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against over-issue. What the older economists feared was not that convertibility was not enough to maintain gold in circulation if the Banks were allowed to issue notes of small denomination—a view which is quite different from the one ascribed by the author to the older economists. Again to realize their aim the older economists did not urge, as our author represents them to have done, the placing of a limit on their issue. What they urged was a total prohibition of the notes of small denomination. That is why we find the Bank of England prevented by the Charter Act from issuing notes of lesser denomination than £ 5. To be consistent, the author should have recommended that the Government of India should not issue Rupees or silver notes of lesser denomination than Rs. 5. Instead of this he recommends a haphazard and an unworkable plan. Supposing it were possible to fix this percentage—the author has not told us how to do it—is the percentage to be maintained at all times ? Or will it be sufficient if it were found at the end of the financial year that the percentage has not been exceeded ? If the latter is all that the plan demands, then there may be . no limits to the increase and decrease in the volume of currency that may be issued in the course of the year, provided care is taken that at the end of the year the balance errs on the side of an increase equal to the given percentage over the normal. Again, is the normal to be a figure fixed for ever or is it to be revised ? If it is revisable then how is it to be revised and what authority is to revise that normal ? These are some of the questions that have to be answered before the plan can be accepted. But one wonders whether instead of indulging in such ingenuities it would not have been better if the author had played the common role and recommended either a convertible Rupee or an inconvertible Rupee with a fixed limit of issue.
The book consists of lectures delivered by the author in his capacity as a Professor to his students at the Elphinstone College, Bombay, and at the Central Hindu College, Benares, and is divided into two parts. Part I which is mostly informative, the author says, is “ intended for candidates preparing for the