288 



His ignorance is a mark for all the shrewd and crafty people 

 thereabouts. He will have endless difficulties in establishing 

 the circulation of the distant bank, because he has not the 

 knowledge, which alone can teach him how to issue that 

 circulation with safety." It is from this point of view that 

 it is important that the banks established in the rural tracts 

 should have in its directorate non-official members with local 

 experience. The existence of such banks will also, to some 

 extent, diminish the practice of investing money in jewels. 

 So long as money is kept idle, pressure is put upon the 

 head of the household by the female members of the family 

 to lay out the money in the purchase of jewels ; when it is 

 lodged in a bank and earns interest, the pressure and the 

 temptation to yield to it would be considerably less. There 

 are, of course, reasons founded on social necessities, which 

 contribute to the maintenance of the practice of purchasing 

 jewels for women over and above those arising from a desire 

 for their personal adornment. These are, first, that, as jewels 

 are under the personal control of the female members of the 

 family to a greater extent than any other form of property 

 would be, and less subject to the interference of their hus- 

 bands, sons, or other relations, provision intended for them 

 takes this form ; and secondly, as the Hindu law does not 

 give a share in the father's property to the daughters, 

 social usages founded on natural sentiment supplement the 

 deficiencies of the law in this manner. 



Another great advantage likely to result from the provi- 

 sion of banking facilities is the extension of the use of credit 

 instruments, and the saving affected by the economizing of 

 the use of coin. There has been a considerable extension of 

 the circulation of bank notes during the last two years, the 

 value of circulation amounting to 24 crores of rupees against 

 a value of 6 crores of rupees in 1864. The circulation of 

 bank notes not covered by coin or bullion has been increased 

 to 7 crores of rupees. This represents a saving in interest 

 at 4 per cent, of nearly 28 lakhs of rupees. The precious 

 metals needed for currency purposes have to be purchased 

 for value like any other commodity, and if coin could be 

 economized ^'^^ by extension of other forms of credit, the 

 necessity for enlarging the metallic currency with the growing 

 needs of trade and commerce would be partly at least counter- 

 acted, and this would be a very great benefit. 



'■•' It haa been calculated that the average value of daily transactions in the 

 London clearing house is 20,000 millions sterling. Mr. Jevons estimated that if all this 

 business were transacted by the actual payment of coin, the weight to*be carried would 

 be 157 tons of gold requiring 80 horses to carry the metal. If in silver, the weight 

 would be more than 2,500 tons. The actual metallic coinage of England (in 1878) was 

 100 millions of gold, 15 millions worth of bullion in the bank of England, 15 millions 

 of bilver and li of bronze — total 131i millions sterling. 



