15, 1878), with a refusal on the part of the Governor to sign the warrant, because the Tungwa Hospital Committee had represented to him that the emigrants would be lured into slavery. The consequence was that trade with Honolulu was for several years afterwards conducted from
