The Statistical Reporter. A Monthly Journal of Statistical Enquiries Concerning India

Yet if it be in the power of the Government of India to redeem part of the capital of the debt and to discharge the iterest of it in gold according to the price sought to he legalized and if it do so it is clear all such payments would involve a lotanto addition to the debt as shown by the artificial depreciation of the gold coins. [...] beyond that of a gold coin of equal metallic value delivered without charge immediately after assay of the bullion as I reckon that for the present the diminution of cost which has been effected in the coinages by the more favourable practice of the Mint since 1862 may be fairly balanced against the excess of cost so frequently caused by the extraordinary pressure of the demand previous to that [...] The fluctuations in the cost of the coins through alterations in the Mint rules and practice thus having the same effect on the average value as fluctuations in the price of the metal. [...] A slight alteration in the copper coinage changed to bronze would make a very good declined currency that would when the time arrived to change the standard to gold require only the depreciation of the rupee or two-shilling piece to assimilate it to the currency of the mother country." Finding that the average price of the sovereign in the Indian markets ranged at about 2 per cent. [...] Variations in the amount of the Secretary of State's drafts issued at the discretion of Government must often cause fluctuations in the rate of exchange far greater than the rise in exchange which the introduction of the sovereign into the Indian currency could effect.