480 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
either European or Indian usage that the standard metal should not pass from hand to hand in the convenient form of current coin. No real support for such a scheme is to be drawn from the purely temporary provisions of “Peel’s Act” of 1819, whereby, for a limited period, the Bank of England, as a first step to the resumption of cash payments, was authorized to cash, in stamped gold bars, its notes, when presented in parcels of over £ 200. Little or no demand for gold bullion appears to have been made on the Bank itself in 1321.
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“53. It is evident that the arguments which tell against the permanent adoption of Mr. Probyn’s bullion scheme, and in favour of a gold currency for India, tell more strongly against Mr. Lindsay’s ingenious scheme for what has been termed ‘an exchange standard.’ We have been impressed by the evidence of Lord Rothschild, Sir John Lubbock, Sir Samuel Montagu and others, that any system without a visible gold currency would be looked upon with distrust. In face of this expression of opinion, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the adoption of Lindsay’s scheme would check that flow of capital to India upon which her economic future so greatly depends. We are not prepared to recommend Mr. Lindsay’s scheme, or the analogous schemes proposed by the late Mr. Raphael and by Major Darwin, for adoption as a permanent arrangement; and existing circumstances do not suggest the necessity for adopting any of these schemes as a provisional measure for fixing the sterling exchange.”
The Committee preferred the scheme of the Government of India, and outlined a course of action to be adopted for placing it on a permanent footing, which may be stated in the Committee’s own language as follows:—
“54. We are in favour of making the British sovereign a legal tender and a current coin in India. We also consider that, at the same time, the Indian Mints should be thrown open to the unrestricted coinage of gold on terms and conditions such as govern the three Australian branches of the Royal Mint. The result would be that, under identical conditions, the sovereign would be coined and would circulate both at home