The India Office has at last decided upon its silver
policy for the immediate future. This is clearly, according to a short speech made on Tuesday by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to continue the effort to raise the value of the rupee by closing the Indian mints, but to abandon the effort to raise the rate of exchange by fixing a mini- mum price for bills. Thirty-six lakhs of bills—that is, 3,600,000 rupees—were accordingly sold on Wednesday at market rate, which turned out to be less than Is. 2d. in the rupee,—a rate below all previous experience. As an improve- ment in the exchange is the grand object of Government policy, this system cannot be maintair ed, more especially as India is wild with alarm and fury, and calling loudly for the
wildest experiments. It is quite clear that the whole experi- ment must, at no great distance of time, say three months, be dropped; that the market for silver must be let alone; and that the financiers must then meet the new loss as they would any other fall of revenue. It is an ugly business, but that seems to be the only way out. We are asked how it happens that there is an increased demand for silver and a falling price for the metal, and the answer seems obvious. There is not an increased demand for silver at any price, but an increased demand at a low price,—cheapness being as essential to the new use of silver for ornaments as to the use of lucifer-matches.
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