Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/432

 410, THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL SIR DAVID BARBOUR, Financial Member of the Indian Viceroy' Council, threw out a suggestion in his financial statement in March last that in the event of the United States not assenting to the free coinage of silver, then the best course for India to adopt, with a view to check- ing the prevailing fluctuations in the rate of exchange, would be to resort to a gold standard at or about the exchange of the day. He has since explained his ideas more fully to a Committee of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce now sitting on the subject, in a document which is entirely unofficial, expressing only Sir David's own personal views, and of which as yet only a brief summary has been made public. He proposes to stop the free coinage of silver, and to open the mint to the free coinage of gold in, say, 10 rupee or 20 rupee pieces of such weight and fineness that the par of exchange between them and the sovereign would be the exchange which it was desired to establish; that is, if it were desired to establish an exchange at the rate of is. 5d. for the rupee, then the 10 rupee coin would contain gold worth 170d. If after adopting these measures he found that no gold was brought to the mint, and that the exchange fell below the is. 5d., he would take that as a sign of a redundancy of silver currency in consequence of rupees coming out of hoards or back from foreign countries, and for that he thinks the only remedy would be for Government to reduce the amount of the silver currency in circulation until the exchange should rise to the desired figure of ls. 5d. On the other hand, since 10 rupee and 20 rupee coins are too high in value for ordinary practical use in India the Government must always be prepared at every great centre to give silver rupees for gold coins as far as possible, and the gold coins thus accumulated would, he says, involve no loss, inasmuch as they would entirely take the place of silver in the paper currency reserve or be shipped to England in case of need. The practicability of this scheme has been disputed, and Sir David Barbour himself owns that it would be the most difficult operation of the kind ever undertaken, but it is receiving in India the favourable attention which its object and its author conspire to secure. AMONG topics which have recently provoked interesting discussions we may notice the attempt of the Post Office to defend its monopoly against the competition of certain messenger companies. The in- efficiency of the Post Office was contrasted with the success of private enterprise in several letters which appeared in the Times during the latter part of March and the beginning of April. Professor Marshall, in letters published March 28th and April 6th, while speaking strongly of the necessity of having letters collected and delivered by the State, and finding no special fault with the administration of the Post Oice beyond those inherent in all Government Departments, referred to one of the arguments used by the apologist of the Post Oice as pointing towards a policy, the full adoption of which would secure most of th