348 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
but the former by its magnitude was efficacious enough to ease the situation. Unluckily, the case was only temporary. Between 1756 and 1771 the market ratio of the rupee and the pagoda again underwent a considerable change. In 1756 it was 364 to 100, and in 1768 it was 370 to 100. It was not till after 1768 that the market ratio became equal to the legal ratio fixed in 1749 and remained steady for about twelve years. But the increased imports of silver, rendered necessary for the prosecution of the second Mysore war, once more disturbed the ratio, which at the close of the war stood at 400 Arcot rupees to 100 Star pagodas. After the end of the war, the Government of Madras made another attempt to bring about a concurrent circulation between the rupee and the pagoda. But instead of making the market ratio of 400 to 100 the legal ratio, it was led by the then increasing imports of gold into the Presidency to hope that the market ratio would in time rise to that legally established in 1749. In an expectant mood so induced it decided, in 1790, to anticipate the event by fixing the ratio first at 365 to 100. The result was bound to be different from that desired, for it was an under-valuation of the pagoda. But instead of rectifying the error, the Government proceeded to aggravate it by raising the ratio still further to 350 to 100 in 1797, with the effect that the pagoda entirely went out of circulation, and the final attempt at bimetallism thus ended in a miserable failure.
The Government of Bombay seemed better instructed in the mechanics of bimetallism, although that did not help it to overcome the practical difficulties of the system. On the first occasion when bimetallism was introduced in the Presidency,* the mohur and the rupee were rated at the ratio of 15.70 to 1. But at this ratio the mohur was found to be over-rated, and accordingly, in August, 1774, the Mint Master was directed to coin gold mohurs of the fineness of a Venetian and of the weight of the silver rupee. This change brought down the legal ratio to 14.83 to 1, very nearly, though not exactly, to the then prevailing market ratio of 15 to 1, and had nothing untoward happened, bimetallism would have had a greater success in Bombay than it actually had in the other two Presidencies. But this was not to be, for the situation was completely altered by the dishonesty of the Nawab of Surat, who allowed his rupees, which were of the same weight and fineness as the Bombay
- Report of Dr. Scott on the History of Coinage in the Bombay Presidency, with Appendices, Public Consultations (Bombay, dated January 27, 1801).