360 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
were to take place, and silver be valued too high …… gold
would then disappear, and silver become the standard
money.”*
And it is possible that mint proportions rather than popular preference† could have equally well accounted for the preponderance of silver in India.‡
Whether any other criterion besides popular; preference could have led the Court to adopt gold monometallism is a moot question. Suffice it to say that the adoption of silver monometallism, though well supported at the time when the Act was passed, soon after proved to be a measure quite inadequate to the needs of the country. It is noteworthy that just about this time great changes were taking place in the economy of the Indian people. Such a one was a change from kind economy to cash economy. Among the chief causes contributory to this transformation the first place must be given to the British system of revenue and finance. Its effects in shifting Indian society on to a cash nexus have not been sufficiently realized,§ although they have been very real. Under the native rulers most payments were in kind. The standing military force kept and regularly paid by the Government was small. The bulk of the troops consisted of a kind of militia furnished by Jageerdars and other landlords, and the troops or retainers of these feudatories were in great measure maintained on the grain, forage, and other supplies furnished by the districts in which they were located. The hereditary revenue and police officers were generally paid by grants of land on tenure of service. Wages of farm servants and labourers were in their turn distributed in grain. Most of its officers being paid in kind, the State collected very little of its taxes in cash. The innnovations made by the British in this rude revenue and fiscal system were
- Works, p. 271.
† Mr. Dodwell, in his otherwise excellent article, op. cit., seems to convey that silver was substituted for gold in Southern India as a result of the natural preference of the people for the former metal. So eager is he in meeting the contentions of writers like Mr. Doraiswami that he fails to see how his own facts controvert his own thesis.
‡ The total coinage of India from 1800 to 1835 was, according to Mr. F. C. Harrison’s estimate in the Calcutta Review, July, 1892:—
Gold ... ... £ 3,845,000 ounces
Silver ... ... £ 3,781,250,000 ounces
N.B.—In the case of silver, rupees are converted into ounces for comparison. § Cf. the article “ The Silver Question as regards India,” in the Bombay Quarterly Review, April, 1857.