Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/770

 748 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL rupees of our mintage and the purer of the old Delhi coins have always been largely in request for melting, and to this day the Sikh or Nanukshahi rupee is extensively so used. The stock of these coins must, however, be very scanty, although I am informed that some of the siccas released from the Burdwan hoards are still for sale. In the interior and in the hills, rupees are undoubtedly largely melted by the masses, whose savings are thus preserved in a form attractive to the vanity of their women- kind and easily realizable in times of distress. It has occurred to me that the amount of remittances which are yearly required for hill stations like Simla and Darjeeling would afford an index of the quantity annually melted there, but unfortunately hill stations, being usually on the frontier, supply a good deal of the treasure that leaves British India in redress of the balance of trade.  The writer of an official monograph on gold and silver work in the Punjab mentions fourteen places (exclusive of Amritsar and Delhi) where it is estimated that over twenty-five lakhs worth of silver are consuaned in the arts. Delhi is, however, infinitely the most important centre of this trade in the Puniab, and Amritsar is an extensive mart. Taking also into consideration the village onsumption, perhaps fifty lakhs would be a moderate estimate for the melting of silver in this province, and of this it is not likely that more than ten lakhs is from rupees. The rupee of William the Fburth, coined from 1835 to 1840, is supposed in some parts of India to be of purer and better luality than the rest of our present currency, and is more ex- tensively melted on this account. It might be thought possible that, its rate of disappearance being considerably more rapid than that of the next issues, some calculation could be made showing the extent to which it is melted, but the attempt is rendered too difficult owing to this rapid disappearance being to an unascer- tainable degree due to its being largely under weight and abnormally shroff-marked. It is probable that fifty-five crores 2 of the net coinage prior to 1835 have disappeared through other causes thsai remintage. Of this something no doubt has disappeared after 1835, still the Annual disappearance could hardly have been less than 1 crores A year. As the export bullion trade in this period was not large, And the frontier trade hardly existed, it is probable that at least  The remittances to Simla and Darjeeling yearly are given in Appendix E.  Viz. seventy-eight crores (the net issues since 1885} plus five crores existing o! former currencies, minus twenty-three crores subsequently recoined on account of Government, minus two crores tendered by individuals, minus three crores melted in native mints. This subject has been treated at length in my article in the journal.