exportation. But silver cannot be made
reproductive in this manner, for there is nobody
who would take it from India at the charges
to which it would be subjected. Notes are even
now issued to a small extent, and their
convenience gives them a certain circulation; but
they have not obtained general confidence, and
the thorough acceptance of paper money must,
in India as elsewhere, be a work of time.

The Bombay Chamber of Commerce has, without
committing itself to any specific measure,
appointed a committee to draw up a memorial
to government on this important subject. That
a change will be made can scarcely be doubted;
and the probabilities are, that a gold as well as
a paper currency will be eventually introduced.
As regards a gold standard, there are two sides
to the question, as we have seen; but upon this,
as upon most other subjects, there are still
conservatives in India who would almost justify
Benjamin Constant's sarcasm upon Talleyrand
—that if he had been consulted concerning the
creation of the world, he would have objected to
it on the ground that it would destroy Chaos!
The case is clear enough that the old supply
of silver is inadequate to the new necessities of
the country, and that gold must be brought to
its relief. But this is no reason why such an old
institution as silver should be swept away, and
I am conservative enough to look with apprehension
upon the possible abolition of the rupee.

It would be too much like cutting down the
pagoda-tree at once, and making money an
enemy to be fought inch by inch, according to
the sordid European process, instead of a friend,
as we have known it in India, to whom you have
but to extend your arms to receive it in your
embrace; where, if it does melt away, it is only
in sheer affection. Tell a native that he was to
wake up one morning and find no sun, he could
scarcely be more astonished than to be told that
he was destined to experience a dawn not lit up
by the rupee. Fancy a government which has
for its great guiding principle " respect for the
prejudices of the natives," making such a mistake
as this! A decree for the total and immediate
abolition of caste could scarcely create more
consternation. It is to be hoped, therefore,
that, whatever is done in this matter, the rupee
will be respected. One has not much respect
for it in this country, where you will get only
one-and-ninepence for it instead of two shillings,
according to a common rate of exchange, if you
are heedless enough to bring it home with you;
but in India it is a tried and trusty companion,
a second nature, which never yet betrayed the
heart that loved it in a reasonable manner. If
you touch the rupee, too, you touch all the small
change touch the anna, touch the pice, the pie,
and even the cowrie. You would never get the
present generation of natives to change their
minor currency, which has depths, and lower
depths, of which the haughty English take no
account. The only divisions recognised in
ledgers are Company's rupees of two shillings
(sicca rupees are something more), and these
contain sixteen annas, the annas in their turn
being divided into twelve pie. There is also a
coin called a pice, the smallest generally in
circulation among our countrymen. Four pice are
equivalent to one anna, or three-halfpence, but
they are not, reckoned up in accounts, although
circulated for convenience' sake, like the sou in
France; the pie in the one case being counted
like the centime in the other. In a thorough
remodelling of the coinage, I suppose equivalents
could be found for these pieces. But
there are lower depths, and lower depths still,
in the currency of the bazaars, with which it
would be more difficult to deal. For minor
payments among natives, small white glossy
shells are made use of. These are called cowries,
and they are reckoned in this manner:

Four Cowries make one Gunda;
Twenty Gundas make one Pun;
Four Puns make one Anna;
Four Annas make one Cahun—
which cahun is about a quarter of a rupee.

A piece of money which cannot make so
obviously absurd a thing as a gunda without being
multiplied by four, must be of small value
indeed. But the gunda is evidently no jesting
matter, since it requires nineteen of its
companions to help it to make a pun. The pun
being made, however, will, it seems, with the
assistance of three more, make an anna, which
may, therefore, be considered a coin of some
jocosity, intensified, doubtless, in a cahun, to a
high pitch of humour.

This facetious measurement of value is
peculiar to Bengal. In Madras and Bombay
there are other varieties which need not be
particularised. How these would be treated in
the event of a radical change it is not easy to
anticipate. I can only suppose that they would
be comprehensively let alone. But the effect
might easily be embarrassing to a large and low
class of persons, who are in the best of times not
very easy to satisfy.

Taking all circumstances into consideration,
an entire reconstruction of the coinage would
be a most inconvenient measure. A double
standard may have its disadvantages, but at
any rate it would have the merit, of creating
without destroying — a new financial world might
be brought into existence, and Chaos need not
be interfered with. If gold and silver under
such a regime should have a battle royal, and
the rupee have to fight for its life, warning
would at least be given of the danger, and men's
minds would be familiarised with the change
before the contingency became a catastrophe.

A paper currency, as an auxiliary to gold and
silver, is much to be desired. In this there can
be no hazard, as nobody need take it who had
any private conviction of the instability of British
rule, or a weakness on the part of the authorities
in favour of repudiation. And if government
notes gained general acceptance, as they most
certainly would, the effect would be, not only
to save wear and tear, and to discourage hoarding,
but to act as a check upon the imaginations
of the large class of persons who are apt to take
to disaffection rather by way of a change than