676 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
to sell and buy foreign exchange at a fixed ratio. Both these projects for securing invariability of exchange must, I think, be rejected as injurious as well as hazardous. There is no doubt that stabilisation will promote, as nothing else can, the revival of international credit and the movement of capital to where it is most required. One of the most vital parts of prewar organisation would thereby be restored and an element of uncertainty would vanish. Markets given up as lost would be again nursed, which would give an impetus to trade and industry. But there is no doubt that the benefit to be derived will not be worth the cost involved. Our external transactions are infinitesimal as compared to our internal transactions. To dislocate our internal arrangements by constant changes in our price level to preserve external parity is too big a price for a gain which is after all paltry. For, our merchants must remember that though fixity is a great advantage, yet its absence is not an absolute bar to the carrying on of international trade. We have an instance of this in the history of our own currency. For two full decades between 1872-1892 there were the greatest oscillations in Indian currency. Then as now our merchants did clamour against the instability of exchange being an hindrance to trade. But our history shows that even under fluctuating exchange they did thrive and prosper and it may be hoped that their sons may instinctively know how to do the same. Should this fail to carry consolidation, one would recommend the movement of our price level even if it involved the management of our currency, had the Governments of the European countries not been in such an impecunious condition. As it is, by conseting to move our price level in sympathy with theirs we would be committing our welfare to the care of bankrupt governments and their desperate ministers. A currency which is managed on a basis approved by science would no doubt do the best. To be linked up with a currency which is managed solely to meet the exigencies of trade would be tolerable. But it would be an intolerable management of our currency to join hands with a partner who is living on his currency to keep himself going.
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