468 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
position, but they actually took advantage of the rise to discard it.* And it is not possible to blame them either, for with the prospect of a bimetallic union vanishing into thin air the accumulation of this dead weight would have only ended in a gratutious embarrassment. India alone refused to profit by the squeeze, which the United States took vicariously for other nations, and allowed precious time to slip by, with the result that it was thrown back upon the same remedy, the adoption of which was negatived in 1878.
If it was to be a gold standard it would have been better if it had been done in 1878. The plan then outlined by the Government of India was no doubt too complicated and too flimsy to be practicable. But its rejection should not have altogether suspended the introduction of a gold standard. If it was to be one of an orthodox kind on the English pattern, it would have no doubt involved some cost to the Government in being obliged to sell at a reduced price a part of the silver stock of the country in order to give the rupee a subsidiary position and to fill the void by a gold currency. The cost of this conversion in 1878 would have been inconsiderable, for the fall of silver from its normal gold price was only 12½ per cent. On the other hand, if it was to be on such an unorthodox plan as that of Colonel Smith, it would have involved no cost at all to the Government† beyond that involved in the installation of new machinery for the coinage of gold at the Mint. But in 1893 both
- Cf. Russell, op. cit., p. 410 ; also Prof. F. A. Walker, “The Free Coinage of Silver,” in The Journal of Political Economy (Chicago), Vol. I, p. 174.
† So evident was this the case that the London Times, although it did not agree that any change was then urgently called for, yet observed in the leading article in its issue of October 25, 1876, p. 9, cl. 2 : “The Governor-General in Council dismisses the suggestion of a gold standard on the ground that the present condition of affairs, bad as it is, does not call for so costly a remedy ; but this involves a misconception of the proposal. The substitution of a gold for a silver currency in India would be a most extensive and costly operation, but to refuse to coin silver and to offer to coin gold for all comers would involve no cost beyond that of new machinery. If it was announced that after a certain day the coinage of silver was suspended, and that gold could be coined instead, for whoever might bring it, in coins that would be exchangeable for rupees at a fixed rate, there would be introduced into India the bimetallic system prevailing in France, and a change in the currency would be gradually introduced. At first no gold would be brought to be coined, but as the suspense of the coinage of silver operated to raise the value of the rupees in existence to the par value defined by the fixed rate of exchange of rupees and gold, gold would be more and more brought to the Mint, and would find its way into circulation. The process would be automatic and not costly, but it would be extremely slow, etc.”