A RETURN TO THE GOLD STANDARD 611
Equally sane was the view of the Government in 1876 with regard to the rupee currency. The Bengal Chamber of Commerce, it will be recalled, had urged upon the Government of India to close the Mints to the free coinage of silver, without opening them to the free coinage of gold—a project which practically meant that the Government should undertake the management of the rupee currency. The reply of the Government of India was a sharp rebuke. It declared*:—
“8. . …the Chamber invite the Government to take a measure calculated to enhance indenfinitely the value of the rupee by suspending the long-established legal right of all comers to have silver bullion manufactured upon uniform conditions under State supervision into legal-tender coin, and temporarily substituting a system of coinage at the discretion of the State……
“11. It is essential to a sound system of currency that it be automatic. No man or body of men can ascertain whether at any particular moment the interests of the community as a whole require an increase or diminution of the currency; still less, how much increase or how much decrease is, at any moment, exactly needed. No Government which aspires to keep its currency in a sound condition would be justified in attempting that impossible task, or in leaving the community, even for a short interval, without a fixed metallic standard of value. Under an ‘open coinage system’ these things regulate themselves without official interference.”
Now, compare with this the later pronouncements of the government with regard to the principles governing the paper and rupee currency respectively. During the war, when the Government of India resorted to the enlargement of paper issues, Honourable Members of the Supreme Legislative Council pointed out the effects it would produce on prices in India. But the late Hon. Sir Wm. Meyer, who as a Finance
- Resolution of the Government of India, relating to the Depreciation in the Value of Silver, dated September 22, 1870, Commons Paper 449 of 1893.