The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1884-12-09

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Taking these figures and applying
them to Hawaii, whose population
we roughly estimate at $4,000, there
ought to be about $4,000 males over
u years of age. As 81 1872 are assessed
for the poll tax this year, and as all
males who are between y and II
years of age and those over 90 are
exempt from that tax, we shall not
be far wrong in assuming that the
proportion of the population which
handles coin, and for whose uses a
circulating medium is reqired, is
greater here, by more than 80 per
cent, than it is on the average in the
countries whose monetary statistics
we are about to refer to.
After a deduction has been made
from the total metallic and paper cir
culation of all specie in banks and
national treasures held against
paper issues, and SO reducing the
figures to what they would have
stood at if the actual circulation had
been wholly of coin, the following
are the sums per head of population
reduced to dollars and cents, which
form the circulating medium of the
countries named on the 31st Decem-
Der, 1888. United States, $24 is;
Great Britain and Ireland, 5000;
Canada, S11.22; Australasian Col
onies, $25.04; Cape OF Good
Hope. $41,54; Portugal, $S.79;
Sweden and Norway, S4.68; Danish
Kingdom, $12. With the exception
of the United States all the above
named countries have laws like our
own, limiting the use of silver as
legal tender to small sums only IN
the following countries both gold and
silver are legal tender: France, cir
culation per head, $3.50; Belgium,
5000; Netherlands, $26.77; Italy,
$16.31. According to the tables from
which these figures are derived the
circulation in this Kingdom was
$50. sc. This includes $500, 600 of the
Hawaiian coinage. If we add to this
the coin since imported, S766,373 less
what we know to have been exported,
$1OO,63O, the amount per head at this
date will be 5000. Even this amount
is much less than the circulation in
France or the Cape Colonies; about
the same as in Belgium, and does
not greatly exceed that Of the Meth
erlands, the AustraIasian Colonies or
the United States. But when we re-
duce il in the proportion which our
active money-eorning and money
using male population bears to that
of the average in other countries, it
is much less than any Of those just
named, viz, about $20.07. The
approximate answer to our first
question must therefore be that the
proper and necessary amount Of
coin for circulation here is certainly
not less than that which is in the
country, and it probably should be
more. Taking into account the scat
the absolute absence of any banking
facilities outside the capital, except
the Postal Money Order system, and
also taking into account how large
q number Of the laboring class are on
the other islands in more or less iso-
lated places, where coin must be ac-
cumulated to pay their wages, we do
not think any country can require
larger amount per head of circulating
medium than Hawaii, nor ought the
constant unrecorded export of coin by
the Chinese to be left out of consider
ton. It exceeds the chance importa-
tiens by persons arriving here by
considerable sum annually. 1t seems
therefore TO be plain that we have
none too much coin in the country.
The important question therefore is
is it to any extent the wrong sort of
coin?
For comparison n of silver in circula-
ton we can only give consideration
to those countries which, like our
selves, limit the use of silver as
legal tender to small sums. In the
the United Kingdom the circulation
of silver per head is S2.67; Austria