682 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
should not adopt measures that will give us stable prices at home which is really the most that is to be got out of a currency medium. In my opinion we should stabilize our prices forthwith by linking the rupee to gold at 1s. 6d. sterling. European countries will soon realize that it is insane to reach back to pre-war parities with gold and will learn that in matters of currency the real at any given time is the natural and normal. If they learn this earlier than we expect, we would find them stabilizing their currencies in terms of gold at the existing levels. In that case gold will again begin to function as an international standard of value and we shall have a stable exchange. But if before that we have stable prices in terms of gold it certainly cannot do us any harm.
During the course of this controversy there has arisen a new standpoint which would want us to do nothing in the matter of rehabilitation of our currency until we first took measures which should substitute the prevalent system of managed currency by a new system of automatic currency. I have great sympathy with this standpoint, not because I am sure that an automatic currency will always be more stable than a managed currency but because it reminds us that the question ‘ how can we most nearly maintain stability after we have attained it’ is more worthy of our consideration than the question of attaining stability. But to suggest that we must do nothing to stabilize our price level till we have decided between a managed system and an automatic one, is to make hell of the earth because the angels do not consent to make a heaven of it. That was the reason why I thought it was a different matter altogether. Some comments on that might be useful at another time. But not now.
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