342 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
The lines of reform were first laid down by the Directors of the Company in their famous Despatch, dated April 25, 1806,* to the authorities administering their territories in India. In this historic document they observed :—
“17. It is an opinion supported by the best authorities, and proved by experience, that coins of gold and silver cannot circulate as legal tenders of payment at fixed relative values...... without loss; this loss is occasioned by the fluctuating value of the metals of which the coins are formed. A proportion between the gold and silver coin is fixed by law, according to the value of the metals, and it may be on the justest principles, but owing to the change of circumstances gold may become of greater value in relation to silver than at the time the proportion was fixed, it therefore becomes profitable to exchange silver or gold, so the coin of that metal is withdrawn from circulation ; and if silver should increase in its value in relation to gold, the same circumstances would tend to reduce the quantity of silver coin in circulation. As it is impossible to prevent the fluctuation in the value of the metals, so it is also equally impracticable to prevent the consequences thereof on the coins made from these metals ............. To adjust the relative values of gold and silver coin according to the fluctuations in the values of the metals would create continual difficulties, and the establishment of such a principle would of itself tend to perpetuate inconvenience and loss.”
They therefore declared themselves in favour of monometalism as the ideal for the Indian currency of the future, and prescribed :—
“21......... that silver should be the universal money of account (in India), and that all .......... accounts should be kept in the same denominations of rupees, annas and pice ...........
The rupee was not, however, to be the same as that of the Moghul Emperors in weight and fineness The proposal that
“9 .... the new rupee........be of the gross weight of—
Troy grains ... 180 Deduct one-twelfth alloy ... 15 And contain of fine silver troy grs. 165”
*H. of C. Return 127 of 1898.