August 1, 1898.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
107 
by being melted down into bulli .')n,or (3) by beiug expor- 
ted to foreign countries. Thus, suppose that the legal 
jralio between silver aud gold was 15 to 1 while the 
maiket value was 18 to 1, then silver in coin would 
be worth 15 while in bullion it would only be 
worth IS. The inevitable consequence would be that 
it would either be hoarded away, or it would be 
melted down into bullion, or it wonld be ex- 
ported to foreign countries, where it would pass at 
its market value ; and no one wonld bring silver to 
be coined, because then 18 oz. of silver would be re- 
duced in value to 15 oz. Now let us apply these 
considerations to the coinage of India, 
I must, however, begin by dispelling two very 
PREVALENT EHROES 
(1) that India has nothing but a silver coin- 
age from time immemorial, and that it is not 
possible to change the inveterate habits of a people; 
and {1] that India is too poor a country to have a 
gold coinage. Both these assertions are erroneous. 
In the first place, it is certain that gold was the 
original measure of value throughout all India. India 
produces large quantities of gold, but no silver. 
Nevertheless, from pre-historic times vast quantities 
of silver have been introduced into Northern India 
to purchase gold. The ratio of gold to silver was 1 
to 13 in Persia ; but it was 1 to 8 in India, The 
Phoenicians, before the times of authentic history, 
brought vast quantities of silver from Tartessus and 
exchanged it for the gold dust of the Lower Indus, 
which Sir Alexander Cunningham, the highest autho- 
rity on the subject, holds to be Ophir. 
Sir Alexander thinks that silver was coined in India 
as early as 1000 b.c. But the gold was not coined; 
it was kept in ditst and tied up in little bags, which 
passed current as money. But as s'lver was first 
coined it was considered as the standard, and the 
gold dust passed at its market ''Jalue. Darius exacted 
as tribute from the satropy of the Punjab 360 talents 
of gold dust, which he coined into Darius. The 
other 19 satropies paid their tribute in silver. 
We have no certain information when gold was 
first coined in India ; but though gold and silver 
were equally current in Northern India, there was 
never any fixed legal ratio between them. Every 
petty prince issued his own coinage. The Mahom- 
medans adopted the silver coinage as they found it 
existing; but their conquests never extended to 
Southern India, and gold was the standard in Southern 
India until 1818, when the East India Company for 
the first time forced the silver rupee as the standard 
in Southern India. These historical facts refute the 
two errors I have meutioned above — that silver had 
been from time immemorial the standard of India 
and that India is too poor a country for a gold 
standard. 
The Grovernmeut of India took no action on its 
weighty and important minute of 1806 till 1818, when 
it issued 
A KEW COINAGE OF GOLD AND SILVER 
and for the first time introduced the silver rapes as 
legal tender in Southern India, where gold alone had 
hitherto been the standard. In 1835 the Government 
gave up the attempt to maintain bimetallism as hope- 
less. They then coined gold and silver rupees of 
equal weight and fineness. The new silver rupee was 
declared the sole legal tender throughout India : 
but the gold rupees were allowed to pass current 
and be received at the public treasuries at their 
market value in silver. 
This state of iffairs continued till 1852. The 
great gold discoveries in 1818 and subsequent years 
seemed likely to cause a serious fall in the value cf 
gold. Holland, iu a fit of panic, demonetised gold, 
which she repentejl of afterwards and retraced her 
step. Lord Dalhou?ie took the same panic, and in 
the last week of 1852 he suddenly issued a notifica- 
tion that after .January, 1st 1853, no gold coin of 
any sDrt would bo received at the public treasuries. 
By this unfortunate action gold was totally demone- 
ised thronghont India. By this astounding coup 
de finance, utterly without precedent in the history 
Qf the world, it was estimated that £120,000,000 of 
gold coin at once disappeared from circulation and 
was hoarded away, and this has been the origin of all 
our present monetary troubles in India, and for forty- 
five years we have been repenting at leisure. 
THE DEIIONETISATION OF GOLD 
by Lord Dalhousie was soon felt to be a dis- 
astrous error, and a strong feeling grew up in 
favour of its restoration. Some minor movements 
were made, but in 1864 a most powerful and 
unanimous effort was made throughout India to 
procure the restoration of the gold currency. By this 
time the gold sovereign had acquired an immense 
circulation throughout the whole of India. The 
Chambers of Commerce of Bsnaal, Bombay, and 
Madras, and the Bombay Association unanimously 
pointed out the immense inconvenien'res aud losses by 
having only a silver currency, which was no longer 
adequate for the wants of commerce. From time 
immemorial, until within the last few years, India had 
an extensive gold currency, and the superior con- 
venience of it was fully appreciated by the natives. 
The gold coins in circulation commanded a consider- 
able premium iu the market, and the natives made 
an attempt to supply the deficiency by circulating 
gold bars bearing the stamps of the Bombay banks. 
The restoration of a gold currency would be most 
popularly received, both from ancient associations 
and present convenience. The exclusion of gold from 
the currency of India could not be justified, or con- 
sidered as otherwise than barbarous, irrational, and 
unnatural. These views were supported by a large 
number of high officials and bankers from all parts of 
India, and they were unanimous that the gold sovereign 
should be mad the standard unit, as the people were 
already well aceustomed to its use. A grsat number 
of collectors in Southern India reported that large 
quantities of sovereigns were in circulation in their 
district, and the natives complained bitterly of the 
lo sses and inconvenience they sufiered from their not 
being received at the public treasuries. 
This is a very slight epitome of the immense mass 
of evidence collected from all parts of India of the 
unanimous desire of the people to have the sovereigir 
made the standard unit. Some persons, indeed, pre- 
tend that it is an impossible chimera to restore a 
gold currency to India. But what can persons sit- 
ting in their studies in England know about the mat- 
ter if they will not read the unanimous opinion of 
the people of India themselves which was published 
as a parliamentary paper in February, 1865 ? In 
consequence of this powerful movement and the vast 
body of evidence it had collected, the Government 
of India, on July il, 1864, addressed a despatch to 
the Home Government, requesting it to authorise it 
to declare that British and Australian sovereigns and 
half-sovereigns shoirld be made legal tender through- 
out the British dominions in India at the fixed rate 
of 10 rupees for the sovereign. 
Sir Charles Wood (the Secretary of State for India) 
instantly quashed this fatuous proposal, which was 
PURE EniET.iLLIS.M, 
and showed that two metals could not circu- 
late tof!;ether af a fixed legal ratio in unlimited 
quantities different from the market value of the 
metals, instancing the recent case of France, where 
a small change in the market ratio of gold and silver 
had sufficed to displace the whole silver currency of 
France and to substitute gold for it. But it appears 
that neither Sir Charles Wood nor the Indian Govern- 
ment haci any knowledge of the minute of the Indian 
Government in 1806. Sir Charles Wood, however, 
proposed that sovereigns migh'j be received and paid 
out of the Indian treasuries at ElO ; but this plan 
equally failed, because at that time sovereigns pissed 
at P>,10 and several annas. Thus both the plan of the 
Indian Government and that of Sir Charles Wood failed 
because they were both tainted with bimeiallism, 
which has ruined every system of coinage it ever 
touched, and thus t'"e golden opportunity passed 
away, never to return, when, by adopting a system 
of coinage similar to thj British, the sover.-ign might 
have been made the standard unit, with a subsidiary 
currency of silver at RIG to the sovereign, by res- 
tricting the issue of silver. 
