The Drain of Silver to the East, and the Currency
of India. By W. Nassau Lees, LL.D. (W. H. Allen and Co.)—The theory of the writer is that the immense amount of silver which yearly flows to the East is absorbed in currency. The native transactions are mostly carried on by barter, but as soon as the British Government takes the manage- ment of a province into its own hands it requires the taxes to be paid in silver. Thus the drain has been least during those years in which a peace or anti-annexation policy has prevailed. His difficulty is to know wh it to do when the supply of silver becomes insufficient, as, sooner or later, it must. And he proposes that at every mint in India gold should be received at the Bank of England rate per ounce of standard fineness, and that all that was tendered should be coined and notes issued in lieu of it. This, of course, would be the old evil of a double standard ; but he thinks that at the first symptom of a redund- anal of gold the gold standard might be adopted in its full integrity.
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