A RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD 605
supposing that the closing of the Mints did not constitute an effective limitation on the volume of rupees in circulation, what was the remedy ? Was the plan of a gold reserve to assure convertibility for foreign remittances calculated to promote that object if the gold reserve was to be got by coining more rupees ? If the limitation of rupees was going to maintain their value, as it did the value of the shilling, was the permission to add to the volume of rupees which the Committee feared was overabundant if not redundant, for the sake of a gold reserve, designed to limit their volume ?
It is difficult to read the report of the Fowler Committee without exasperation. The permission to coin rupees was mischievous in every way. It was destructive of a true gold standard ; it was not wanted as a relief against monetary stringency, and was calculated to lower the value of the rupee. If it was anxious for a gold standard and currency, as it undoubtedly was, it should have absolutely stopped the coinage of rupees and suppressed the notification holding the government ready to give rupees for gold. In failing to do that it not only deprived the country of a sound system, but actually, albeit unwittingly, helped to place the entire Indian currency, including paper currency, on the basis- of an inconvertible rupee. Few people seem to be alive to the precise significance of that pernicious proviso introduced by the Herschell Committee, and remorselessly upheld by the Fowler Committee, that the government shall always be ready to give rupees for gold, but there can be no doubt that in the absence of a counter-proviso, requiring Government to give gold for rupees, the proviso is simply a cover for an authority to the Indian Government to issue inconvertible rupee currency of unlimited legal tender in the same way as the bank restriction was for an authority to the bank of England to issue inconvertible notes in unlimited quantities. The first step in the right direction would be to scrap that Report and make a speedy return to the safe and sound proposals of the Government of India as outlined in the despatch referred to above. The primary condition is to stop the coinage of rupees and not merely close the Mints to the public. Whether it would be necessary to melt a portion of the rupees depends upon what gold value it is desired the rupee should have. Once the total contraction of the rupee is