CHANGES IN VALUES OF PRECIOUS METALS. 179 



reason for supposing that the disturhances which have characterized 

 the trade of Europe with India and the East during recent years, 

 from fluctuations in the price of silver, have been any different in kind 

 than, or as great in degree as, those which characterized the trade of 

 Europe with the United States from 1861 to 1879, or which character- 

 ize to-day the trade of the outside world with Russia, whose currency 

 is depreciated and fluctuating. Moreover, the difficulties arising from 

 the uncertainties of exchange, at least between England and India, 

 appear to have been greatly exaggerated. Mr. Lord, a director of the 

 Manchester (England) Chamber of Commerce, testified before the 

 Commission on the Depression of Trade, in 1886, that, "so far as India 

 was concerned, it is not necessary to run any risk at all," from the un- 

 certainties of exchange. Mr. Bythell (representing the Bombay Cham- 

 ber of Commerce) testified before the same commission : " He [Mr. 

 Gibbs] says that commerce with India is paralyzed. I deny the asser- 

 tion. There is no difficulty in negotiating any transaction for ship- 

 ping goods to India, and in secui'ing exchange." It is also beginning 

 to be generally recognized that, owing to telegraph correspondence 

 and rapid steam communication, the risk in transacting business be- 

 tween different countries, contingent on fluctuations in exchange, is 

 being gradually eliminated, inasmuch as sales and purchases, or remit- 

 tances, and all the incidents of exchange, freights, commission, etc., 

 can be practically arranged between the operators at one and the same 

 time.* 



But whatever may have been the disturbances resulting from fluct- 

 uations in rates of exchange between Great Britain and the silver-using 

 countries (of which India is the chief), contingent on the fluctuations 

 in recent years in the price of silver, these disturbances do not appear 

 to have had any effect up to 1884-'85 in checking the volume of Brit- 

 ish trade with Eastern nations, or in changing the relations of exports' 

 and imports that previously existed. Thus, from returns officially pre- 

 sented to the British Gold and Silver Commission, 1886, it was estab- 

 lished that the trade of Great Britain with India since 1874 had rela- 

 tively grown faster than with any foreign country, " except the United 

 States and perhaps Holland." Assuming 100 to represent the trade 

 between the two countries in 1874— '75, the imports from the United 

 Kingdom into India rose from 100 to 154 in 1884-'85, and the exports 

 from India to the United Kingdom from 100 to 149. Much also has 

 been said respecting the serious injury which the export trade in cot- 

 ton manufactures from England to India has sustained in recent years 



* " If trade can go on profitably between countries having an inconvertible paper of a 

 widely fluctuating kind and the rest of the world, a fortiori, it can go on between gold 

 and silver countries. The exchange is a hindrance and obstacle, as many other things are 

 hindrances and obstacles, but it is nothing more. . . . Such difficulties are the ordinary 

 incidence of trade and life, and will be dealt with like other difficulties of a far more seri- 

 ous kind by those concerned." — London Time-t, September 14-, 18SG. 



