[35] The above account is summarised from the Reports of the Comptroller of Paper Currency for 1900 and 1901.
[36] This is probably very considerable. India must be the main source of supply of gold for the whole of Central Asia. The following extract from a report sent in to the Comptroller of Currency (1911–12) is instructive:—“From Peshawar a considerable absorption of gold in connection with the trans–border trade is reported; this trade is said to have amounted during 1911–12 to the value of Rs. 30 lakhs. Gold so taken seldom or never returns. The Amir’s subsidy is also largely paid in gold.” It is also reported that gold is preferred by those who go on pilgrimage to Mecca.
[37] Throughout 1911–12 the Bank of Bengal quoted them at a premium of 4d.
[38] Report on Paper Currency, 1911–12.
[39] See pp. 97–99.
[40] See Report for 1909.
[41] In the calendar year 1912 India increased her stock of gold by £29,500,000, of which about £21,500,000 was in sovereigns.
[42] The fluctuations in the proportions for different years of the figures in columns (4) and (5) of the table on p. 76 must certainly be explained in part by the state of the exchanges, and not wholly by the degree of deliberate preference for sovereigns.
[43] The Accountant–General, Bombay, has suggested (see Paper Currency Report, 1911–1912) that “the principal cause” of the heavy importation of sovereigns has been a reduction in the rate of charge (from 1/16 per cent to 1/32 per cent) for Telegraphic Transfers issued upon Madras and Calcutta against gold imported into Bombay. No doubt, this favours gold to a slightly greater extent than before, as against Council Transfers, as a means of remittance from London to Madras and Calcutta, but the difference seems too small in relation to the other factors which determine the cheapest form of remittance, for the change to have exerted any appreciable influence.
[44] This corresponds to the Bank of England’s normal price for gold bullion.