THE SILVER STANDARD AND THE EVILS OF ITS INSTABILITY 425
the cost of the Indian Exchequer.* This relief was, comparatively speaking, no relief to them. The official or the warrant rates of exchange, though better than the market rates of exchange, were much lower than the rate at which they were used to make their remittances before 1873. Their burden, like that of the Government, grew with the fall of silver, and as their burden increased their attitude became alarmist. Many were the memorialists who demanded from the Government adequate compensation for their losses on exchange.† The Government was warned‡ that
“the ignorant folk who think India would be benefited by lowering present salaries are seemingly unable to comprehend that such a step would render existence on this reduced pay simply impossible, and that recourse would of necessity be had to other methods of raising money.”
Such, no doubt, was the case in the earlier days of the East India Company, when the Civil Servants fattened on pickings because their pay was small,§ and it was to put a stop to their extortions that their salaries were raised to what appears an extra-ordinary level. That such former instances of extortions should have been held out as monitions showed too well how discontented the Civil Service was owing to its losses through exchange.
Quite a different effect the fall had on the trade and industry of the country. It was in a flourishing state as compared with the affairs of the Government or with the trade and industry of a gold-standard country like England. Throughout the period of falling silver there was said to be a progressive decline relatively to population in the employment afforded by various trades and industries in England. The textile manufactures and the iron and coal trade were depressed as well as the other important trades,
- Cf. F. S. 1887-8, pp. 39-40. This cost was as follows :—
1847-75 ... Rs. 6,40,000 1885-86 Rs. 4,00,000
1884-85 ... Rs. 18,43,000 1886-87 Rs. 5,15,000
† Cf. Report of the Indian Currency Committee, 1893, App. I, pp. 185-90 and p. 202, for memorials of the European Civil Servants.
‡ Cf. Col. Hughes-Hallett, M.P., The Depreciation of the Rupee : its Effect on the Anglo-Indian Official — the Wrong and the Remedy, London, 1887, p. 14.
§ The connection between the rapacious conduct of the early European Civil Servants and the smallness of their salaries was well brought out by Clive in his speech dated March 30, 1772, during the course of the debate in the House of Commons on the East India Judicature Bill, Hansard, Vol. XVII, pp. 334-39.