408 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
of each other with reference to the relative values of the two metals, were alike with reference to the changes in their relative supply. The period between 1870 and 1893 on the side of relative production was marked by the preponderance of silver. The period between 1848 and 1870 is an exact parallel to the above period with respect to changes in the relative supply of the two precious metals, only in this case it was gold that had increased in volume. Now, if it is oversupply that governed the value relations of the two metals in the second period (1870-93) the same should be true of their value relations in the first period (1848-70). Was there, then, a disturbance in the relative values of the two metals in the first period anything like what took place in the second period ? It was insisted that the disturbance in the ratios of production of the two metals in the first period was enormously greater than that which occurred in the second period. Indeed, comparatively speaking, the disturbance in the second period was nothing to speak of. And yet their relative value during the first period was well-nigh constant at the ratio of 1 to 15½, while in the second it fluctuated between 16.10 and 26.75. Those, who argued that the value of silver fell after 1873 because of its over-supply, were thus faced with the problem as to why the value of gold did not fall when its supply had become so abundant before 1873. The whole controversy was therefore centred into the question as to what could have made this difference in the two situations ? If the colossal increase in the production of gold in the first period did not raise the value of silver by more than 2 per cent., how was it that a comparatively insignificant rise in the relative production of silver in the second period led to such an enormous rise in the price of gold ? What was the controlling influence present in the one case which was absent in the other ? Those who held that it was demonetization of silver that was responsible for its depreciation argued that, though alike in every way, the two periods differed in one important particuar. What distinguished them was the fact that in the former it was a common practice to define the standard money of a country as a certain quantity of gold or a certain quantity of silver. Prior to 1803 the two metals were rated differently in different countries,*but since that date the rating of 1 to 15½ became more uniform, with the result that the monetary standard throughout that period was either 1 gr. of gold or 15½ grs. of
- For these ratios, see Appendix, Table B, to A Colloquy on Currency, by H. H. Gibbs.