30 Notes on Indian Currencies. [no. 1, new series, 



certain parts of (A) can be made to represent the like parts of (B) 

 prDportionally. 



Not that it is absolutely necessary that the currency should be of 

 metal — it may consist of what apparently has no value, as shells, 

 or beans ; and it may consist of precious stones, or even of paper 

 as far as the home circulation is concerned. 



Mr. Ricardo in 1819 suggested some such paper plan to the 

 famous Bullion Committee, and maintained that the circulation of 

 England should consist of nothing but paper and small silver 

 tokens, the Bank issuing the paper and being compelled to pay 

 its notes above a certain amount (£100 I think) in bullion in- 

 stead of coin, and that there should be no gold coin at all. But 

 such currency schemes based upon credit for the purpose of eco- 

 nomizing bullion can only be carried out in countries very far 

 advanced in civilization, where men have considerable confidence 

 in one another, and entire faith in the stability of Government ; 

 while, in a country's infancy, on the other hand, where no such 

 feeling is at all universal, it is very essential that the circulating 

 medium should itself possess a certain intrinsic value, and for con- 

 venience and utility's sake be divisible, durable and of uniform 

 texture — whence it comes that value has been always estimated by 

 weight and not by tale, and gold and silver have been the favorite 

 metals. 



In so vast an agricultural country as India, where from time out 

 of mind, the people have been caste ridden, where labor has been 

 abundant and wages wretchedly low under governments despotic 

 and changeable, and where there has been considerable internal 

 trade, and where if we make exception in the matter of dyes, 

 precious stones, and gold dust, which the ancients tell us came 

 from countries near the source of the Indus, there was anciently 

 no foreign commerce of importance the great majority of payments 

 must always have been made in small coin, and though gold may 

 at the same time have been abundant, for one instance of a tender 

 of a gold piece, innumerable calls must have existed in such a 

 country for a small silver or copper currency. 



