368 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
status in the existing system of Indian currency.* All were agreed on the principle of a gold currency : whatever difference there was, was confined to the method of its adoption. The introduction of gold on a bimetallic basis was out of the question, for the Government refused to make what it deemed to be the “hopeless attempt” to fix the value of gold and silver and compel their acceptance at that value.† The projects which the Government was willing to consider‡ were : (1) to introduce the “sovereign” or some other gold coin and to let it circulate at its market price from day to day as measured in silver;
(2) to issue a new gold coin, bearing the exact value of a given number of rupees, and make it a legal tender for a limited period, when it might be readjusted and again valued, and made a legal tender for a similar period at the new rate ;
(3) to introduce the English sovereign as a legal tender for Rs. 10, but limited in legal tender to the amount of Rs. 20 or two sovereigns ; or (4) to substitute a gold standard for the silver standard.
Of these projects, the first three were evidently unsafe as currency expendients. Fixity of value between the various components of the currency is an essential requisite in a wellregulated monetary system. Each coin must define a fixed value, in terms of the others realizable by the most untutored intellect. When it ceases to do so, it becomes a mere commodity, the value of which fluctuates with the fluctuations of the market. This criterion ruled out the first two projects. To have introduced a coin as money, the value of which could not be vouched for— as would have been the case under the first project—from one day to another, apart from the trouble of computing and ascertaining the fluctuations, would have been a source of such embarassment that the Government, it must be said, acted wisely in not adopting it. There was no saving grace in the second project to recommend its adoption in preference to the first. If it had been adopted the result would have been that during the period when a rate remained fixed, gold would have
- The matter was first broached by the native shroffs and merchants of Calcutta in April. 1859, in a letter to the President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce. Both agreed to urge upon the Government the necessity of a gold currency in India. Cf. Papers relating to the Introduction of a Gold Currency in India, Calcutta, 1866, pp. 1-3.
† Ibid., p. 6.
‡ Cf. Minute by the Rt. Hon. James Wilson, dated December 25, 1859, Ibid., p. 23.