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554 Chamber of Commerce, once more appealed to the Secretary of State for the abolition of the blockade and invited the principal Chambers of Commerce in the United Kingdom to support their petition, but this movement did not produce any results during Governor Hennessy's term of office.

The currency question entered upon a retrograde movement now, owing to the greater influence the Chinese gained at this time. Seeing that it had become an established custom in Hongkong to prefer a clean currency and to accept broken silver or chopped dollars only at a discount of one per cent., the Canton Cotton and Yarn Guild passed a resolution (April, 1877) that Chinese dealers in Hongkong should suspend trade with any foreign firm refusing to accept broken silver at par value of currency. At first the European merchants made joint resistance to this attempt to force broken silver and chopped dollars upon their acceptance. But the local Chinese dealers supported the movement initiated by the Canton Cotton Guild and presented a petition to the Registrar General asking the Governor to make broken silver a legal tender. Sir John hesitated. Unfortunately, however, individual foreign merchants yielded (May 5, 1877) to the pressure brought to bear upon them by the Chinese, and by 19th May, 1877, the demands of the guild, through want of unanimity among the European merchants, were generally accepted. The latter now confined themselves to memorialize the Government against the Chinese proposal to make broken silver (including chopped dollars) a legal tender. The memorialists did not propose to prohibit the practice of chopping dollars, but earnestly deprecated any compulsion to be brought upon merchants unwilling to accept chopped dollars as currency. A year later (March 7, 1878) the Chamber of Commerce, recognizing that there was no prospect of the proposed British dollar being coined in England by the Imperial Government, pronounced now in favour of reviving the Hongkong Mint. It was alleged that the former closing of the Hongkong establishment was a premature and ill-advised measure, that there were now excellent guarantees for the success of the undertaking, and