The silver currency is the Mexican and Spanish Dollar and the Japanese Yen, supplemented by the small silver coinage of the Straits Settlements. The Company has not yet minted any silver coinage, as the profit thereon is small, but in the absence of a bank, the Treasury, for the convenience of traders and planters, carries on banking business to a certain extent, and issues bank notes of the values of $1, $5 and $25, cash reserves equal to one-third of the value of the notes in circulation being maintained.[18] Sir ALFRED DENT is taking steps to form a Banking Company at Sandakan, the establishment of which would materially assist in the development of the resources of the territory. British North Borneo is not in telegraphic communication with any part of the world, except of course through Singapore, nor are there any local telegraphs. The question, however, of supplementing the existing cable between the Straits Settlements and China by another touching at British territory in Borneo has more than once been mooted, and may yet become a _fait accompli_. The Spanish Government appear to have decided to unite Sulu by telegraphic communication with the rest of the world, _viâ_ Manila, and this will bring Sandakan within 180 miles of the telegraphic station. Footnotes: [Footnote 18: Agencies of Singapore Banks have since been established at Sandakan.] CHAPTER IX. In the eyes of the European planter, British North Borneo is chiefly interesting as a field for the cultivation of tobacco, in rivalry to Sumatra, and my readers may judge of the importance of this question from a glance at the following figures, which shew the dividends declared of late years by three of the principal Tobacco Planting Companies in the latter island:-- Dividends paid by The Deli The Tabak The Amsterdam In Maatschappi. Maatschappi. Deli Co. 1882 65 per cent. 25 per cent. 10 per cent. 1883 101 " 50 " 30 " 1884 77 " 60 " 30 " 1885 107 " 100 " 60 " 1886 108 " ..... .....