Besides the silver, there is a bank-note circulation, but that has no actual bearing on the question of currency, as the trade and business of the Island has refused to accept it, and the present quoted value is less than ten cents on the dollar. The greater part of this emission, which was a war issue made by the Spanish Government at Madrid through the _Banco Espanol de la Isla de Cuba_ (not _by_ that bank), is largely in the hands of speculators and government contractors. The only public application is for the payment in the custom-house of the so-called ten per cent. ad valorem duty assessed on the official value of imported merchandise in addition to the regular specific rate of duty exacted. The abolition of this duty, under the new tariff, ends the life of these bank bills. There still remains a question as to whether the Spanish Bank of Cuba was in any way responsible for these bills, and the question will come up for future adjustment. The Bank will probably deny responsibility and refer those who hold this depreciated currency to the Spanish Government at Madrid. It is an interesting fact in this connection that the credit of the Spanish Bank of Cuba is of a higher standard than the credit of the Spanish Government, for the Bank has never failed to redeem its own paper during nearly half a century of its existence, first as the Bank of Spain of Havana and subsequently under its present name. It has at times suffered embarrassment, but ultimately the bills of the Spanish Bank of the Island of Cuba have always been redeemed. The gold coins current in Cuba are the Spanish and French coins, the bulk of which consists of Spanish twenty-five-_peseta_ pieces, so-called Alfonsinos, which for many years have been inflated by royal decree to $5.30, and the French twenty-franc piece, so-called Napoleons, which have also been given a legal value of $4.24 and decreed since the end of 1893 as legal money.[1] When the necessity for adopting and inflating another gold coin besides the Spanish Alfonsino was under discussion, the suggestion was made that the United States gold eagle would make an excellent coin for this purpose, as it would figure out almost exactly eleven dollars Spanish gold.[2] The idea was not entertained, because of the general distrust of Americans, and the fear lest the relations between the United States and Cuba should become too intimately interwoven. STATEMENT SHOWING VALUE OF UNITED STATES GOLD IN COMPARISON WITH SPANISH AND FRENCH GOLD ON THE BASIS OF PAR VALUE Spanish Alfonsino $5. French Napoleon 4. Spanish Alfonsino, value in Havana $5. Value in United States mint ($4.80 less shipping expenses, .024) 4.776 ------ $0.224. Exchange 4-11/16%