This Government certainly has financial e..mrage. In a despatch dated
July 25th, and published on the 28th of the same month, Lord George Hamilton informs the Government of India that the Report of the Currency Committee is accepted by the Cabinet. He therefore directs that the British sovereign should be adopted as the standard coin of India "without delay," and the mints opened to the unrestricted coinage of gold. They will, however, remain closed for the coinage of silver, the rupee being issued aid received at the fixed value of le. 4d., or the fifteenth of a pound. Payments may be made to any amount in silver, and the Government is not bound to exchange silver for gold, or indeed to issue gold in any way except to promote the steadiness of the exchange with Britain. A loan in sterling to procure gold is deprecated though not forbidden, the evident idea being that with the mints open for gold coinage India will gradually draw to herself through the regular pro- cesses of trade all the gold she needs. Our own impression is that this idea will be justified, and that the first great objection to the new measure will arise from a European feeling that the suction of gold towards India tends too much to contract the supply available for business at home. No one, however, even among the greatest economists and financiers, feels absolutely certain, and the new currenby must be regarded for a time only as a great experiment.
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