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Show INDIA'S GOLD AND SILVER. Sir Morcton Frowen writes hopefully of tho prospocls of silver in. view of the scarcity of gold by reason of the trcmcudoufl absorption of gold by India, In-dia, lie gives tho statement of the gold and the silver absorbed by India in the past four years, reducing the same to U. S. currency, as follows: Fiscal ' Net Imports. Year. Gold. Silver. 100D S 15,295.847 $H8.7Sb,it)l 1010 70,270,103 30.3fi9.39o 19H 77.7fiO.063 27,918.806 1012 122,190,6015 17.167.429 It appears from tho abovo that in the four years named India absorbed nearly near-ly $2S6,000,000 in gold, and a little moro than $110,000,000 in silver. It is ovident that India has had some years of very great prosperity, this by reason of the bettor irrigation introduced by tho British engineers, and tho oxion-sivo oxion-sivo railroad building which has developed devel-oped tho country to a state of prosperity prosper-ity nover before dreamed of. Prom the above tablo it appears that tho net imports of silver iuto India havo decreased very largely. In 1012 tho silver imports were less than half of those of 1009; proportionately compared com-pared with gold, the difference was ononnouB. And it is explained by another an-other writer that tho addition to India's In-dia's silver coinage amounted during last year to no moro than the legitimate legiti-mate needs (without any silver hoarding hoard-ing as in tho past) of the Indian peoplo peo-plo for coinage, "and that any argument argu-ment basing a rise in the price of commodities com-modities upon this fact has the element of fallacy at its root." This second writer explains that the net silvor imports into India, which ho puts at 7,060,000. affords a considerable consider-able margin to add to tho gold standard stand-ard Tcscrve in London. Tho 7,060,000 of net silver imports into India were coined, as he explains-, into 10,000,000 in rupees. The coinage profit of nearly near-ly 3,000,000 is placed in the gold standard reserve in London in the form of gold coinB. That is, instead of this 3,000,000 entering into circulation in tho form of currency, it remains storod, "and no moro extends the world's currency cur-rency than if it had never left the ground whence it came," As to tho addition to the currency thereby being but 7,060,000 in silvor rupees instead of the 10,000,000 that are coined, the writer explains that tho process b' which this result is reached is by the transfer of 10,000,000 in silver sil-ver rupees to the note reserve in exchange ex-change for 10,000,000 in sovereigns, and from this sum of gold, using 7,-060,000 7,-060,000 for the purchase of silver the remainder, about 3,000,000, is paid into the Iudian gold reserve in London. Lon-don. It is clear, therefore, that India's net imports of gold are hoarded by the Indian people, and that oven th'e silver imported is made to contribute to this gold reserve. And the writer continues: contin-ues: It Is of course, extremely difllcult to judge how much the Indian peasant hoards, though his custom of doing eo Is perfectly well known. During the last fivo years of marked prosperity It would not be unreasonable to assume that two-thirds two-thirds of thla fresh addition of 7,060,000 silver coin, or roughly 106,000.000 rupees, to India's currency has only replaced coins withdrawn from circulation and retained by the peasant In the form of savings. This 4,706,000 in 'silver coin, spread over live years, works out at 911,000 a year, about 14.000.000 rupees, or only l-22nd. of a rupee per head of the population of that country; thus about 70.000,000 rupees are probably accounted ac-counted for. Taking the annual Increase In the number of the Inhabitants of India at 1 per cent on that score alone nearlv one-third one-third of 10,000.000 rupees, or. to be exact, 3.160.000 rupees arc needed annually to cope with the currency requirement!; of the people. The very remarkable advance ad-vance In tho prosperity of the country during the last quinquennium may be considered to lustlfy the doubllnsr of this amount, and thus a total of 31,600.000 rupees ru-pees Is arrived at. making with the 70.000.000 rupees allowed for hoarding, about 102,000.000 rupees, as the fair addition ad-dition necessary to meet the demand for Increased coinage during the five years In which no fresh mintage of silver had taken place. Of these figures the writer concludes that the purchase of 7,060,000 of silver sil-ver by tho Indian Government in 1912, "did not more than meet the legitimate legiti-mate needs of the Indian people." Accordingly Ac-cordingly India, while absorbing large quantities of gold for hoarding purposes, pur-poses, is not now hoarding silver at all, but gold, and India takes no mdre silver sil-ver than it needs in its actual coinage. Tho reason for this is plain. The fluctuations fluc-tuations in silver involve heavy losses to the Indian people whenever the price falls, and added to this, whenever when-ever there is a purchase of silver by the Indian government for coinage purposes, pur-poses, there i3 a loss to the Indian people of about one-third in the coin- " age, this by reason of the fact that the " difference between the market price and the coinage price is transmuted into in-to gold by the Tndia office and is deposited de-posited in the gold reserve held in London. These items of loss to the Indian people are heavy, and it is no wonder that the imports of silver into India are decreasing. When wo consider con-sider also the heavy import duty upon silver, it would teem to be evident that India has definite' and certainly con-1 eluded to change its hoarding from silver sil-ver td gold, and this for an economic reason that is compulsory |